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        Something that feels like a big take-away from this essay is the idea that to write about nature one must be, in a metaphorical and almost literal sense, one with nature. So for instance, go outside. In a way, it does seem a tad strange for anyone writing about nature to not take the opportunity and go be “one with nature”. Now that’s not to say you have to be sitting and writing in the ravenous rain, the sub-zero snow, the sweltering sun, or the willful wind, but it might help. Or at least sitting by a window where you can see nature doing its thing, which seems like something we can all agree on. Immersion and interaction seem to be reoccurring words with this thought bubble saved on a server somewhere.

        A few other major points are writing about the history of the land, and being connected with the environment (though I feel like that ties in with the whole “one with nature” aspect). The history of the land though, that one was something that I hadn’t really thought of before, and I guess the best way as writers to go about that would be research. Tons and tons of research, determining how far down the rabbit hole you, as the nature writer, would want to take this concept.

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This week we seemed to really contemplate this disconnect we have with nature around us and what we could do to close that gap. It does seem a bit from our standpoint that perhaps we are against nature, and it against us. Perhaps we fight the battle because we do not seem to understanfd the feelings and the actions of nature and we really arent sure how we can interact. But as many of us argued we should work with our world, rather than against it.

This week's blog postings focused on author Lauret Savoy and her essay called "The Future of the Environmental." It seems as though everyone agrees with Savoy's point that we should write from the perspective of the nature we interact with instead of relying on a perspective of nature outside ourselves. Whether we intend to or not, nature is just another part of us we should learn to perceive.  As many of us have suggested, the best possible way to write about nature is to interact with it instead of stagnantly observing it. Often as writers, we have trouble truly describing something in its truest form and color, but if we are to interact with it instead of observe it, many conclude that we can emulate nature and the aspects of it we are writing and discussing about. However, some also say that in order to interact with nature we must also conduct research. Ultimately, we argue that these go hand-in-hand. Without research we do not know how to interact with nature, and similarly, without interacting with nature, we will not have conducted any research on it. Immersing oneself and learning it seems, is always the best route to take when it comes to environmental writing.

Check this link out below to check out an online magazine of essays, poems, and journals about nature. I'd suggest asking— is the author or speaker observing or interacting? Why or why not? What could you emulate in your own nature writing? https://naturewriting.com/

Launch Post: Toward an Inclusive Environmental Narrative

Lauret Savoy illustrates how many environmentalist essays have derived from the Euro-American oppression of indigenous people and nature. "The idea of wilderness as untouched land to be preserved," she says, "was accomplished hand-in-hand with its forced de-peopling and removal of native peoples to reservations." She argues that much of our current environmental works therefore lack a large part of our society's voice and perspective. Savoy also tells us to think of "environment" as "sets of circumstances, conditions, and contexts in which we live and die," not just earth, wind, fire, and water.

So, what can we do to ensure our writing is not isolating to others? How can we truthfully write about the history of the land, especially when we weren't alive to witness most of its history? Thinking about these topics may also help us think of how we can write the land's current history, the history that is being made as we live and breathe. How can we change the way we write about the environment today to be more inclusive than the way it's been written about in the past?

Launch Post: People Vs. Nature or People Ps. Nature?

Today's profound topic came from none other than Lauret Savoy. She presents the idea that whatever environmental essay is supposed to be defined as could be and most likely is wrong. Rather than the timeless argument of people versus nature it should people combined with nature, and more importantly the roots that connect one as person to their ancestral environment. The environmental essays have done wonders talking about that land but only as a separate unit from people who had it first. As she said "to essay" in french is to try, to attempt. The environmental essay is only an attempt to understand the land the point but it also needs to try to connect through diversity, and then continue to try even past that.

Has the environmental essay skipped the basics of what it was supposed to known for? Why are writers shying away from the aspect of connectivity between culture and land? What would literature gain from these new types of essays Savoy implores people to write about? What are the "democratic" values Savoy is talking about here?

I'd love to hear your opinions; there's a lot of interesting things to be said for this week!

Launch Post: Affecting Nature

One key point in Lauret Savoy's article is the idea that "every aspect of our lives (has) ecological ancestors because we all have been in relation, whether admitted or not, in time and place" (Savoy). I really enjoy the  closeness to nature that this idea suggests. Often times, we discuss pieces that describe nature from an observation standpoint. Savoy seems to suggest that we should be writing about nature as something we interact with, influence, and are apart of. I find this sentiment beautiful because when I go out in nature, I don't just want to look. Sometimes I want to kneel in the grass, touch the flowers, chase after squirrels. I want to interact with my surroundings. But most environmental writers act like this is not an option. That in order to write about nature, you must not disturb it.

What do you think? Should we interact with nature when going to write a piece or leave it alone? What is your go to method for writing an environmental piece? Is most of your research internet based or personal experience?

