💡 Ideas

• How to grow liveable worlds: Ten (not-so-easy) steps for life in the Planthroposcene, from anthropoloigst Natasha Myers.

• A million blue marbles, from sea turtle scientist Wallace J. Nichols.

• Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability, from sustainability researcher Brendon Larson.

• Do Whales Judge Us? Interspecies History and Ethics, from environmental historian Bathsheba Demuth.

• Language Keepers: The Struggle for Indigenous Language Survival in California, from Emergence Magazine.

• Ecolinguistics and economics: the power of language to build worlds, from ecolinguist Arran Stibbe.

• Best Practices in Environmental Communication, from environmental communication scholars Paige Brown Jarreau, Zeynep Altinay & Amy Reynolds.

• Hearing Greta’s Message. Review of the new film I am Greta from climate policy expert and professor Leah Stokes.

• What the Climate Movement Can Learn From Indigenous Values by Tribal attorney and activist Tara Houska.

• What Have We Learned in Thirty Years of Covering Climate Change? by environmental writer and activist Bill Mckibben.

• ‘The Prophecy’ photo series by Senegal-based photographer Fabrice Monteiro. Monteiro describes the project in an interview with CNN:

  "Gaia, the mother earth, (is) exhausted by her incapacity to maintain the natural cycles of the planet in front of new modes of life and consumption. She resolves to send her djinns (children), to let them appear to the humans and deliver a message of warning and empowerment."

• Explore our Nature: a non-profit organization exploring “the varied ways we can connect with nature and how this can be a positive influence on our lifestyles

• Donna Haraway: Storytelling for earthly survival (a trailer for the 2019 documentary about the life and thought of Donna Haraway).

• Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Forgotten Treasure at the Intersection of Science and Poetry

• New Animated Video from the Red Cross on the terrifying consequences of converging climate and war:

• A resolution for 2021: Be a better ancestor. By Kate Yoder in Grist

• Thank you, Barry Lopez. An obituary and selection of the environmental writers’ essays published in Orion Magazine, by the Orion Staff.

• Whale Whisperers: Making Deep Contact. An interview with James Nestor:

“In the late 20th century, a handful of scientists proved that aquatic mammals have advanced communication capabilities and a consciousness strikingly similar to humans. Author and adventurer James Nestor leads us on a deep dive into the mystery of marine mammal consciousness, and the story of how a small band of freedivers, pushing the limits of human endurance, is finding that saving the whales may become the story of the whales saving us.”

• Kathleen Jamie: a life in writing. An interview with the nature writer by Sarah Crown in the Guardian.

• Mustafa Santiago Ali describes the path forward for environmental justice. An interview by Carl Segerstrom in High Country News.

• We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight. By Barry Lopez in High Country News.

• Henry David Thoreau’s 1862 essay on “Walking” published in the Atlantic.

• 2020 Year in Review from Edge Effects Magazine: “Every December, the Edge Effects editorial board reflects on all the environmental thinking, writing, art, and research we’ve had the great fortune to publish throughout the year.”

• Language and Food Justice in Oregon (video), from anthropologist Joan Gross:

“Joan Gross’ research interests range from language to food. While it could be said that the two are linked through the mouth (language coming out and food going in) it is more a concern with local culture in the face of globalization that ties the two areas together (read more here)”

• Hearing Greta’s Message. Review of the new film I am Greta by climate policy expert and professor Leah Stokes

• Forming a “More Perfect Union” Through Indigenous Values

• Illuminating Kirinyaga: Meaning and Knowing in Mount Kenya’s Forests

• On Sleeping in the Largest Organism on Earth: An ode to aspens

• Donna Haraway: Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene

• How to grow liveable worlds: Ten (not-so-easy) steps for life in the Planthroposcene
  by Natasha Myers, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at York University, Toronto.

• AnthrozooPod Podcast: Episode 5 Animals as Immigrants: “In this episode, we look at Animals as Immigrants. Animal movement across the globe and boundaries happens within contested spaces leaving animals wanted, unwanted, forced, coerced or in liminal landscapes of uncertainty.”

• Greentrolling: A ‘maniacal plan’ to bring down Big Oil

• “A Nature Writer for the Anthropocene” A review of the book Underland by Columbia Environmental Law Prof. Jedidah Purdy: “In Underland, Robert Macfarlane gives readers new ways to experience the richness and strangeness of a damaged world.”

• Land and language: Indigenous cultures key to protecting Amazon biodiversity

• Plastics in the Gut: A search for sand on a rocky shoreline upends colonial science by Max Liboiron, associate professor in geography at Memorial University, where she directs Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research, a marine science lab dedicated to anticolonial methods: “Plastic profiles, like dialects, are unique to their regions…The singular term “plastic” is horribly misleading, given the hundreds of polymer types and blends and the many more chemical additives they harbor and leak.”

