We must give up our romantic notions of pristine wilderness and replace them with the concept of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden planet, tended by us.

Living a very quiet retired life in a green environment, complete with its own vegetable garden, compost toilet and chicken coop: it sounds like an idyllic dream. Writer and ex-environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth did it with his family, and left for a sparsely populated and wooded area in Western Ireland. VPRO Tegenlicht recently made a beautiful portrait of the man.

That sounds all fun and romantic, but as soon as Kingsnorth starts talking, he shows the opposite. The writer is not a naïve up person or idealist (anymore). No, a long time ago, he even hung up his mission to save the 'world'. Kingsnorth no longer believes "in the story we tell about ourselves" and is convinced that our modern civilization is coming to an end.

His conclusion: we can better face it and look beyond 'the edge of the abyss'. Perhaps there is still life after the end of the world.

If you just want a relaxing evening, it is clear you don't have to watch this. Yet it gets you to thinking and is fascinating to watch. Precisely because Kingsnorth is so radical, passionate and uncompromising in his doom-mongering, he forces the viewer to question his entire modern consciousness and lifestyle.

And I have to say: he does that pretty convincingly. To a certain extent, I sympathize with a number of aspects he raises. That there is something wrong with our civilization (obsession with endless growth and material progress), and that there is more to life than us (anthropocentrism). We are part of a 'web of life' and do not act on it. Sustainability is in many cases a 'pacifier for the middle class' (because driving an electric car is more about lifestyle than about a fundamental change of tack).

I also agree with him that we should stop talking about 'nature' or 'the environment' as if it is something independent, something we don't have a connection with.

Trailer Into the Wild (2007) - directed by Sean Penn

But with his argument about 'nature', Kingsnorth takes the wrong turn as far as I'm concerned. Particularly in the way he eventually falls back on a traditional (and outdated) notion of 'nature'. For Kingsnorth, 'nature' is what is non-human and has a value in itself. He wants to live closer to nature, he wants to reconnect and for this the 'wild and untouched nature' is the best place.

With this, he finds himself in a long tradition that finds its roots in Western European Romanticism of the 18th century. In response to the advancing industrialization, socially critical artists and philosophers viewed nature as a space of refuge, spiritual salvation and intrinsic value. This movement has since been repeated several times. Think of the American 'back-to-the-land' movement in the beginning of the 20th century, or the hippies of the sixties. The 'into the wild' principle (have you already seen the movie?) is still attractive to many of us.

It is tempting to go along with this. The idea that there is still a pure and clean island in a sea of pollution - a Garden of Eden - gives us the feeling that we can still make a getaway. But now comes the complication: according to geologists, we now live in the Anthropocene, a new geological era that is characterized by the profound interconnection between man and nature. It is a time where stones wash up on beaches in Hawaii that consist of elements of plastic, where some animals (like the starling and the moth) miraculously adapt to urban areas, where some earthquakes are the result of human activities underground. Hurricanes, extreme droughts and sea level rise are often no longer classic natural phenomena, but increasingly 'human-natural phenomena'.

In other words: who actually knows where 'nature' starts and ends?

So people have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistoric times, and climate change means that even the most remote places now bear the fingerprints of humanity. According to environmental journalist Emma Marris, it is therefore time to look ahead and see the earth as a 'rambunctious garden': a hybrid of wild nature and human management.

That is not easy. As modern beings we are trained from an early age to separate 'nature' or 'wilderness' from 'civilization'. Nature is then a place we go to, something we do not exist in. Nature is something exotic, remote, somewhere down the road. The result is that we will ultimately see nature close to home as 'made' or even 'fake'. This while we will have to shape our relationship with nature precisely in the places where we live - our backyard, our roofs, parks and farms.

Okay fine, but how?

To begin with, we have to get rid of the idea that 'city' and 'nature' are incompatible, and that we have to 'go to the wilderness' - as the supposed oasis of beauty and purity - to cleanse ourselves of the polluted urban life. In a few years, 75% of the world's population lives in cities. Urbane habitats are and will therefore only become more and more the living environment of 21st century people, there is no escape. The challenge is to create an urban environment (the gray) where the biosphere (the green) gets a prominent place. Call it 'urban nature'.

This idea is not new. In 1898, the British journalist Ebenezer Howard published Garden Cities of To-Morrow. At the end of the 19th century, as in this period, there was a huge migration to cities. Many workers left their villages to live closer to the factories and this soon led to major pollution and overpopulation. The 'industrial proletariat' often lived in slums and the hygienic living conditions were miserable.

Concerned about the worrying living conditions of many inhabitants of his city (especially the workers), Howard developed a revolutionary model for a cleaner and greener city, also called the 'Garden City'. His idea was as follows: if we want to put an end to the unsatisfactory choice between living in a culturally isolated environment or a busy, green-poor and dirty city, then the best of both worlds must be combined.

For Howard, on the one hand, this meant economic opportunities, entertainment and higher wages and on the other hand more green, fresh air and low rents. "Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together", Howard says.

Various elements of Howard's model of the garden city have become a reality in the 19th and 20th century. Many European cities gave more priority to city forests, parks and social housing. There are also so-called 'garden villages' built in various places. Nevertheless, major steps can still be taken at the beginning of the 21st century. With climate warming this is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. It is therefore encouraging to see that initiatives are being launched for the construction of green roofs, mini-forests and horticultural high-rise towers.

'Back to nature' - it is a myth. Why? Very simple: because we have never been away from nature. The only thing we have done is hidden the nature under a layer of concrete. With that, it has largely disappeared from our daily field of view. If we want to restore our relationship with the natural order, we should not again fall into the romantic trap of 'wilderness' vs. 'civilization'.

To say it with the words of Emma Marris:

We must give up our romantic notions of pristine wilderness and replace them with the concept of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden planet, tended by us.