Sweet in Tooth and Claw

If you're interested in solarpunk or hopepunk, you might be interested in reading Kristin Ohlson's Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World. We're so used to hearing Tennyson's line about Nature being read in tooth and claw that it's easy to forget how important cooperation is to life. After all, multicellular life wouldn't be possible without a permanent merger between archaea cells and primitive bacteria to form eukaryotic cells with mitochondria and chloroplasts. Ohlson describes this famous symbiosis, but she also describes other types of interactions.

Many stories of cooperation deal with cooperation between plants, such as trees in a forest sharing resources underground and sending out pest alerts when they're attacked. There are also plenty of other interactions between plants and animals, where birds or insects might pollinate plants in exchange for food. However, this cooperation extends into the microscopic world as well. For example, some of the bacteria that live in our bodies help prevent pathogenic bacteria from settling in. Bacteria help some plants fix nitrogen in the soil. Species can also interact by spreading nutrients throughout the ecosystem. When salmon swim upriver to spawn, many of them are eaten by carnivores that disperse the leftovers across the land, fertilizing it. 

Cooperation is also important in agriculture. Instead of planting monocultures of crops, planting various types of plants together can reduce pest naturally, keep the temperature of the soil lower by covering it from the sun, and increase the overall yield. This also improves biodiversity, which is important because species don't just interact in pairs, but as part of an entire symphony. 

Perhaps the greatest tale of cooperation would be for humans to simply provide more space for all the other species on this planet. This can be done by making our cities greener, which would provide more habitats for animals. While it might be disconcerting at first to see coyotes in your area (there are some in our neighborhood), they play a role in keeping other populations in check. Other creatures like beavers can actually do a better job of managing water runoff and pollution than we do. Humans have a need to be connected with nature. By acknowledging this, we can improve our physical and mental health while also making our planet more livable.