Anna’s World: A Novel that Promotes Eco-centrism for its Readers

In essence, every object both biotic and abiotic has a different value and meaning. That every object in the universe is a whole interrelated, interdependent, and mutually influencing one another. Humans and all living entities intersect with each other, but the occurrence of various cases of economic exploitation carried out by humans contributes a value which states that not everything that humans have built for their interests will forever be intact and can be exploited continuously. This is closely related to the perspective (paradigm) that has been carried out by stakeholders that the earth is only seen as a tool to fulfill human needs as seen by the anthropocentrism paradigm. Anthropocentrism considers that only humans have value and that the entire universe exists to fulfill human needs. This then contradicts; human life with other biotic and abiotic objects has a close relationship of dependence and independence, so humans themselves should also be part of the universe itself. Supposedly, humans should not only be seen as the only creatures of value because of mutual interactions among themselves, but also as ecological creatures; humans are only one fragment of the universe. This is one of the assumptions of the eco-centrism. In other words, the role and function of the universe — including the earth as a container for human life and all creatures, so the protection of the earth is a major priority in the present so that the continuity of the life order in the future is maintained. A concrete example of this eco-centrism comes through the character Anna in the novel “Anna’s World” who is an environmental activist in 2012 from Nyurd, Norway. Until finally when Anna dreams of becoming her great grand-daughter in 2082, the environmental conditions are very sad.

“Anna’s World” is a novel by Jostein Gaarder which focuses its main topic on issues of environmental philosophy by highlighting a teenage character named Anna. From the start, this novel presents Anna’s radical thoughts about how the earth was destroyed. Since she was only ten, Anna realized that something was wrong with how humans live on earth and how humans treat the earth itself. Anna began to wonder about the nature around her, such as a dead wildebeest and several others wandering into the village. What’s actually so wrong with the earth currently?

Six years later, in 2012 Anna entered high school. Anna grew up as an environmental activist, has a boyfriend named Jonas who was her senior, and likes to fantasize as if everything is real. That cash prompted him to go see a psychiatrist. Right when meeting the psychiatrist — Doctor Benjamin — eco-centrism paradigm begins to appear in this novel; Anna started to talk about her biggest fear about global warming which will explode. There is a conversation that shows Anna’s inherent eco-centrism:

“Is there something you’re worried about, Anna?”

She immediately replied:

“Global warming.”

The patient doctor was a little surprised. He was clearly an experienced doctor. Only this time he seemed surprised by Anna’s answer, then he asked again:

“What did you say?”

“I said that I was worried about climate change that was caused by humans. I am afraid that we, who live today, risk the climate and the environment of this earth without the consideration for the next generation.”

(p.s. to remember I read the book in Bahasa Indonesia, then I translated it into English. There might be a different use of a language from the actual English translation. However, I try to keep the essence of the language I have translated in common.)

In her ecological appreciation, Anna instills a moral in how to treat the earth, she worries about climate change caused by human egoism. Things such as overexploitation of the environment without paying attention to protection and management efforts are one of the threats that cause the environmental crisis on earth in the future. The crisis has also been exacerbated at the same time that the land has been extracted for oil and gas, extracted for minerals, deforestations, until the contamination of reservoirs, seas and rivers.

Busy city life contributes a lot of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are generated from human activities that use fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. The increasing use of motorized vehicles, electronic devices, and operating factories also worsens the state of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In essence, greenhouse gases play a role in blocking and absorbing the solar heat waves that are reflected back towards the earth, this serves to keep the earth warm. This is done to maintain temperature stability on earth. If there was no greenhouse effect, it could be that the temperature on earth would be 33°C cooler than it is today.

However, various human activities, especially mistakes in the view of anthropocentrism that are egotistical to the environment, state that the highest value of this universe is humans and their interests. The view of stakeholders who view humans as the center of the universe and only humans have value while nature and everything in it is only a means of satisfying human interests and needs is the things that Anna has been worrying about.

The anthropocentrism encourages humans to exploit nature. Human interests and needs in this context are short-term, such as economic needs which are the root of various environmental crises, for the example: global warming. The demands of economic needs often make people pay attention to aspects of environmental protection. Natural resources are only seen and understood in an economic context without paying attention to the sustainability and preservation of the environment in the future. The policy makers also do not care about environmental protection aspects because their behavior patterns are still profit oriented.