• The Botanist Daring to Ask: What If Plants Have Personalities?
  The idea of plant intelligence is still controversial, but Rick Karban is already well beyond that. By Zoe Schlanger

• How Youth Climate Activists Are Empowering Campaigners From Countries Suffering Most From Global Warming. By Abhishyant Kidangoor in Time Magazine.

• The idea of a ‘natural’ disaster is going up in flames. By Kate Yoder in Grist

• The Social Life of Forests: Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another? By Ferris Jabr, Photographs by Brendan George Ko

• Listen to a narration of The Social Life of Forests on the NYTimes Daily Podcast

• Drag them: The climate case for calling out fossil fuel companies online. By Emily Atkin in Heated.

• Blue Habits: “We are a community here to demonstrate and inspire pro-ocean behaviors, or Blue Habits.”

• Why Biden Should Declare a Climate Emergency: The National Emergencies Act gives the president the power to tackle global warming without Congress’s consent. By Lidya Millet in The New Republic

• Five Articles on Gratitude and Forgiveness. By the Orion Staff, in Orion magazine.

• Journalists Must Demystify the Green New Deal: Everyone’s talking about it—but in most journalism there’s no telling what the Green New Deal actually is.
  By Mark Hertsgaard in The Nation

• What philosopher Peter Singer has learned in 45 years of advocating for animals: “In his new book Why Vegan?, the pioneering philosopher of animal rights takes stock of the movement’s progress — and why there’s so much work left to do.” By Kelsey Piper in Vox.

• People didn’t used to be ‘consumers.’ What happened? By Kate Yoder in Grist. “Underlying this vocabulary is a “fundamental story” that people are innately selfish, and that economic growth is good, no matter if it makes people better off or damages the environment, said Arran Stibbe, a professor of ecological linguistics at the University of Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom.”

• Must We Pin Climate Activism on Greta Thunberg and the Youth?
  A college freshman’s take on Hulu’s “I Am Greta” documentary. By Fae Rauber in Sierra: The national magazine of the Sierra Club.

• Natural solutions to pandemics. By Jennifer Stevens in The Ecologist.

• How to change: A conversation with Michigan City, Indiana, community organizer Vincent Emanuele about change — how it's made, how it's thwarted, and what to do about those it terrifies. By Anand Giridharadas in The Ink.

• Affinity: Between Art & Science (video): “…Art-Climate-Science works in the overlapped Venn diagram of art and science to the benefit of the climate conversation.” From the Broto Conference: Art, Science and Collaboration (see youtube channel for recorded talks).

• Is This a Dress Rehearsal? By Bruno Latour in Critical Inquiry.

• A Matter Of Degrees. A new podcast on Climate Justice, hosted by Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson"

• The Human Animal Earthling Identity: Shared Values Unifying Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Environmental Movements: (new book)

• Call for papers: Communication, Race, and Outdoor Spaces: “Frontiers in Communication: Science and Environmental Communication invites submissions to be published as part of a Frontiers Research Topic exploring communication, race, and outdoor spaces. The invitation responds to calls from communication scholars to center race in communication and rhetorical analyses.”

• Research Handbook on Communicating Climate Change (published Dec, 2020). Edited by David C. Holmes and Lucy M. Richardson, Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, Australia

• Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet
  by Nina Lakhani (published June, 2020).

• The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Emergence Magazine: “As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange?”

• In the wild (podcast). An interview with Tess Lea (Professor of Anthropology, The University of Sydney) and Wendy Steele (Associate Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, RMIT University Melbourne), In The Philosopher's Zone with David Rutledge. Here’s a description:

  “For centuries, “the wild” has been thought of as the place where humans rarely or never go. Our cities are meant to be refuges from the wild, and the policies that govern our lives are intended to impose order on chaos. But climate change is showing us that the wild and the urban environments are closely intertwined – and as Indigenous communities know well, policy is beset with incoherences and cruelties that make it anything but rational. Is it time to rethink “the wild” for the 21st century?”

• In a shrinking world, what will we pass on to our children? By Mary Annaïse Heglar in The Boston Globe: “There’s a very specific role I want to play in my young nephew’s life, and it has everything to do with the world he’s entered: one shaped by a climate in decline and pandemics on the rise.”

• Song of the Open Road, a poem by Walt Whitman from The Poetry Foundation.: “…The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them…”

• The Activist Who Keeps Exposing Environmental Racism in the U.S.
  Beverly Wright, co-founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network, has spent decades empowering communities that are vulnerable to toxic chemicals. By Geoff Dembicki in Vice.

• How Fiction Can Persuade People That Climate Change Is Real: A profile of Climate Fiction author Catherine Bush. Bush is also an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Guelph.

• How to Win Hearts and Minds in Climate Politics. A profile of Sonia Furstenau, the head of British Columbia’s Green Party, and her vision for communicating climate policy.

