Drage blant sauer

  Low-waste life ought to be a neurodivergent dream: orderly, enduring and attentive. Yet the movement too often turns ecological care into an ableist purity test. Autistic people rarely do things halfway, in my experience, so helping the planet whilst following a set of rules, regulations and routines sounds lovely. Going zero waste has changed in the last decade or so: From storing all your trash in a mason jar to simply doing the best you can to live your life eco-friendly. Whether that means reusing paper to make art, composting your scraps into arable earth, reusing what you have in your life or reducing plastic, I am of the opinion that every little thing helps the change along. Eco-influencers online (TheSimpleEnvironmentalist, GreenEarthCo, Gittemary Johansen, Shelbizleee and the EcofriendlyUnicorn) are excellent voices to listen to regarding low or zero waste and sustainable living in general. When it comes to eco-ableism within the movement, one needs only take a look...

  Neuronormative society seemingly believes solitude unhealthy and that urban living equals happiness. Not from an autistic point of view. The sereness of nature and solitude of mind and body has had a long tradition within literature, from the idyllic pastoral life of the Romantic Period to the eco-facist arguments of Blut und Boden (blood and soil) and redemtion of the soil to the trend Cottage Core during the Covid pandemic, to be brief. Nature has been seen as a balm to illness and mental instability for eons, but especially emerging as society moved from the country to the city in search of prosperity or labor. The countryside became idealized and somewhere city folk went for rest and recreation (Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Johanna Spyri, Trygve Gulbranssen, Thomas Hardy) to escape urban monotony. American writer and naturalist Henry Thoreau famously embodied The Return to Nature as he built a log cabin by Walden Pond outside Boston (detailed in his 1854 book Walden ) and ...