Who Tells the Story

In Lauret Savoy's "The Future of Environmental Essay," Savoy connects the way we write about the environment with the way we've written about and interacted with minorities and marginalized groups of people. The irony of the traditional environmental essay, according to Savoy, is that the care and responsibility that's called for in regards to the environment through these essays was never reciprocated with minorities. In some ways, these essays unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally) imply that we have more of a social responsibility to the land than to other human beings of minority background. Harking back to our conversations about Black Nature, our perceptions of what nature writing is largely consists of the white male perspective, excluding voices of color and gender minorities. Because we are all within nature, we all have a relationship with nature, no matter our background. And by forgetting that other people (black slaves, indigenous people, poor people, etc.) also have relationships with nature, we participate in the dehumanization and erasure of minority groups. To Savoy, the lack of minority voices in nature writing and environmental essays is indicative of an unchanged American system of power (through sex, gender, class, and race), and that part of overcoming discrimination is rewriting our definitions of what environmental essays can be.

So how do we begin to rewrite these definitions? Outside of reading new voices and seeking out minority nature writers, what strategies can we use within our own writing to combat previous perceptions of what nature writing can be? First, in what ways can traditional perceptions of how nature functions in society be discriminatory of minority groups? And then, how do we change those frames of reference? Just as our writing changes when we prioritize nonhuman perspectives, how will our writing change when we prioritize minority voices?

Meta Post: And Nature Said, "

We had a lot of good discussion over this blog week's Ted Talk over a previously visited subject about nature as character and what does something like that exactly mean when we write. It was not the only re-occurring subject however, we had excellent mentions of carrier bag theory and even this interesting idea that, as a collect unit, the human race feels some sort inherent superiority over our dear Mother Nature. It brings to question why we feel this superiority over nature? As humans, we know we need nature to survive so what is with the need to conquer the "wild" of nature?

Is it not self-evident that we are not as strong as the plants that spring from the ground even at the worse of time, that our sense of survival is not that of a bear or deer, that we will never compare against the natural whims of elements, and that the weather will always have the upper-hand? We, surely, know that are not as capable as nature and its mechanisms. Is it our dependency that leads us to snub nature so we can pretend that nature would not be able to go on without our cultivation? This superior--why and when did it start? When did humanity become too big for the world that nurtured us as well as ourselves?

How do we re-establish this connect and humble ourselves in the soil of nature once again?

Meta Post: Embodiment of Nature

As people have mentioned, this week we focused on looking through nature's perspective. One topic that I noticed getting attention was how we can use every aspect of nature to visualize scenes around us. We once again visited the Carrier Bag theory, delving into whether or not we as writers are able to properly identify with the nature around us.

One question that came up repeatedly is how sustainable are these ideas of viewing human life through nature's perspective? As writers, point of view is one of our most challenging tasks to overcome. It can be hard to embody something you have never been before, and it can be even harder to get people interested in your embodiment.

Meta Post: Humans Spreading Our Humanness

This week, our overall focus seemed to be on representing nature in the way that does it justice. How can we write through the eyes of plants without overwhelming that voice with our humanistic tendencies? How do we come to fully understand other species?

Our peers had some interesting thoughts on humans' ability—or lack thereof—to write from the perspective of other species, especially plants. We will always humanize these points of view in some way, no matter how much we try to restrain ourselves. After all, the act of thinking is a humanistic trait (well, to our current knowledge), so writing from the point of view of a plant is, by nature (pun definitely intended), automatically humanizing that plant. So how can we write about nature in a way that allows it to speak for itself? We seem to think research is key here. As writers, we should study our characters—be them humans, animals, or plants—in depth to get the best possible understanding of that subject.

On another note, I am shocked at the lack of comments on how our friend Michael Pollan (read: pollen) is aptly named to speak about nature. What's in a name? Perhaps our destiny. I'll see myself out now.

Meta Post: The Problems with Perspective

This week's blog topic was over Michael Pollan's Ted Talk, discussing our affinity toward looking at the world through a human dominant perspective. Understandably, we believe that we are the captains of this ship: we have the most power over the earth through consciousness, our ability to think critically, etc. Though like Pollan, we seem to recognize that this is a problematic perspective: what we don't realize is that humans are just one part of a complicated ecological system, and our ability to manipulate and control our environment is not an exclusively human thing to do. Plants and other things without our understanding of consciousness manipulate humans just as much as we perceive we're manipulating them.

So the next natural step for us as nature writers is to understand how that plays into the way we write literature. The main line of inquiry people seem to be having is whether or not we should write from a plant's perspective, and if so, what that might look like. While we want to move away from the human dominant perspective, is writing from a nonhuman perspective actually helping or hurting the cause? Are we still humanizing plants, simply because we are humans and will always have a human perspective? How will literature evolve if we start writing from more nonhuman perspectives? How can it be done successfully?

Launch Post: Carrying on about Carrier Bag

One particular point that struck me about Michael Pollan’s talk “A Plant’s-eye View” was the way it took an idea we’ve discussed in class—empathizing with the land as a character—one step further. For Pollan, the story is not just about looking at nature as a humanoid character, but it’s looking from nature’s perspective at humans to understand our relationship. It’s not about putting human qualities to nature to understand nature, the story is found in watching the land’s qualities and extrapolating an understanding of humanity from nature’s own language.

