We all know how the story goes. It’s Episode 5. We know who’s guilty, and the central character’s hunch has hardened into certainty, but there’s still not enough evidence: their every lead has petered out in a wilderness of brick walls, red herrings and dead metaphors. Colleagues have lost faith; they think the hero/heroine […]
LITERARY INDUSTRY WORKERS CALL ON BOOKS FESTIVAL SPONSOR BAILLIE GIFFORD TO DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS Over 170 literary industry representatives – including booksellers, literary events staff, and authors such as Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, Robert Macfarlane, Emma Dabiri, Rebecca Solnit, and Ben Okri – have signed Fossil Free Books’ statement calling on Baillie Gifford to […]
On 28 May 2008, a mass of ice about three miles across and a mile deep broke off the Ilulissat Glacier in western Greenland. Over the course of seventy-five minutes, huge chunks, many of them 1,000 metres or more from top to bottom, slid away and rolled over, thrusting their undersides hundreds of metres […]
Read More… from The Sounds of Climate ChangeCaspar Henderson
People need drama, they need wildness, and they need nature. And the BBC’s Springwatch provides it all. Set over an hour an evening four nights a week for three weeks in May in the UK, Springwatch transmits live from a variety of locations where wildlife scientists give scientific insight into the soap opera-like goings on […]
Jail has taught me a lot. But it’s not what the government hoped. During the 17 years I practised civil engineering I wrote a steady stream of reports and journal papers, alongside occasional industry magazine articles. All of that was dry compared to most things, especially to the issues raised by civil resistance and […]
There is nowhere that climate chaos will not harm. We’ve heard this, again and again, and yet we cannot seem to grasp it. Even those places we call Paradise—whether it’s a town called Paradise, like the one in California, destroyed by fire in 2018, or places we find so perfect we call them Paradise, […]
Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine. – Tennyson Arriving in Portugal in the spring I met a painfully familiar challenge – Covid. The once ubiquitous, now furtive flu hurled me into isolation and despair. I have chronic migraines and fatigue from the last time I caught Covid, so I was seized with the […]
Read More… from The death of the Ocean is the death of magicRobin Boardman
Behind us the castle: the ragged keep rises from the scarp like a giant’s stumpy tooth. Nearly every day I pass this magnificent pile, but its magic never pales: the way it nestles on the hilltop of Corfe, ringed in fortifications of ‘burr’ stone and the broken circle of its defences. It’s the magic […]
Imagine that during the London blitz, the British debated whether the country was at war with Germany. Imagine that some peoples’ response was this: “History is full of wars, so this is nothing special. This kind of thing happens all the time.” Imagine others saying: “Sure, a bomb lands from time to time, but […]
Read More… from Where is Climate’s Winston Churchill?Carsten Jensen
It can be hard to keep going when the environmental crisis is ongoing, and worsening as the years go by. It’s easy to turn away. Of course, sometimes we need to watch a funny movie, go for a walk in nature, or have a nice meal. Self-care and resilience are part of the work. […]
Read More… from The Exhilaration of Everything Change Cath Drake
I’m struggling with the concept of hope at the moment. Is it an ideological con? My dictionary defines the verb ‘to hope’ as: to cherish a desire that something good will happen with some expectation of success or fulfilment. I might as well just cross my fingers. We hear a lot about the value […]
We know relatively little about life in the deepest oceans. But we know that the blue that covers more than 70 percent of the planet is also a regulator of its climate, and responsible for around 50% of our oxygen. It is also home to millions of extraordinary species. Only last month, 5000 new […]
I am flicking backwards and forwards between my poem Human Chain, published 30 years after the anti-road protests at Twyford Down in Hampshire – and the photo from March 1993 which inspired it. It begins: Looking at the blocks of chalk passed hand to hand by the protesters – silhouettes of black against the white […]
On the evening of 4 May 2023, three orcas (orcinus orca), otherwise known as killer whales, attacked and sunk a Swiss-flagged yacht in the Gibraltar Strait. The same day, crew on the British-flagged Mustique radioed the Spanish Coast Guard for help after four orcas ripped off its rudder and pierced the hull. Last month, […]
Thirty years ago, Roc Sandford moved to a small, bleak island in the Hebrides. They aimed to live there without mains services and manage the land for wildlife. But the place had a different destiny in store. Far from being an unspoilt haven, Gometra was in ecological crisis, caused by climate and nature breakdown. […]
June already and a full moon. I take my tea to the top of the garden where I can look out across the hills. It’s been a cold spring and in our small glen these early mornings are still dewy. Cool enough for a thick jumper, fresh enough to clear my head. Everywhere is […]
Llevamos meses asistiendo a una sucesión de récords de temperatura en todo el mundo y a un rápido aumento de fenómenos climáticos extremos. Los datos científicos nos confirman que no son incidentes aislados: los últimos ocho años han sido los más cálidos en el conjunto de la Tierra desde que hay registros, y la […]
Read More… from LLAMAMIENTO POR LA TIERRA DESDE EL MUNDO DE LAS LETRASPEN Català
We have been witnessing a succession of temperature records around the world for months and a rapid increase in extreme weather events. Scientific data confirm that these are not isolated incidents: the last eight years have been the warmest on Earth as a whole since there are records, and the current temperature is already […]
Read More… from CALL FOR THE EARTH FROM THE LITERARY WORLDPEN Català
I was surprised at my emotions upon arrival at my first XR march. As the sun warmed my skin, I looked at the faces around me: I saw smiles, I heard chanting, and I sensed solidarity. So why do I feel sad? I wondered. I couldn’t escape emotions of guilt, shame and loneliness, feelings […]
Crickets chirping noisily around me, observed with blinking indifference by long-tailed lizards as mosquitoes circled in periodic diving raids, I trudged the last hundred or so metres of rising dust to the rear of the factory compound. The corrugated iron fence, ragged but ten foot tall in places, seemed to offer no insight into […]
Read More… from The Lucrative Illusion of Green CapitalismLaurie Parsons
In 2019, a group of Swedish scientists published a paper on the migration patterns of the European Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus). They had discovered that the migration patterns of the birds, worldwide, are linked to the lunar cycle. This led me to wonder what tales nightjars would tell each other if they could speak? Perhaps […]