At 20:30 in this video, Charles Eisenstein talks about something that has also nagged me. He says that one of the problems with climate change discourse is the way it has been framed as a matter of survival. The point he is making is that survival isn’t our ultimate purpose. Not least because we’re all going to die. Our purpose, he says, is to live in service to and in gratitude for the gift of life.
This article on the yin-yang role of gorse in the ecological concept of succession reminded me of this video showing that process in action. Essentially, leave the land the hell alone and it will “manage” itself into a complex, wonderful ecosystem. “Land management” as it is currently practiced in state DNRs and US National Forests is management toward the end of profit maximization. (In case you didn’t know, in the United States logging is permitted in national forests. In order to be fully protected, an area has to be declared a national park. This seems to me to be some deceptive nomenclature.)
Great article on the current legal fight over recognizing the legal personhood of Happy, an elephant in the Bronx Zoo. Also includes some really interesting history.