Trees!

We're talking trees in Environmental Ethics today. One of my favorite authors, Richard Powers, has made himself an authority on the subject by writing the excellent 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Overstory. We're treated to an excerpt, at the end of Paul Hawken's "Forests" chapter in Regeneration.

The title is a clever play on the botanical and literary dimensions of the word. "An overstory," says our verbose verbal authority Merriam, "is the top foliage from multiple trees that combine to create an overhang or canopy under which people can walk or sit."  

And an overstory is a fable, or complex of connected fables, intended to create an understanding of one's place in a larger narrative. “The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” 

Philosophers generally hesitate to go all in on that concession, holding out for more receptive listeners and (if we're very lucky) readers willing to follow the argument and even sometimes let it upend treasured convictions. But it's generally true, I think we've observed especially lately, that opposing arguments tend to amplify rather than deconstruct partisan intransigence.

So it's wonderful that Powers and others (including KSR, next on our reading list) have created such a fine and growing body of work in the category known as cli-fi. Time before last this course was focused on that genre, maybe it'll be time to do it again in 2024... (continues)