Human activities, such as the exploitation of natural resources to the crisis of coastal and urban land, are manifestations that do not have environmental ethics and can threaten life in the future. Today, human life on earth is getting denser; lands where oil and gas are extracted are increasingly widespread, minerals are excavated, debts are cut down, and water ecosystems such as reservoirs, rivers and seas are polluted. Not only that, the busy activities of humans who use motorized vehicles and operating factories contribute a lot of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and in the end these greenhouse gases will accumulate. The increasing concentration of greenhouse gases causes solar thermal radiation to be trapped in the atmosphere and the average temperature across the earth’s surface increases. This then causes global warming. Increasing the earth’s average temperature causes a shift in other climatic elements such as rainfall and pressure patterns which in turn causes changes in world climate patterns. The dry season will be longer and drier. If this has happened, then human life will be threatened.

Anna’s anxiety about global warming later increases even more after she dreamed that in the next chapter she would be her great grand-daughter in 2082; Nova. Anna awakens as Nova with a state of earth that is no longer the same as where she lived in 2012. The earth was chaotic at that time; various species of fauna such as monkeys and iguanas are declared extinct, the slightest ice at the poles is still intact — it has all melted, most of the coral islands in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean have sunk so that the countries above are washed away, the Siberian Dessert is extremely hot, and continents are shrinking due to sea water submerging coastal cities.

One of the most important causes of extinction of so many plants and animals is global warming that has been going on for decades. In the past hundred years, this earth was still so charming. However, in this century the earth has lost its charm. The world has changed so much. In the past years, humans have stopped releasing CO2 gas into the atmosphere, but the gas that has been released is impossible to pull back. This planet has exceeded its threshold. Currently, global warming has escaped human control. Earth’s natural processes now operate with its own logic.

Each fragment in the universe must have had some point at which to stabilize itself in order to become itself, but this process is extremely risky and cyclic; evolving from opening up to needs and adapting to dynamic changes. In the novel “Anna’s World”, in 2082 the earth has reached its saturation point. The earth is no longer able to sustain its ecosystem life because of human behavior in previous years who still focused their needs as central concern without paying attention to the entire biosphere. Earth seems to have been conquered and dominated by humans, making it subservient to human interests. Although each fragment in the universe is unique in that each mechanism maintains its survival, every fragment in the universe is also related to one another. When humans have behaved arbitrarily towards the earth, it will come to the point where the earth finds its saturation point and carries out its own mechanism to make itself back fine. Even when this happens, humans cannot control it.

In the novel “Anna World”, the mechanism of the earth in regenerating itself is by making a selection mechanism for the ecosystems on earth. What humans give to the earth, the earth will also give to humans; a collapse that naturally selects the population. The natural selection made by the earth in this novel is represented by uncontrolled global warming; sinking countries in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, ice at the poles that did not remain at all, the heat of Siberian Desert is extremely increasing, and the worst thing is that the earth is getting so much hotter. Most of the flora and fauna that were thought not to be extinct have become extinct, meaning that the source of human life is often reduced. With such earth conditions, the human population will gradually decrease and return the earth to its former state; stable greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Natural selection carried out by the earth is a form of manifestation of the formation of the earth which requires humans to adapt in order to instill moral values ​​of environmental ethics. This went on cyclically and dynamically for an unknown time until finally the entire ecosystem on earth was able to adjust itself in a perfect process carried out by the earth; an equilibrium point through the process of interaction, adaptation, and creation carried out by the ecosystem order on earth. In this phase, the earth has formed itself into a new self.

A significant thing that needs to be understood and learned from this novel is how all the fragments of the universe depend on each other’s existence. The universe is a framework of relations and the integration between its parts and the continuity of life is the most valuable focal point. Either: mankind, flora, fauna — the arrangement of the ecosystem to the earth have a series of interconnected networks that cannot be broken. In other words, the continuity of life is a complex sequence with a complex structure of each fragment. The structure of each of these fragments then makes up an arrangement of living systems, showing that they influence one another. When highlighted more deeply, the novel “Anna’s World” shows that humans cannot live without flora, fauna and the earth. Likewise the cycle is in cyclic form. This also applies to the earth. Earth is said to be the planet Earth because it has a life order; intricately woven interaction patterns between the biotic and the abiotic. If there is no order of life, then planet earth does not exist. Therefore, it is imperative to instill moral environmental ethics, especially deep ecology (eco-centrism), which must be arranged to become a practical ethic in the form of a movement manifested in real and concrete actions.