#environmentalism Timeline

341d

Jane Goodall

An intellectual powerhouse and dedicated conservationist, Goodall showed generations of humans how to engage with—and take care of—the natural world.

By: The Editors

https://daily.jstor.org/jane-goodall/

#Anthropology #environmentalism

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291d

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,‍‍
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,‍‍
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍An’ fellow-mortal!

—Robert Burns, “To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785”

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RobertBurns #Scots #Scotlsanguage #environmentalism #naturewriting #18thCentury #Romanticism #November #winter

To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.
Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,‍‍
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee‍‍
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,‍‍
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,‍‍
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave‍‍
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,‍‍
An’ never miss’t!

ALT

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,‍‍
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,‍‍
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,‍‍
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past‍‍
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,‍‍
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,‍‍
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men‍‍
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,‍‍
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,‍‍
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,‍‍
I guess an’ fear!

ALT

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288d

Burns and Nature
21 January, Glasgow – free

An exploration of Robert Burns’s relationship to nature, told through poetry, spoken word & film.

This event, presented in partnership with the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, will examine Burns’s relationship to place, his life as a farmer, & his perspective on humanity’s relationship to the natural world.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/burns-and-nature-tickets-1975112411391

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #RobertBurns #poetry #environmentalism #nature

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140d

NEW COUNTRIES WILL
GROW UP ON GRACEFUL
PROMONTORIES WHERE A FEW
PEOPLE GATHER TOGETHER/
IN THEIR WORLD IT WILL BE
ILLEGAL TO OWN THE LAND…

Billboard
Robert Montgomery
Ostend Wall Piece. Crystal Ship Festival, 2016
Hahnemühle Photorag

Today, 22 April, is Earth Day.

https://www.robertmontgomery.org/new-gallery/hlltwglwt2au4gtsho09mz2afejeee

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EarthDay #EarthDay2026 #environment #environmentalism

A billboard, covering one wall of a five-storey block. In the foreground, three adults and one child are looking up at it. The billboard is black and carries white text in all capitals. The text reads:

NEW COUNTRIES WILL
GROW UP ON GRACEFUL
PROMONTORIES WHERE A FEW
PEOPLE GATHER TOGETHER/
IN THEIR WORLD IT WILL BE
ILLEGAL TO OWN THE LAND.
//AND THEY WILL MAKE
NEW LITERATURES IN
WHICH THE OIL AGE WILL
BE FORGOTTEN//
AND OUR CITIES WILL BE
FOLDED BACK INTO THE SAND/
AND THEY WILL NOT EVEN
REMEMBER HOW WE ONCE
HELD THE WORLD IN OUR
HANDS AND HOW WE
CRUSHED IT LIKE A BIRD
IN OUR HANDS

ALT

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140d

dear small daughter for a long time I did not write
what had already become past-tense was past-tense
and I am sorry I was not able to hold it as one might
in a dream hold a stream of water and sing it to sleep…

—Sheila Black, “Climate (7) (Past Tense)”
published in BREAK IN CASE OF SILENCE: New Writing Scotland 39 (ASL, 2021)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws39/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EarthDay #EarthDay2026 #climate #environment #environmentalism #climatechange

Sheila Black
Climate (7) (Past Tense)

dear small daughter for a long time I did not write
what had already become past-tense was past-tense
and I am sorry I was not able to hold it as one might
in a dream hold a stream of water and sing it to sleep
and I am sorry that I told you this image as if it were
in truth perdurable plangent and constant moon
over our seas when it is the shifting that matters.
dear small the birds the mockingbirds they sang
in the middle of the night and for this we cursed
them but then we came upon their nests in the black
of day noon when the sun is a diamond burning
through however much blue and the two of them
circled so tirelessly with their wings fanning the
turquoise eggs inside the nest of dead grass and we
understood we were not the only ones but even this
could not stop us from doing as we had done all
our lives long and the cars we pulled out of driveways
and the highways that took us into the buzzing
electric of buildings poured in dense concrete
and the cooling chemicals seeping and cycling
as though through calm artificial hearts and outside
unnoticed the ghost-blue of juniper needle and berry
and the ghost-rising of smoke from the fires we
claimed we had not set. dear daughter now that we
must use the past-tense for what we thought was ours
now as we move into the possible distance I open
my hand to give you this picture of two wings.

