To counter the effect of this week’s nonstop reports about our planet hurtling toward its inevitable manmade doom, I’ve been heading back in time to see what we might learn from the age of dinosaurs.

It doesn’t require Dr. Who’s TARDIS to get there or Doc Brown’s DeLorean to get back home. A hat, some rain boots, and my own two feet are enough to tread the winter-hardened path to my property’s edge.

First I cross the patio, a symbol of the Anthropocene, the proposed new age of human activity so dramatic and sudden it’s irreversibly altering the earth’s natural systems. Here, alongside native plants grown for wildlife, are the remains of containers I filled last summer with species from around the planet—a kind of embodiment of global trade and human ingenuity.

Next I walk through an acre and a half of former cropland, a reminder of the Holocene epoch that saw the dawn of agriculture and major civilizations. Here, too, in a small attempt to reclaim what’s been lost to development, I’ve busily planted natives every season. But no matter what we call it—sustainable landscaping, wildlife gardening, ecological restoration—this is still human manipulation, a dynamic little island of life at the mercy of whoever happens to be paying the mortgage.

Finally, at the crumbling fenceline where open expanse meets majestic tulip poplars, decaying logs, and opportunistic ferns, I arrive at my destination: the Mesozoic era, when T. rex  roamed the Earth alongside at least one of the same species still growing in my vulnerable patch of woods. Here, where I’ve done nothing at all, the beauty of human neglect manifests itself in ways ethereal and prehistoric.

I’ve been taking this walk during a week when news from the environmental front is particularly troubling: One group of scientists honed in on the start date of the Age of Man, suggesting it had begun with the development of nuclear weapons and plastics, while another reported that we’ve crossed another boundary of planetary degradation—the threshold for unsustainable deforestation. There is also alarming new research indicating that native pollinator species are at risk of contracting disease from honeybees plagued by colony collapse disorder, as well as dire warnings aimed at well-intentioned gardeners who’ve been hurting monarch butterflies by planting the wrong kind of milkweed.

But pushing their way through it all, out of the ice and muck near the stream in my backyard, are plants whose evolution predated human interference with nature by millions of years. As a species, they’re so old they’re believed to have evolved to their near-current state during the Cretaceous period. As individual specimens, they’re so deeply anchored by their rhizomes they can live for decades or possibly even centuries.

Deemed a harbinger of spring, skunk cabbage nonetheless gets little respect, partly because of the gracelessness of its name. But Symplocarpus foetidus has magical powers. During these grayest of days, the flowers are the first to forge through the freezing ground and take down Old Man Winter. Thought to expend as much energy as a chipmunk or a hummingbird, skunk cabbage actually creates its own heat and melts surrounding ice and snow. It emits an odor some find disagreeable but others—especially flies and just-waking black bears—can’t resist. In fact, the plant has been such an important part of bears’ diets that some early settlers called it “bear-weed.”

Last April was the first time I paid much attention to this animalistic species. Feeling desperate to be near water after a dreary, cold winter, I walked through the still leafless yard and was taken aback by what awaited at the stream. Prettier than any hosta or other imported species grown for leafy beauty, the giant-leaved skunk cabbages covered the bank and had even popped up in the water itself. After months of gloom, the sight of such deep and unabashed green was nothing short of glorious.

While I didn’t eat it the way bears do (its raw leaves would burn our mouths), I drank in the sights and sounds of a space I can only describe as primeval. There’s a reason for its otherworldly aspect: Though still common in most of its range, skunk cabbage grows in wetlands left relatively undisturbed. Its contractile roots bind it tightly to the earth, sending it deeper into the ground with each passing year. But tough as it is, this wildflower needs a habitat that’s constantly under threat of deforestation and changes in water levels; it’s already considered endangered in Tennessee and vulnerable in three other states.

Bypassing this species in their own backyards, many plant lovers have reserved their celebration of the Araceae family for the phallic monstrosities entombed in the glasshouses of botanic gardens. An impressive specimen, the tropical Amorphophallus titanum emits the stench of rotting flesh when it blooms every two to ten years. But skunk cabbages, part of the same family, are arguably even more impressive. Likely employing their rare heat- and odor-emitting mechanisms for the same reason their flamboyant relatives do—to attract pollinators—the much smaller wildflowers have to brave the freeze to get it done. And one study from researchers in Japan showed they not only know how to heat things up but can actually regulate their own temperature in response to fluctuations in the external environment.

We could take a cue from the fellow countrymen and women of those researchers. Inspired by the skunk cabbage’s monklike appearance when it emerges from the muck, the Japanese call it Zazen-sou, or Zen meditation plant. It’s a name so fitting for a plant that has quietly, if odiferously, persisted in the face of unprecedented habitat destruction. While scientists and politicians continue to debate the exact date we first started destroying the planet, the skunk cabbage lives on in defiance, inspiring us to stop talking about when and why and start focusing on how: How are we going to harness the Age of Man for the good of all creatures, using our own species’ wisdom and skill to protect and nurture the animals and plants we have left?