Anything?

Parent: I would do anything for my child

Scientist: here's a list of actions, behavioural changes, and policy changes to fight for to prevent climate catastrophe so that your child has a future

Parent: oh nah I meant like pick them of up from football practice

https://www.threads.net/@earthlyeducation/post/DHeyqagT0zl?xmt=AQGzCj_4v-ahUg6EP0uySe3nHH3QrBarYUyKBssDxNnAGw

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

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Fox-ocrisy

A Fox News host consistently platformed climate deniers but installed solar at his house. Murdoch's media empire has done more damage to this planet, democracy and people's brains than nearly anything else in history.

https://www.threads.net/@earthlyeducation/post/DHieTzaRQZ8?xmt=AQGznF-uyZQkwiWIw9f6eXAB9w8aKpN05cdIdYINMukFSg

The Blood Worm Moon and the Mustard Seed

… Encouraged by the wildflower show at Elmington Park, I set off last week to see as many patches of Nashville mustard as I could find. At a time when losses in the natural world are in hyperdrive for no reason but the shortsighted stupidity of the people who now make this country's environmental policy, a flower that survives humanity by virtue of the stewardship of others can be a kind of guiding spirit.

The way those yellow flowers lifted my heart may also explain why I set my alarm, despite the cloud cover, to wake in time to see the blood worm moon. That's the thing about cloud cover: You never know when a break in the clouds will allow a glimpse of something amazing, something that predates us and is yet unruined by human hands. In very dark times, just the barest chance to witness something beautiful is enough to give a person hope...

Margaret Renkl 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/opinion/total-eclipse-tennessee-flowers.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

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Connect

"We need to be connected to the thing that we are fighting for." Ed Yong, the Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, thinks it's more important than ever to be out and experiencing the natural world. Read or listen to what gives him hope on The Interview. https://nyti.ms/4k8sHrT

Edward Abbey on how to live and how to die, 19-year-old Simone de Beauvoir's resolutions for a life worth living, Oliver Sacks in love

…Long after he composed his passionate prospectus for how (not) to die and not long before he returned his borrowed atoms to the earth, Abbey offered his best advice on how to live in a speech he delivered before a gathering of environmental activists:

It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here.

So… ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.

Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

Couple with Anna Belle Kaufman's spare and stunning poem about how to live and how to die, then revisit the poetic science of what actually happens when we die.

Maria Popova 

https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/edward-abbey-simone-de-beauvoir-oliver-sacks

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

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Hyper-individualism, the FAA, and the blame game

"…Trump's impulse to blame other people for the [DC air collision tragedy even before anything was known about its causes reflects his rejection of the concept of the American government in favor of the idea that the world is simply a collection of individuals. Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. government has performed an extensive and remarkably successful role in public safety. But Trump talks about the U.S. government—what he calls the "Deep State"—as if it is the enemy and must be destroyed, while elevating those operating outside of it as society's true leaders.

This rejection of the U.S. government began as soon as he took office as he purged officials and civil servants with the accusation that they had been poisoned by "Marxism," or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Transportation safety officials were among those purged, and the loss of the person at the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during former president Joe Biden's term, Mike Whitaker, after he clashed with Elon Musk captures Trump's antigovernment worldview. After Whitaker called for Musk's SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations, Musk endorsed an employee's complaint that Whitaker required SpaceX "to consult on minor paperwork updates relating to previously approved non-safety issues that have already been determined to have zero environmental impact." Musk wrote: "He needs to resign."

Musk appears to believe that humans must colonize Mars in order to become a multiplanetary species as insurance against the end of life on Earth. As Jeffrey Kluger reported for Time magazine today, Musk has complained that the FAA's environmental and safety requirements were "unreasonable and exasperating" and that they "undercut American industry's ability to innovate." Musk publicly complained: "The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!"

Whitaker resigned the day Trump took office. That same day, the administration froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers, although the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in June 2023 that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed. The next day, January 21, Trump fired Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief David Pekoske, and administration officials removed all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which Congress created after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Trump administration vacated the positions with an eye to "eliminating the misuse of resources."

Other vacant positions at the FAA, according to CNN's Alexandra Skores, are "the deputy administrator, an associate administrator of airports, an associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety, chief counsel, assistant administrator of communications, assistant administrator of government and industry affairs, and assistant administrator for policy, international affairs, and environment."

…

HCR 

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-30-2025?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

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Stoic ecology

One of the crucial Stoic concepts is that of oikeiôsis, which is often translated as "familiarization with" or "appropriation of" other people's concerns as if they were our own.

The root term is oikos, meaning "house, dwelling place, habitation," from which we get the modern words "ecology" (the study of the environment, that is, our house at large) and "economics" (initially, household management).

https://substack.com/@thephilosophygarden/note/c-89854349?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

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The Coyote Hiding in the Produce Aisle

…Most of all we need to rethink our own relationship to the natural world. Learning to coexist peacefully — as individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities — isn't easy in the human realm, but it's almost effortless where wildlife is concerned. It's just a matter of remembering that this is their world, too. It costs us almost nothing to move over a little and make room. After all, they were here first.

—Margaret Renkl

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/opinion/chicago-coyote-aldi-wildlife-humans.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

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The ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ Author Wants Us to Give Thanks Every Day

…The novelist Richard Powers said "Braiding Sweetgrass" moved him — he had to pull over when he was listening to the audiobook in his car because he was crying so hard. The book profoundly shaped his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Overstory," which centers on the lives of trees.

"So much of 'The Overstory' is imbued with Robin's vision of the agency of plants, seeing them as complex creatures that have a kind of intelligence," Powers said.

As her profile and influence have grown, Kimmerer has helped turn a lonely pursuit into a growing field of study and research.

Kimmerer now gives 80 to 100 talks a year, addressing universities, environmental groups, and state and federal conservation agencies. She founded the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Universities around the country have created programs and centers dedicated to traditional ecological knowledge. Some Indigenous leaders credit her with paving the way for more Indigenous people to pursue careers in science and ecology...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/books/braiding-sweetgrass-serviceberry-robin-wall-kimmerer.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude