Would Widespread Psychedelic Use Help Solve the Climate Crisis

Despite promising results like those above, we can still question whether psychedelics are inherently biophilia-enhancing agents. In his book Deeper Learning with Psychedelics, David J. Blacker – who is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Legal Studies at the University of Delaware – writes:

I argue that psychedelics are, in [Stan] Grof’s phrase, “non-specific amplifiers” – that is, they are essentially protean and elusive of any determinate telos or fixity of purpose, though their intimate directive power can fool one into thinking otherwise. In contrast to what seems to be a prevailing hippie folk wisdom, psychedelics are not inherently environmentalist or Gaia-oriented, loving and politically progressive, oppositional or counter-cultural, spiritually healing or emotionally beneficent. They may certainly be those things on specific occasions for certain individuals (and I have personally experienced those manifestations). But they may also not be.

Nonetheless, even if we cannot equate psychedelics as being non-specific amplifiers, they still have non-specific amplifying effects in many circumstances. This can include the context of our attitudes towards the environment.

Psychedelic uses, and psychedelic users, are diverse. While ‘psychedelic culture’ can be characterised by environmentally conscious attitudes, many people who use psychedelics don’t seem to adjust their environmental attitudes and behaviours following their experiences. This can be for multiple reasons.

Firstly, not all psychedelic experiences feature ego dissolution, unity, and ecological themes. Secondly, even when experiences have these features, this doesn’t mean lasting changes to environmental attitudes will result. This can require integration of the experience into one’s worldview. Thirdly, people may report mystical experiences with psychedelics, but the way they incorporate these experiences into their worldview doesn’t translate into environmental concern (consider the fact that Jordan Peterson has had several high-dose psilocybin experiences, and yet he promotes climate change denial).

Fourthly, the setting in which the psychedelic experience seems to influence the manifestation, or degree, of connectedness to nature. When taking psychedelics in a natural setting, it’s easy to see how this – alongside ego-dissolving effects – can lead to greater feelings of connectedness to the natural world, both during and after the experience. Yet people take psychedelics in a variety of settings, including ones where natural features are minimal or absent. Understandably, these settings will be less likely to encourage nature relatedness.

David Dupuis, a social anthropologist, has challenged the notion that widespread psychedelic use will change the world, as has the writer Erica Avey. “Plenty of people take psychedelics and return to old patterns of behavior,” writers Avey. Dupuis stresses that “we must recognize what makes them [psychedelics] unique among the vast family of psychotropic drugs: their significant sensitivity to extrapharmacological factors.” These extrapharmacolgical factors include ‘set’ (one’s current mindset, beliefs, attitudes, and worldview) and ‘setting’ (the environment and culture in which the experience takes place, as well as who one trips with). Dupuis adds:

[W]e should not expect broader psychedelic use to automatically make people more environmentally conscious. As I have observed during ethnographic investigations in the Peruvian Amazon over the past ten years, the regular use of ayahuasca in no way prevents some indigenous shaman-entrepreneurs from exploiting the natural territories that they occupy in order to benefit their economic activities. The development of shamanic tourism involved the encouragement of overtourism in the Amazon region, and the activities of reception centers for international clients have often led to the destruction or overexploitation of natural habitats. And while the “shamanic tourists” claim to have developed a different relationship to nature thanks to participating in psychedelic rites, my observations tell a different story. In the long run, their participation only has a very weak impact on their consumption habits or the modes of production in which they are engaged, which sometimes directly, and always indirectly, contribute to the destruction of natural resources. For example, many of them continue to fly regularly in order to participate in the psychedelic rituals provided by the shamanic centers of the Peruvian Amazon. These observations show that while psychedelics can give rise to experiences of feeling more connected to nature, these experiences seem to be more likely to affect peoples’ self-reported connection to nature rather than leading to substantial pro-environmental behavior change.

On the other hand – and this is contrary to Dupuis’ observation that psychedelics don’t promote eco-friendly lifestyle choices – we know that psychedelic use predicts pro-environmental behaviour via increases in nature relatedness. Indeed, several studies have found nature relatedness predicts pro-environmental behaviour. Therefore, it may be rational to view psychedelic use as playing an effective role in our attempts to save the planet. (As we will see below, however, bias in studies on nature relatedness makes the picture more complicated.)

Dupuis defends the Grofian view of psychedelics, which other writers have applied to the interaction between psychedelic use and political worldviews. He writes:

Rather than being powerful tools for social transformation, psychedelics thus appear as non-specific – and relatively neutral – amplifiers of existing cultural factors. These observations suggest that the effects of psychedelics on nature-relatedness can be interpreted as a reflection of the prior values of study participants (often Euro-American college students). In this perspective, the alleged impact of psychedelics on our relation to nature may be the product of a selection bias, evoking the well-known systemic bias in conducting psychology studies with participants from “WEIRD” (western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) societies. Euro-American college students, who make up the bulk of the participants in these studies, are indeed known to have a pro-environmental bias when it comes to self-reported opinions. Far from being a universal panacea capable of “healing the world”, psychedelics might reflect or amplify the dominant values of the individuals that use them.

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