• Picturing Nature: “As both art and activism, landscape photography shows how nature changes, and how our perceptions of nature change with it.” By Michael Engelhard

• Plastics in the Gut: A search for sand on a rocky shoreline upends colonial science by Max Liboiron, associate professor in geography at Memorial University, where she directs Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research, a marine science lab dedicated to anticolonial methods.

• The Social Life of Forests: Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another? By Ferris Jabr, Photographs by Brendan George Ko

• Biden Should Establish an Office of Climate Mobilization: He needs to act with the same urgency that inspired FDR to create the Office of War Mobilization during World War II.” By Varshini Prakash, executive director and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement. In The Nation.

• The Case for Climate Hope: Jedediah Purdy’s book “This Land” argues for a radical environmentalism. By Conor Dwyer Reynolds in The New Republic.

• The State of Nature (writing). By Richard Smyth in The Fence.

• Climate change: How strong whisky helped Scotland's efforts to persuade the world to take action. By Dr. Richard Dixon in The Scotsman

• Nature Writing for the Common Good: A collection of essays on nature, ecological challenges, and connections between people and places. From The Centre For The Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity.

• Writers & Artists on the Influence of Barry Lopez. In Orion.

• What the environmental justice movement owes Martin Luther King Jr. By Paola Rosa-Aquino in Grist.

• Finding My Climate-Conscious Tribe: Black Nature Lovers and Writers
  An Appraisal (and Update) of Lit Hub's Climate Library. By By Kim-Marie Walker in Lit Hub.

• The Tree Coroners. An award winning report by Cally Carswell in High Country News.

• Animal Studies Cross Campus to Lecture Hall by James Gorman in the NYTimes.

• Environmental Historian Keith Makoto Woodhouse on Ecocentrism and Radical Environmentalism in the U.S., on the U.S. Intellectual History Blog.

• How Far Does Wildlife Roam? Ask the ‘Internet of Animals.’ By Sonia Shan NYTimes: “An ambitious new system will track scores of species from space — shedding light, scientists hope, on the lingering mysteries of animal movement.”

• Work is drudgery for a lot of people, but it can be different and meaningful, if radically reorganised. By In Uneven Earth: Where the Ecological Meets the Political.

• MLK's dream was about environmental justice, too. By Eric Holthaus in The Phoenix.

• Now’s the time to rethink your relationship with nature. By Professor Matthew Adams, Principal Lecturer in Psychology, University of Brighton. In The Conversation

• A point by point analysis of John Kerry’s climate talking points in his 10-minute interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria about the Biden administration’s recent climate actions. By Emily Atkin in Heated

• This Is How Joe Biden Wins the Climate Messaging War. By Brian Kahn in Earther.

• The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People: Don’t try to change someone else’s mind. Instead, help them find their own motivation to change. By Adam Grant in the NYTimes

• Got Climate Anxiety? These People Are Doing Something About It. By Susan Shain in the NYTimes. “Distress over global warming is increasing, but formal and informal support networks are springing up, too.”

• They Want to Start Paying Mother Nature for All Her Hard Work. By Catrin Einhorn in NYTimes. “Ignoring the value of nature threatens humanity itself, according to a new British report on biodiversity and economics.”

• Essential Climate Change Jargon/Buzzwords you need to be aware of. By Neelima Vallangi.

• Let's talk about that Super Bowl ad by Emily Atkin in Heated. “GM's electric vehicle ad featuring Will Ferrell tries to erase years of anti-climate work in 90 seconds.”

• How does the language we use affect our treatment of the planet? An interview with Arran Stibbe hosted by the Global Landscapes Forum.

• Dissecting stories about garbage in popular culture. Why they matter. By Mehita Iqani, Professor in Media Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. in The Conversation.

• Black Bears, Black Liberation: A wildlife biologist uncovers an unexpected, intersectional legacy of slavery. By Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant in Patagonia Stories

• Earthly Love: Stories of Intimacy and Devotion from Orion Magazine. “Earthly Love is Orion’s most ambitious anthology yet, a combination of poetry and prose that illuminates the nature of love in the Anthropocene.
  With an introduction by Barry Lopez…”

  Future Land: An interview with Rebecca Hosking, regenerative farmer, writer and consultant. By Sophie Yeo in the Inkcap. An interesting conversation about the role of language in shaping tensions and entanglements among conservation, rewilding and regenerative agriculture in the UK. And here is an interesting piece by Rebecca Hosking on the ‘8 principles of agriwilding.’

• Get Outside: Sour mood getting you down? Get back to nature. “Research suggests that mood disorders can be lifted by spending more time outdoors…If you can't make it outside, listening to nature sounds can have a similar effect.” In Harvard Health Publishing.

• She Colors Nature. An environmental justice blog and outdoor initiative created by Chelsea Murphy: “Promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the outdoors. Normalizing conversations about racism.”