Female mallard, by me.

UK nature, animal and conservation charities ~ some founded and inspired by courageous Victorian women such as Octavia Hill, Beatrix Potter, Anna Sewell, Alice Drakoules, Emily Williamson, Eliza Phillips ~ have been increasingly dominated by a patriarchal economy and scientific reductionism.
I’m here to say that emotions are absolutely vital. Cast off as irrational, the domain of the inferior female mind, weak, unreliable, emotions are far from it. They are evolutionary drivers of change. Lest we forget.
As humans, we are part of nature. The love we humans feel is a also a force in non-human ecological relationships (I argue via my soon-to-be-submitted Masters thesis), and a powerful one; a force that is inherent in life’s positive, generative interconnections and processes (Fluminism). … Read more

 
We played the common land this evening,

 
Poem and image by me.
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Woodland Edge, photo by me.

“As our mother earth is a mere speck in the sunbeam in the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a tiny grain of protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic nature. [This] clearly indicates the true place of man in nature, but it dissipates the prevalent illusion of man’s supreme importance and the arrogance with which he sets himself apart from the illimitable universe and exalts himself to the position of its most valuable element.”

~ Ernst Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe

Prometheus Books, 1900

In correspondence with my tutor…
“The big point I am making, is that unlike holism, deep ecology, Naess, I am suggesting it is the interconnections/processes, the doing, the perpetuation of life, love as a doing word, not the overall ecosystem which require the vital protective emphasis and focus. The problem with holism is that it reduces the worth of the individual. For example, farming is a kind of holism, ecocentrism (Leopold), but species are worth killing for the good of the idea of what is ‘whole’ by the farmer. Instead, by valuing the processes, individuals are generally indispensible. I disagree with the main tennet of deep ecology that the whole, including non-organics, is worth more than the individual. … Read more

Photo by me.

Some scientists are already saying ~ the longer we leave change, the more radical it will need to be in order to avoid unmitigated disaster.

— Ginny (@ginbat) December 29, 2017

Strong associations between radical action and risk-taking in psychology. Some are just not risk takers. Playing it safe. OK.

— Ginny (@ginbat) December 29, 2017

But biodiversity declines and climate changes may require more radical solutions before many people are 'ready' to take the risk. There is a gap or a deficit.

— Ginny (@ginbat) December 29, 2017

I can't find a word for this, so in my tradition of ethics as a work in progress on Twitter, I'll call it the Transilience Gap.

Folk memory is the mystery of human-nature time, a connection to ancestral imagination forged directly in the natural world. Even the unnatural and odd root us in something evermore powerful than ourselves ~ as powerful as evolution itself. All is possible.
With mischievous ribbons, folk memory weaves, with words and mind-pictures, the ghosts of all the life that has ever existed. Folk memory is a collective and no-one is excluded, not even the cynical. Tales flow from mind to mind through space and time. Like the ancient soils, they pull us deep into our origins and lead us to the windy paths of the future. … Read more

Owl of Athena, ink drawing by Ginny Battson

World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

It is time for leading humanities scholars, philosophers, ethicists, anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, geographers, writers, artists and musicians, et al, to collectively issue a similar and vital warning.
We must unite across the board in human understanding, and with urgency.
Action is needed NOW to curtail disasters of epic proportions over the next century and beyond. … Read more