Thanks, Echo! 😀

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lies:

(From a comment on this.)

My own response has evolved. There’s the initial shock of learning how actually bad things are going to be, and it’s only human to react strongly and emotionally to that, especially as a parent.

But it’s important to realize, too, that life will go on. Many people’s grandkids who would otherwise have lived will probably either die or never be born because of climate change; many others will have lives that will be deeply unpleasant. But people will still be here. We’re a weedy species. Like cockroaches and starlings, we won’t vanish. An almost unthinkable number of other species probably will, but humans — at least some humans — will remain. They’ll still fall in love, share special moments, tell stories, laugh… Your grandkids probably have as good a shot at that as anyone’s. So there’s that.

Also, after the Sixth Great Extinction has run its course, a few million years from now, there will be a new flowering of species radiating their way into the vacant niches. And through all that, the silverfish probably won’t even notice, except for there having been a brief and unexplained hiccup of warmth and moisture and starchy book bindings, now passed.

For me it comes down to a choice between despair and hope. Tolkien wrote that “by 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.” It haunted him, and he spent his life crafting a story to dramatize what he thought about how a person should respond to knowledge like that. Look at Denethor’s actions after he looks in the Palantir, versus Aragorn’s. Or look at Frodo and Sam, and their responses to Galadriel’s Mirror.

That Guardian piece I linked to isn’t giving you Lovelock’s views directly; like the Mirror of Galadriel, The Guardian is dangerous as a guide of deeds. We need to know what’s coming in order to prepare ourselves and to counter those who would mislead. But we also need to appreciate that if things are going downhill the way they appear to be, we should recognize and honor what we have today. I think that’s the point Lovelock was trying to make in that interview, though I’m not sure his interviewer really understood.

If a version of me had lived in the 1840s, and I could go back in time and talk to him, what would I tell him? Would I show him pictures of the carnage of the Civil War? Or tell him uplifting stories about the beginning of the end of slavery? Talk about the bombing of Hiroshima? Or about the landings on the Moon? What would I want him to know about the future? And if he knew what was coming, how would I want him to respond?

I think I’d want him to go bird-watching. I’d want him to walk through the forest listening for the call of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I’d want him to watch Carolina Parakeets at play, or stand beneath a flock of Passenger Pigeons so huge it blocked out the sun.

Everything dies. Individuals, societies, species: all of us are coming to an end. One day life itself will come to an end. It can be comforting to imagine otherwise, but that’s a fantasy.

Climate scientists and magazine writers (and programmers) aren’t necessarily the best people to advise you on how to process that knowledge. I think poets are a better source. So I re-read Tolkien. Also, thanks to despairoftranslators, I’ve been reading Owls and Other Fantasies by Mary Oliver. God, I love that book.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – Early Evening at Merri Creek, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Linen

Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – Gum Tree at Yarra Bend, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Linen

Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – Pink Grevillea, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Linen

Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – Silver Banksia in Mount William National Park, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Linen

Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – Red Flowering Gum, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Linen

Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – Big Tree beside the Yarra at Ivanhoe, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Linen

redlipstickresurrected:

Adam Pyett (Australian, b. 1973, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) – 1: Early Evening at Merri Creek, 2018  2: Gum Tree at Yarra Bend, 2018  3: Pink Grevillea, 2018  4: Silver Banksia in Mount William National Park, 2018  5: Red Flowering Gum, 2018  6: Big Tree beside the Yarra at Ivanhoe, 2018  Paintings: Oil on Linen

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183639988465.

90377:

The Grandeur of the Alps by Jerdess

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183634717096.

dendroica:

Downy Woodpecker (by me)

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lies:

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

— Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings

Photo by Kelly Gardner, Mississippi valley mayfly emergence, July 20, 2014.

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te5seract:

#1 by #2 Elias and Theresa Carlson

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icecreampizzer:

come on and SLAM, and welcome to the JAM

It is very true that this video is a cinematic masterpiece, further spearheading top tier quality content from Shipwrecked. Incredible. Amazing. Stupendous. Delicious.

…Please give Sinead some bread

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183615238056.

Daniel and Eugene Levy to end Schitt’s Creek after Season 6 | CBC News:

wild-aloof-rebel:

“I’ve always known how the show was going to end,” Daniel, who is also the showrunner, said by phone from Toronto.

“I’ve always seen every season of our show as a chapter in the story of this family’s life, and we have reached our inevitable conclusion in that story, so it was the right time and it was something that I had been building to for five seasons.”

“I’m sure people will be questioning, ‘Why walk away when so many people are watching it?”’ Toronto-born Daniel said, noting he tries not to pay attention to the show’s buzz because he doesn’t want it to affect the creative process.

“But the reality is, we’ve always been about the show, and I hope that when people watch this last season, they’ll understand that we did nothing but respect that experience.”

Daniel said he hopes the final season will provide closure and “tell the funniest, the sweetest, the most joyful episodes of our show we’ve ever told.”

And he isn’t ruling out returning to the characters one day.

“I would never say that this is the end. If we get an idea somewhere down the line that feels fresh and necessary and relevant, I would absolutely entertain any form of revisiting these lovely, strange characters.”

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183615230296.

mostlythemarsh:

Ground Control to Major Tom

Maybe spends a lot of time in space.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183615191936.

Sometimes when I’m birdwatching

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183613991766.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183610531101.

catonhottinroof:

Charles-Franois Grenier de la Croix, called Lacroix de Marseille ( c. 1700-1782 )

A Mediterranean port with elegant figures in oriental costume and fisherfolk on the shore, a Dutch man-o-war beyond

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183608847010.

lies:

“I’m increasingly attracted by the idea that there can be at least small pockets where life and character and beauty and meaning continue. If I could help protect one of those from destruction, maybe that would be enough. Maybe it would be more than most people do.”

— paulkingsnorth from “It’s the End of the World As We Know It… And He Feels Fine.”

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183603118755.

sagek253:

culturenlifestyle:

Steve Axford Captures Strange And Undocumented Australian Fungi 

Steve Axford is a photographer on a mission to discover a thread of alien fungi, which has never been captured before. Axford lives in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales and has ample opportunity to explore the undisturbed habitat and wildlife located in that region. Armed with his lens, Axford travels in the latter territory to photograph species of mushroom and fungi that science has no name for yet. He snaps images of fungi. lichen, moulds – each distinct in color, shape and texture. 

Sprouting from the damp soil like exotic corals and psychedelic umbrellas, their shape conflicts with the native fauna and flora, which gives us a small sense of the overwhelming way in which nature operates right under our noses. 

Axford aims to exhibit the aesthetic beauty of nature that is often sadly eclipsed by science. He takes his fascination for exposing obscure ecosystems, which have lived in isolation. He eliminates the objective aspect of nature by highlights its physical beauty through photography. 

@unsettlingstories

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visualizedmemories:

“Skötufjörður”

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183591522401.

te5seract:

Golden &

Catching Rays

by

Chris Dale

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183586404626.

heavydirtysoul-24:

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183580913876.

Sometimes when I’m birdwatching

Fifteen months ago the hills above Carpinteria burned. Last Sunday I hiked up the Franklin Trail before dawn; this is what it looked like.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183578915826.

that-crazy-scorpio-man:

Doesn’t look like this right now.  Going to have to go and take some comparison pics.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/183578384876.