ALT

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140d

Change, change – that’s what the terns scream
down at their seaward rocks;
ﬂeet clouds and salt kiss –
everything else is provisional,
us and all our works…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Fianuis”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador, 2018)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/selected-poems/9781509882953

#Scottish #literature #EarthDay #poem #poetry #EarthDay2026 #environment #environmentalism

Fianuis
by Kathleen Jamie

Well, friend, we’re here again —
sauntering the last half-mile to the land’s frayed end
to find what’s laid on for us, strewn across the turf —
gull feathers, bleached shells,
a whole bull seal, bone-dry,
knackered from the rut
(we knock on his leathern head, but no one’s home).

Change, change — that’s what the terns scream
down at their seaward rocks;
ﬂeet clouds and salt kiss —
everything else is provisional,
us and all our works.
I guess that’s why we like it here:
listen — a brief lull,
a rock pipit’s seed-small notes.

ALT

Edited 140d ago

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136d

Environmental Scotland IV: Garry MacKenzie & Coinneach Maclean

A recording of the latest Environmental Scotland seminar on “Ben Dorain: A Conversation with a Mountain” (Garry MacKenzie) and “The Tourist Gaze on Gaelic Scotland” (Coinneach Maclean).
Facilitated by Monika Szuba (University of Gdańsk) and Petra Johana Poncarová (University of Glasgow / Charles University, Prague)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xXbocNE60

#Scottish #literature #environment #environmentalism #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poetry

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152d

This week's #NewBooks at the library: Three more books from the January clearance sale of my employer:
- The Rise of Horses: 55 Million Years of Evolution from Johns Hopkins University Press (one I might just review in tandem with a more recent book on horse evolution. At some point.)
- Extraction to Extinction: Rethinking our Relationship with Earth's Natural Resources from @sarabandbooks.
- The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World from WH Allen. Somewhere there is a review series brewing about long-term thinking (no, not *that* sort of long-termism!)

#Evolution #Horses #NaturalResources #ResourceExtraction #Environmentalism #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor.

On the left, standing up, The Rise of Horses, showing a lime-green hardback with two black-and-white illustrations. At the top is an anatomical muscle study of an adult horse. At the bottom is a horse skeleton.

In the middle, lying down, Extraction to Extinction, showing a white paperback that has several bands with squiggles and lines alternating with the title, subtitle, and author name.

On the right, standing up, The Good Ancestor, showing a white hardback with the title and author name in a red front and the subtitle in a black front. A single, small, green acorn is shown towards the bottom, its cap oriented towards the bottom.

ALT

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61d

Rated Godzilla 4/10

I didn't particularly love the creature designs (Godzilla seemed too bulky and its adversaries too angular), but their movements were handled very capably. One of the good things about this film is Gareth Edwards's style of directing, which relies heavily on partially obscuring his monsters to create intrigue (and setup for the big reveal). In this sense it's easy to see what he took from <a href="http://letterboxd.com/film/monsters/">Monsters</a> and applied here. It's also interesting to see what was borrowed from other films in the the process of creating this monster flick. Here I'm specifically thinking of <a href="http://letterboxd.com/film/jurassic-park/">Jurassic Park</a> (that opening shot immediately reminds one of the InGen chopper heading to Isla Nublar), <a href="http://letterboxd.com/film/the-lost-world-jurassic-park/">its sequel</a>, and <a href="http://letterboxd.com/film/reign-of-fire/">Reign of Fire</a>, though even elements from Emmerich's <a href="http://letterboxd.com/film/godzilla-1998/">1998 entry</a> make an appearance. Despite these successes in directing, there are noticeable problems with a script that (cheaply) forces children into what is ostensibly a disaster movie at every turn and which places our protagonist's wife in the action haphazardly and in such a way that she is never actually allowed to respond to those circumstances. As a result the characterization becomes the least compelling thing about the film. There are certainly a lot of notable faces who play scientists here--Watanabe, Binoche, Cranston, Hawkins--but the things they are forced to say and the manner in which they say them forces strong, undesirable comparisons to <a href ="http://letterboxd.com/film/prometheus/">Prometheus</a>. Sadly, it's not just the scientists that this flattening happens to; Strathairn's talents are equally diminished by a screenplay more concerned with setting up (and reaching) plot points than establishing coherence. Thanks to its visual style the film is watchable, but unwieldy bulk of its writing crushes nearly everything else underfoot.

Edited 49d ago

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