You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. We've had to deal with complicated loss in the past year because of the global pandemic. In today's talk, mental health researcher, Knut-Evar Björlick-Hogg, asks us to consider a different kind of complicated grief, ecological loss.

What's happening to all other creatures and what we're doing to nature?

In his talk from TEDx USN 2020, he calls on all of us to take a simple yet radical act

to truly show our love for nature in the way we act toward non-human life.

Picture one of your favorite spots in nature, a place you love. Maybe you're heading for this

spot after a stressful day at work, maybe you are worrying about your economy, maybe you had

an argument or fight with your friend or worse.

You lost somebody you loved. You are heading to this specific space, maybe close to home, to find

some comfort. Whatever and wherever it is, most of us tend to search nature, to play or to get

some relief, purpose and perspective.

These spaces for potential peace are now proving to be more important than ever during the pandemic.

Often we are surprised by some kind of natural phenomena and magic when we're in nature. Maybe an eagle suddenly flies

over your head, a fish nips at your toes, or a sparrow approaches your bench with a tilted

head and a look that says, please share some of your bread with us. Where I come from, the west coast of Norway. Most of the time in my

childhood, I spent in his yellow boat with my dad. He was a wildling in many ways, my dad, and he gave

me the possibility to learn from nature and connect with it, especially the ocean and the seabirds.

So when I'm close to these elements, I really feel like home, home.

I feel connected.

Now, picture the place that you love, that sacred place where you can feel more at ease

and sometime maybe find peace, is in some way broken or even worse,

gone. What if this place, for example, your favorite bay to swim in, which has always been

there for you, now is polluted, full of oil, dead birds everywhere? Or the steady mountain now hijacked by big machines and greedy industry.

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