Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda
From Lynn White’s “Medieval Technology and Social Change“, Chapter III, Section 2, “The Development of Machine Design” (114-5) Students of applied mechanics are agreed that ‘the technical advance which…
Originally posted on dispatches from the undergrowth:
Conservationists constantly worry about how to ‘keep things going’ – be it a bird, butterfly, or some other organism teetering on the brink.…
From Peter Reason’s “In Search of Grace”, a passage on a theme that has often occurred to me. Philosophically, one can unpick the concept of “nature” and any separation between…
I have previously cited this essay by Mark Cocker on the “New Nature Writing” as exemplified by Robert Macfarlane and Helen McDonald. Have been re-reading it and find, as often…
Among drifts of these purple glowing birches, an occasional rowan looks dead; its naked boughs are a smooth white-grey, almost ghastly as the winter light runs over them. The rowan’s…
From James Common’s blog, an extract from a fascinating sounding book whose themes seem to chime with my own interests. I particularly found this passage resonant: ‘Silence’ is a fascinating…
From Reckoning “an annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice”, comes this tight little story about a father and son, the ocean, and waste by Benjamin Parzybok. A couple…
It is often argued that appreciation of nature is a phenomenon of industrial societies. The implication being that “nature” is something that intellectuals and city folk appreciate – not people…
Séamus Sweeney 