“Aldo Leopold said that our ability to perceive the quality of nature begins ‘as in art, with the pretty’ After that it expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. What he was getting at is this: knowledge deepens appreciation. Seeing cranes feeding in a wetland he saw notContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Knowledge Deepens Appreciation”
Tag Archives: Islands of Abandonment
Environmentalism boils down to faith in the end
Faith in the possibility of change, the prospect of a better future. For green shoots in the rubble, fresh water in the desert. And our faith is often tested. Everywhere I have looked, everywhere I have been – places bent and broken, despoiled and desolate, polluted and poisoned, I have found new life springing fromContinue reading “Environmentalism boils down to faith in the end”
Comforting Thought: Rough Diamonds
Abandoned sites and places that are not aesthetically pleasing can teach us a more sophisticated way of looking at the natural environment, not in terms of the picturesque, or even the care of which it has been tended, but with an eye upon ecological virility.
Comforting Thought: The interconnectedness of all living things
Everything in its right place One feels keenly the sense of interconnectedness of all living things: a sense of everything being in its right place. This is biology as teleology, rainforest as pocketwatch fallen open on the path- but instead of the hand of God crafting its workings, coevolution is the force by which theContinue reading “Comforting Thought: The interconnectedness of all living things”
Comforting Thought: The blue of distance, the green of time
“The colour of hills that recede layer upon layer into the horizon. Well this is the green of time. The green that grows from nothing, anything if left for long enough.” It comes at first as mildew and mould. A misting of green-grey, or mustard-green, the green of decay. But then it grows into a verdant palette of new life: leaf green, lime green, the green of fresh new shoots.
Book Review: Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flynn
Rating: ๐๐๐๐๐ Publisher: William Collins Books Genre: Non-fiction, anthropology, environmental science, natural history, animal rights. What happens when humans foresake and ruin landscapes? They are never truly abandoned. Instead they are engulfed by the non-human world and they become teeming with many other foresaken wild lifeforms. The weeds, plants, insects, birds and large mammals moveContinue reading “Book Review: Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flynn”
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