I've finished the first treatise and found the arguments and insights compelling and brilliant. It's odd that after reading the litany of body blows we have delivered to this earth that your words provide a sense of hope that it's not too late to fix the ailing planet. Small ripples can lead to profound change. We hope. I sent it out to several friends and one of them came back with an interesting analogy. Earth is the dog and we're the fleas. The ever-mutating coronavirus is the Nexgard®.
Thanks, Bob: Well, Nexgard has a much higher effective kill rate than Covid-19. So far. Glad to hear you're finding hope at the end of the reading. There are plenty of reasons for hope, as long as we understand what we're working toward is not the Earth of our ancestors, or even our grandparents, but a post-war world (in the war against nature, that is) in which we rebuild atop the losses rather than imagining we'll get the old world back. Not a great best-case scenario, but it's unimaginably better than the alternatives.
Just finished reading your second writing Jason. Love this one, so earthy, easy to understand and relate to. I wish all who mow lawns would read this. Unfortunately most of your readers are probably committed to the environment. We mow around the house, but other than a couple of paths, have let the meadow grow. It gets cut once a year after Columbus Day. I had contacted a monarch specialist in Ohio who said that was the appropriate time to mow. We have quite an array of wildlife which we thoroughly enjoy. We haven't had coyotes in a couple of years but I do miss hearing them. Thanks for this writing, very enlightening.
Thanks for this, Loree. I'm sure you're right that my readers so far are well on the path I'm describing, but it's a start. Hopefully the word will spread. I'm really happy to hear about your meadow. The coyotes will show up again.
Jason, great to see your name in the inbox each week, and I am enjoying the thoughts shared. In a strange way, I find it somewhat comforting that we are all, eventually, just a thin line in the rocks (this layer being sadly laced with unique isotope signatures and a lot of plastic). I suppose part of the comfort is that something WILL come afterward. I'd like to hope "that that we can stop doing foolish, harmful things" and thwart the potential -gene and -zoic impacts of our -cene (starting with lawns!).
If following your comment "...there is no human signature in the geological record without first developing the capacity to map that record" readers might find the geographic mapping presented by some timelapse photography courtesy of Google Earth (1984-present): https://g.co/earthtimelapse -- Another link for the end of your notes, which is the location I like to see links. Thanks!
Hi Liesl: Really nice to hear from you. I think the comfort you find in the geologic perspective is akin to the pleasure I take in walking along an abandoned paved road here where trees encroach and moss fills the cracks... It's a sense of that "afterward" you mention. Speaking of which, one of the books I'll write about soonish is Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils by David Farrier. It's a very good, literary evocation of the Anthropocene. I highly recommend it.
Thanks very much also for the reminder of the Google Earth timelapse tool. I'll add it to this week's entry.
I like having the links at the end of the piece so that it doesn't interrupt the flow. This is a great essay. My favorite line: "We need to hear the story, repeat the story to others, and then rewrite the story together." And AMEN to the lawn liberation theme! Looking forward to the next installment.
I've finished the first treatise and found the arguments and insights compelling and brilliant. It's odd that after reading the litany of body blows we have delivered to this earth that your words provide a sense of hope that it's not too late to fix the ailing planet. Small ripples can lead to profound change. We hope. I sent it out to several friends and one of them came back with an interesting analogy. Earth is the dog and we're the fleas. The ever-mutating coronavirus is the Nexgard®.
Thanks, Bob: Well, Nexgard has a much higher effective kill rate than Covid-19. So far. Glad to hear you're finding hope at the end of the reading. There are plenty of reasons for hope, as long as we understand what we're working toward is not the Earth of our ancestors, or even our grandparents, but a post-war world (in the war against nature, that is) in which we rebuild atop the losses rather than imagining we'll get the old world back. Not a great best-case scenario, but it's unimaginably better than the alternatives.
I also like how the text flows without links embedded. Nothing wrong with some good footnotes!
Thanks, Thomas. Links at the end is the consensus so far.
Just finished reading your second writing Jason. Love this one, so earthy, easy to understand and relate to. I wish all who mow lawns would read this. Unfortunately most of your readers are probably committed to the environment. We mow around the house, but other than a couple of paths, have let the meadow grow. It gets cut once a year after Columbus Day. I had contacted a monarch specialist in Ohio who said that was the appropriate time to mow. We have quite an array of wildlife which we thoroughly enjoy. We haven't had coyotes in a couple of years but I do miss hearing them. Thanks for this writing, very enlightening.
Thanks for this, Loree. I'm sure you're right that my readers so far are well on the path I'm describing, but it's a start. Hopefully the word will spread. I'm really happy to hear about your meadow. The coyotes will show up again.
I'm with you Jason, I find links scattered throughout are too distracting. It makes me difficult to keep my train of thought and understanding.
Jason, great to see your name in the inbox each week, and I am enjoying the thoughts shared. In a strange way, I find it somewhat comforting that we are all, eventually, just a thin line in the rocks (this layer being sadly laced with unique isotope signatures and a lot of plastic). I suppose part of the comfort is that something WILL come afterward. I'd like to hope "that that we can stop doing foolish, harmful things" and thwart the potential -gene and -zoic impacts of our -cene (starting with lawns!).
If following your comment "...there is no human signature in the geological record without first developing the capacity to map that record" readers might find the geographic mapping presented by some timelapse photography courtesy of Google Earth (1984-present): https://g.co/earthtimelapse -- Another link for the end of your notes, which is the location I like to see links. Thanks!
Hi Liesl: Really nice to hear from you. I think the comfort you find in the geologic perspective is akin to the pleasure I take in walking along an abandoned paved road here where trees encroach and moss fills the cracks... It's a sense of that "afterward" you mention. Speaking of which, one of the books I'll write about soonish is Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils by David Farrier. It's a very good, literary evocation of the Anthropocene. I highly recommend it.
Thanks very much also for the reminder of the Google Earth timelapse tool. I'll add it to this week's entry.
I like having the links at the end of the piece so that it doesn't interrupt the flow. This is a great essay. My favorite line: "We need to hear the story, repeat the story to others, and then rewrite the story together." And AMEN to the lawn liberation theme! Looking forward to the next installment.
Thanks very much, Jane.