Taking place in the distant future, Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind tells a story of a world decimated by a war that scorches the entire surface of the earth. The ecosystem has responded by spreading a toxic jungle of spores, fungi and giant insects that is threatening human existence. Entering one of these jungles and breathing in these poisonous spores any longer than five minutes is a certain death sentence for anyone. Masks have to be worn at all times whenever a person is in the vicinity of these toxic jungles, and any loud noises out in the wild could provoke the massive insects into a rage that causes them to destroy everything in their path.
While the earth fights to repair the damage caused by the wars a thousand years ago, the remaining humans’ efforts to survive actually seem to be bringing them closer to the brink of extinction. While there are smaller factions like the people of the Valley of the Wind that live with Nausicaä (Alison Lohman), many of the larger human cities are fighting with each other over controlling the remaining weapon of mass destruction left behind from the war. The smaller faction seems to have found the best way to respond to the toxic jungles by settling in a valley that offers natural protections against the spread of the jungle, but even their way of life depends on secluding themselves from any of the other humans out of mistrust.
Lessons We Can Use to Fight Our Real Climate Crisis
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As our own planet faces the consequences of manmade ecological changes that will cause many hardships for humanity, our responses to the impending disasters have mirrored much of what is happening in this movie. The lessons that we can learn from Nausicaä’s perspective are the greatest instructions on how we should all be peacefully working to live in balance with the world around us rather than fearfully struggling through futile attempts to control nature.
While the entire surface of our planet may not be completely scorched, we are facing a series of severe consequences of the increase in our planet’s temperature due to climate change. Rapidly melting glaciers, severe long-lasting droughts, monstrous rainfalls causing landslides and flooding, wildfires spreading faster and farther than ever before, water contamination from decades of deregulation, and all of these ecological shifts are causing massive famine and migration crises. The response from the differing human factions is extremely similar to the response we see in the factions of Nausicaä’s world. Our world’s most powerful leaders seem to be fighting each other to consolidate power and resources, so they maintain control over everyone else. Some factions who want to stay out of the fight are becoming more secluded and trying to find ways to adapt to the ever-changing climate. We do have the rare individuals like Nausicaä, however, who are knowledgeable and courageous enough to stand against the majority that don’t seem to understand how their actions are hastening the destruction of mankind.
Before the war literally crash lands in the Valley of the Wind, Nausicaä spends a great deal of her time riding her glider out to the toxic jungles. While she’s there, she writes as many detailed observations about the behaviors of the insects and spores as she can, while collecting samples in vials from time to time. The movie opens introducing us to her mentor, Lord Yupa (Patrick Stewart), exploring a village that had recently been thriving that’s now completely taken over by the toxic jungle. He’s doing many of the same things we see Nausicaä doing so we get an idea of where her adventurous and inquisitive spirit comes from. While he is certainly courageous, he seems to have a higher level of skepticism and fear about the toxic jungle. Nausicaä never shows any fear being around the fungi, spores and large insects she encounters. When she encounters the molted shell of an Ohm, the beetle-like insects as big as a warehouse, she expresses awe and excitement at the discovery. It seems the people of her village use the material of this shell to make many tools, weapons and other items, which is something the other human factions may not have discovered yet since their fear keeps them ignorant about the potential uses of the material.
Nausicaä’s actions show a curiosity and resourcefulness that is necessary to adapt to a changing climate. Her altruistic spirit and hunger for discovery motivate her to find the most beneficial outcome for everyone involved. Her experience investigating the jungles and interacting with the insects have taught her to have empathy for the creatures that thrive there. When an Ohm is chasing her mentor, Nausicaä stuns it and then uses an insect charmer to guide the insect back to the jungle it calls home, saving them both from harming each other. Shortly after, we see one of the greatest examples of her empathy for all living creatures when Lord Yupa shows her a scared, young fox-squirrel. The small creature is viscous and snapping at her, even after she invites him to climb on her arm. She continues to reassure him, saying “There’s nothing to fear” and lets him bite onto her finger without flinching to show the little guy that he can trust her even if he might hurt her. From them on, he’s a protective companion of hers. It’s her ability to see the value in every living thing that makes it so natural for her to know the right thing to do so everyone gets what they need in the end.
The Downside of Power and Control
The two major factions in the film are the Tolmekians, who are led by the ruthless Princess Kushana (Uma Thurman) and the Pejites, who we get to know through the spunky and rebellious Asbel (Shia LaBeouf). Both of these factions are fighting for control of an ancient weapon that will wipe out all the toxic jungles and help them control the remaining humans. Because they are so hungry for power and control, and since they have no idea about the truth of the consequences in using these weapons, they don’t see anything wrong with their goal of military domination.
They haven’t done the work to explore and understand the toxic jungles the way Nausicaä has. They don’t know that, underneath all the toxic plants and large insects, the petrified trees from old forests are purifying the topsoil and groundwater deep in earth’s surface to repair the damage humans have caused. They also don’t understand that the weapon they’re planning to use is the same as the ones that scorched and poisoned the surface of the earth to begin with, which means that anyone who tries to use them again is only going to make matters worse for the humans. The wise old oracle who lives in the valley, Obaba (Tress MacNeille), expresses her disappointment at seeing the weapon again “The Earth knows it’s wrong for us to survive if we have to depend on a monster like that.” Nausicaä also knows that there’s a better way to live, though, that helps both humanity and the planet.
Just like the Tolmekians and Pejites, if we try to do things the way we’ve always done them for the sake of power and control, it’ll only make everything worse for everyone. We also have to go further than the people of the Valley of the Wind, too, who found a way to live in harmony but kept to themselves out of a distrust for the rest of humanity.
Nausicaä’s spirit of discovery and her desire to see the good in everything is what helps her find the true solution to the earth’s problems. She learns how to calm and redirect the Ohm because she sees the value in their existence, even when she’s too little to know any better. She discovers how to take soil and water from deep in the earth to purify the plants from the toxic jungle because she sees the value in the plants and wants to make them better. She is deeply regretful of killing some soldiers, even though they invaded her valley and killed her father, she wants more than anything for the killing to end because everyone is worthwhile to her even when she thinks they’re wrong.
The biggest lesson we can learn from Nausicaä is that we should see the value in every living thing without quantifying or prioritizing any living thing over the others. No one living thing is any more or less valuable than the next, and we all deserve to be nurtured and cared for. If we can learn how to care about the well-being of every living thing on the planet, we can finally balance the needs of the earth with our own and find a way of life that helps all of us sustain a thriving planet.
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