🌿Wild Ones #27: Environmental Communication Digest
Sympoiesis + a golden age of nature writing + The "Orchid Bee" Cartoon + Ecomedia Literacy + How to Talk About The Anthropocene + And More!
Hi everyone, welcome back to Wild Ones, a bi-weekly digest by me, Gavin Lamb, about news, ideas, research, and tips in environmental communication. If you’re new, welcome! You can read more about why I started Wild Ones here. Sign up here to get these digests in your inbox:
🌲Environmental Keyword
Sympoiesis: ‘making-with’
The environmental philosopher Donna Haraway defines the term sympoiesis in her facscinating book Staying with the Trouble like this:
“Sympoiesis is a simple word; it means “making-with.” Nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organizing. In the words of the Inupiat computer “world game,” earthlings are never alone. That is the radical implication of sympoiesis. Sympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems. It is a word for worlding-with, in company” (p. 58).
Sympoiesis (‘making-with’) is similar to the notion of ‘becoming-with,’ another environmental keyword I wrote about a few weeks ago.
To give an example of sympoiesis, Haraway mentions the cartoon “Orchid bee” (see below) from the webcomic XKCD.
Here’s Donna Haraway’s comment on the ‘Orchid Bee’ cartoon above in her book : “Once embraced by living buzzing bees, the flower is a speaker for the dead. A stick figure promises to remember the bee flower when it comes time. The practice of the arts of memory enfold all terran critters. That must be part of any possibility for resurgence!”
After reading the cartoon above, I was also reminded of a chapter from the book The Wake of Crows by environmental philosopher Thom van Dooren. There, he documents the conservation efforts currently unfolding on the Big Island of Hawai‘i to rehabilitate a population of ‘alalā, the endangered Hawaiian crow.
In particular, he writes about the environmental keyword ‘inheritance,’ and the absences we inherit due to extinction when plants are left waiting for seed dispersers now extinct but that still leave traces of their presence in ecosystems as evolutionary and historical “ghosts”: “…taking care is always a historical and relational proposition: if we’re doing it right, care always thrusts us into an encounter with ghosts, our own and others’.”
🔭 Tools & Tips
Covering Climate Equitably: A Guide for Journalists is designed to help journalists source, report and write climate and clean energy stories that include an equity lens. And here’s a link to the webinar about the new guide.
‘Blue Index’ Captures Our Emotional Reactions to Urban Waterscapes: By collecting immediate, on-site impressions of people’s experiences with creeks, ponds, and wetlands, new assessment tool could guide protection and restoration of blue spaces.
A Lesson in Science Communication from Dr. Anthony Fauci. From MiSciWriters, “a student organization dedicated to improving the written communication abilities of scientists, improving public understanding of science, and advocating for science communication as a field”
📰 News & Events
You Should Have Listened, New York Tells Big Oil: The comptroller’s threat to pull billions from fossil fuel investments is a big victory for climate activists. By Bill McKibben in TheNew York Times.
We’re in a golden age of nature writing — and a more inclusive range of voices is bringing the genre to life. By By Jessica J Lee in i news.
5 years after Paris: How countries’ climate policies match up to their promises, and who’s aiming for net zero emissions. By Morgan Bazilian and Dolf Gielen in The Conversation.
'It always hits me hard': how a haunting album helped save the whales: “Fifty years ago an album of whale calls became an unlikely global hit and kickstarted the ban on hunting. On the anniversary our writer talks to the US scientist who started it all” By Tim Lewis in The Guardian.
2020 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Here’s the winning photo:
New book, Wild Souls, from environmental writer Emma Marris coming next year:
📚 Research
Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education. Antonio López, Chair and Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. “By Ecomedia is an emerging framework that views all media technologies and communications as embedded within a material and environmental reality.” (Thanks for the reccomendation Jeff, looking forward to reading this!)
Citizen Multilingualism: Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nepal. By Prem Phyak in the Australian Himalaya Research Network.
Pollution Is Colonialism. By Max Liboiron, Associate Professor in Geography and is formerly the Associate Vice-President (Indigenous Research) at Memorial University. Liboiron also recently wrote a fascinating essay in Orion magazine: Plastics in the Gut: A search for sand on a rocky shoreline upends colonial science
What Standing Rock Teaches Us About Environmental Justice. By Jaskiran Dhillon, in Insights from the Social Sciences, Social Science Research Council.
💡 Ideas
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 NationWhat 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":
✍️Writings from my desk
Thanks so much as always for your interest in my work, and if you found this useful, I'd love to hear from you, leave a comment to let me know what you think about this digest:)