When literary legend David Foster Wallace penned his 2004 essay Consider the Lobster, he turned a would-be review of the Maine Lobster Festival into a poignant reflection on the rights of beclawed nonhumans, as they were boiled up and served with butter en masse in a bizarre spectacle of festive massacre.In the essay, Wallace expunges … Continue reading Consider the Wildflower: Our Unsung Ecological Hero
Guest Post by Stephen Thompson Colourful swards of flora, bees settling on stamens, and butterflies hastily gathering rich nectar. Acts you might associate with manicured flowerbeds in the garden - or a secluded fragment of the local park. However, a typical garden, small meadow, or arable grassland tends to only support a few tenacious flowering … Continue reading Roadsides: a Hidden Wildlife Refuge
Bleeding eyes pointless tongue a hunger sized from what we’ve become drifters bingers sleepers in the rough tough luck to midnight singers and swingers off the cuff'cos reason has gone from the treason of none - but a few - so roll between finger and filthy thumb. The Millennial Ecologist
Against a tide of urban expansion, the UK grows ever devoid of ancient forests in comparison with the majority of mainland Europe. Although consequences are forming to a many-headed hydra of ecological disaster - such as a shameful 56% decline in wild species, and air pollution now declared a ‘public health emergency’ in the UK … Continue reading Derailing HS2’s Ecological Train Robbery
Dull light from an unremarkable dusk breaks through the black storm clouds above, strolling through the front windows to throw a bruised, naked glow over his slumped frame. Sat lifeless at the kitchen table, he watches his crude, home-made water filter dribble every stagnant drop, his heart beating to the same brutal rhythm. Pooling in … Continue reading Flash Fiction: Plastic Rain
When Eve plucked that shining apple from the Garden of Eden, little did she know such a simple act would twist its roots through time and shape the future for thousands of years to come. Whether truth or tale, the Genesis creation myth and a slew of similar others have helped sculpt the ‘meta-cognitive schemata’ … Continue reading Creation Myths: Out with the Old, in with the New
“I looked up to the tree and sounded a desperate cry, receiving nothing in return” - anon. I stumbled through town with an eye of consternation at the throbbing, toxic hum of modernity that strangles our existence. The blazing lights and blaring horns of passing lorries – the ferocious street lamps fighting against a simple … Continue reading The Tree Stands in Protest
Snow-capped peaks in the Colorado Rockies, the burning gaze of an African elephant, and a hippo sinking beneath murky waters. What do all these scenes have in common? Not just that they're all threatened by climate change - but Earth shot on iPhone, apparently.So what better way to celebrate Earth Day than a short film … Continue reading Apple’s Earth Day Campaign is a Toxic Contradiction
Bathed in an empty blue sky of an eager Spring, the sun peeked its hungry light over the tired North York Moors. Watching from my window, it grazed the rear flank of Roseberry Topping - a sweeping cliff-edge peak venerated from tea towel to town hall across the sleeping valley below. With the muffled rumble … Continue reading Message in a Bottle: Dung Beetles, Plastics and Pastoralism in the North York Moors.
Living in the age of the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, or the multiplicity of other terms - one thing is clear: we have entered an entirely new era, defined by our relationships in the world. Industrial anthropocentrism has been dashed on the rocks of ecology, with the destructive consequences mounting like bodies on a medieval battlefield.So as … Continue reading The Millennial Ecologist: Who are we?
