Powell and Rao discuss individual and collective climate activism.1 But proposed solutions to mitigate the environmental and health crises have largely failed to bring about the desired effect. This calls for a re-examining of society’s current organisation of time and the drivers behind it—that is, the hegemonic thinking of control and determination of time that underpins western society. The concept of time held by western society disconnects people from nature and becomes a form of societal control. This approach to time is intrinsically linked to the current planetary health and environmental crises. By contrast, indigenous peoples have a symbiotic relationship with the environment, in synchrony with the planet’s natural cycles.The proposed association between time and environmental and health crises stems from the recognition that the way society is organised influences the time schedules of our activities. Evidence in chronobiology—the study of how living organisms incorporate time and synchronise with environmental…
