🌿Wild Ones #37: Ecocultural Communication Digest
Eco-keyword: The Humilocene + Writing Beyond the Environment workshop + Moving Mindsets Webinar + What is a ‘critter’? + more!
Hi everyone! Welcome back to Wild Ones, a bi-weekly digest by me, Gavin Lamb, about news, ideas, research, and tips in ecowriting, ecolinguistics, and 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
‘The Humilocene’
“As soon as we notice the humble, earthly ancestry of the word ‘ human’ then another possible name for this new geological epoch immediately suggests itself. If we really wish to underscore the human species as a key – if unwitting – perpetrator of this new and rather calamitous state of affairs, wherein so many other animal and plant species are tumbling into the oblivion of extinction, then why not call this epoch the Humilocene. The Humilocene: the epoch of humility. That does emphasize our species’ outsize influence right there in the name – Humilocene – yet it also feels awkward and disturbing, at first, for it carries an echo of another word that shares the same origin, which is ‘humiliation.’”
– David Abram, in conversation with Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor.
In the first chapter of the wonderful Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity that came out last year, environmental communication scholars Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor interview the ‘perceptual ecologist’ and environmental philosopher David Abram.
I first learned about David Abram’s work many years ago when I read his book, The Spell of The Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World (1996, here’s a pdf). It’s a ground-breaking book in the broad field of ecocultural communication, and an important inspiration for many ecolinguists and ecowriters today.
If you’re curious about Abram’s work, check out the Wild Ethics Alliance, and here’s a neat essay he wrote: On Being Human in a More-Than-Human World.
📰 News and Events
When words aren’t enough: The Visual Climate Story (another reminder just in case: it’s tomorrow: Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 12:00 pm PST)
New book coming soon (May 2021): Pollution Is Colonialism by Dr. Max Liboiron:
Words matter: how New Zealand's clear messaging helped beat Covid
The disappearing voice of the forest: Snail stories from Hawai’i. An ‘audio piece; by Thom Van Dooren and Jane Uleman: “This audio piece tells the story of the ongoing decline and extinction of Hawai'i's incredible land snails, exploring the diverse ways in which these often overlooked creatures matter for local people and their environments.”
🔭 Tools
Moving Mindsets: The Ways Minds Can Shift (Webinar: Mar 12, 2021, 01:00pm EST)
Positive Communication Toolkit: A Guide to Reframing Conservation Messages to Empower Action (pdf).
📚 Research
COVID-19 as a Framing Device for Environmental Protest: The ECOSYSTEM HEALTH Metaphor. By Anaïs Augé in Environmental Communication
What is a ‘critter’? Potential problems with the scientific community’s use of informal language to describe non-human species. By Hector Qirko in Language & Ecology.
Ecomedia: The metaphor that makes a difference. (pdf) By Antonio López in Journal of Sustainability Education.
💡 Ideas
The benefits of outdoor education aren’t accessible to all: Interest in nature-based education has increased during the pandemic, but affordability is an issue. By Tina Deines in High Country News.
An interview with Naomi Klein on Climate Change and Family Life: A Better Way to Think About Climate Change and the Kids Conundrum. By Colin Groundwater in GQ.
“Few people have thought as deeply about climate change as author and activist Naomi Klein. Here she shares her ideas on the big question of whether to have children and how we might begin the monumental work of saving the planet—and maybe even one another.”
The Unavoidable Villainy of Being an Organic Farmer: Julie Carrick Dalton on Being the Mr. McGregor of Her Garden’s Story. By Julie Carrick Dalton in LitHub.
The Willowherb Review, Issue number 3. Here’s a note about the issue from editor and ‘new nature writer’ Jessica J. Lee:
“What does it mean to inhabit a place? Or indeed, for a place to become a home? These questions hum beneath the surface of so many of the texts gathered here. That habitation and habit are false cognates seems irrelevant; unsurprisingly, given recent months, many of the pieces in this issue confront landscapes more familiar than ever, the places we return to and inhabit ever anew.”
Degrowth in tourism. A short video by Dr. Freya Higgins-Desboilles, Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management, UniSA Business, University of South Australia.
Boom: North America’s Explosive Oil-By-Rail Problem (videon Vimeo, from a few years ago but interesting. Here’s a little more about the film:
On July 6, 2013, a train hauling two million gallons of crude oil exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. It took two days to put out the fire and devastated the small community. That catastrophe had its origin in America. For five years, a boom in oil production has been taking place in the Bakkan Shale region of North Dakota. Oil from the Bakkan is transported across the U.S. and Canada by rail to refineries on the coasts – it was one of these trains that deraile
“The future of psychedelics: Micro-dosing, therapeutic psychedelics and a Q&A with Molecular Biologist, Nick Milne, PhD” from Etcetera, a newsletter by Nicola Thomas.
Black History Now: Mary Annaïse Heglar Is Hoping to Save the Earth, One Word at a Time: The climate essayist talks to Shondaland about centering people of color in the fight against climate change. By Nylah Burton in Shondaland.
How Language and Climate Connect: While we’re losing biological diversity, we’re also losing linguistic and cultural diversity at the same time. This is no coincidence. By Chi Luu, in JSTOR daily.
For Better Health During the Pandemic, Is Two Hours Outdoors the New 10,000 Steps?: The physical and mental damage inflicted by Covid has doctors, researchers and others racing to tap into nature’s therapeutic effects. By Betsy Morris in WSJ.
💬 Quotes I’m thinking about
You once said that artists and creators, especially those who work in speculative fiction, are the engineers of possibility. What possibilities do you hope to engineer with your work?
N. K. Jemesin: I would want people to come away from my fiction with a greater understanding of how these existential threats are developing and being artificially encouraged. The consistent theme throughout my work is that these are all societies that could be great, and they aren’t because people gotta be a–holes. That’s really what it breaks down to. There are self-sustaining systems at work which discourage people from working together and doing what is good for all. We can stop those, but it has to be a choice. I want to convince more people to work toward that goal.
– Author N. K. Jemisin in Time Magazine, interview by Cate Matthews.
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