Also, once again, I’m obsessed with Carrier Bag theory and this presentation was full of this idea that the whole world is just a big tool box and you just need to look at the whole system and arrange what tools you’re going to use to interact with. There’s no winning or losing here, just a close attention to detail and an appreciation for the whole system. The end goal, then, is to “heal the Earth” instead of overcoming the Earth. The only stumbles along the way might be when plants or animals trick each other into doing what they want, but that just makes the puzzle of life a little more complex.

Do you all think these ideas are sustainable, like Pollen believes they are? I guess it comes down to how much hope you have in humanity’s ability to work together. I for one am ready to move out to a farm like the one described in the video.

Also, check out this photographic comparison of how flowers look to us vs how bees see flowers: http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_flowers_list.html

 

p.s.

Journal idea: Go out and find a naturally occurring object/animal, like Pollan’s bee. Make a list of commonalities and differences, both literal and figurative (e.g. physical qualities, goals in life etc.). Choose one or two of those similarities and write about them. Or, choose one or two differences and write about that. Super challenge mode: choose one difference and one similarity and write about both in a way that brings the two together.  

2^nd idea: What natural object is seducing you? Find a natural object like the ones Pollen listed (corn, grass, etc.) and write a backstory from its perspective about what it’s like to watch humans and feel in control of what it’s doing. E.g. What does grass’ plan for dominating the world sound like? What do humans look like to grass that’s using them for their benefit?

Launch Post

There is a lot that can be taken away from Michael Pollan's Ted talk in ways that can properly relate the importance of human life to the lives of plant and animal species. First, I am astounded by our ability to overlook nature's complex system of maintaining a biologically diverse equilibrium. Pollan makes an excellent point about the arrogance of human consciousness and our selfish perspective that superiority comes from the ability to speak, think, and act. What this point really emphasizes is our misunderstanding of nature and the ignorance of its chemistry. 

However, humans have always acted on ignorance because of our basic knowledge of human evolution that we rule out the possibility that we may actually be at the bottom of the evolutionary pyramid because of our all powerful way of thinking that consciousness equals dominance. For instance, astronomers who look for life on other planets, use a narrow definition of life and only measure variables that could support a human's way of life. The air we breath, water sources we need for survival, etc. We in turn, do that on our own planet where we diminish the earth by selfishly supporting a humans way of life and do not acknowledge the ways we can coexist and heal the earth while supporting ourselves. Pollan presents similar ideas as Kingsnorth from our last blog post where he states ideas of what happens when we begin to look at the point of view of the land apart from our own perspective. And as Pollan mentioned, we focus on genes as a basis of hierarchy when we only possess 23 compared to rice who possess more than 30. In turn we need to think about who is actually a more superior species when we too are manipulated by nature.

So questions I ask are: what stories can be told and how will literature evolve if we see from the Plant's Eye View? What kinds of characters could be shaped and and how could it incorporate nature with culture? In other words, what happens to the composition of our needs hierarchy when we begin to acknowledge nature as a counterpart or maybe a superior element?

Launch Post

Michael Pollan's speech presented some interesting ideas about how we can change the way we write about nature by writing from the perspective of other species. He says that this is not only a literary tool but also a way for us as humans to tackle our sense of superiority over nature and our self-importance. Before watching this video I don't think I had fully realized that we, too are manipulated by other species that way we think we control them for our own needs-- it's a humbling sort of realization, to think that we fit into the grand scheme of things rather than just assuming we run the whole show ourselves. As Pollan says, we tend to think of the world in terms of subjects and objects, and it's a cool change to imagine ourselves and the plants and animals around us as being both rather than one or the other.

My questions about this topic revolve around issues of how: How do we convey this idea of a symbiotic worldview through our writing? Obviously to write from another species's perspective we need to understand that species, but how do we come to understand them well enough to do so, and avoid applying too many strictly human qualities to them?

Just a fun video :)

Meta Post: Voice and Story

This week our debates centered around how our human understandings of nature and landscape influence the ways we interact with, empathize with, and write about the natural world. Classmates asked questions such as, why isn't the land a main character in more stories? Are humans just so self-centered it's impossible for us to write from the voice of the land?

Commenters noted that perhaps we have trouble writing landscapes as characters because "land doesn't have thoughts." It's easier for us to imagine, some argued, that animals have thoughts, but not geography or land. I wonder if this is because it seems that humans and animals both make choices, and these choices change their lives. It's not just that we have thoughts, it's that we act on those thoughts. Landscapes aren't usually seen as actors in a larger story, perhaps because we don't assume they make choices. A mountain will always be a mountain, won't it? Perhaps this requires more of a Carrier Bag approach. Perhaps there don't need to be choices made over one thing or another. Perhaps the landscape just is, and instead the story is in the process or evolution, not the direct action and change.

Other comments proposed that perhaps this misunderstanding of landscape stems from a human distance from nature. "Have modern advances dehumanized us from seeing nature the way it was supposed to be seen?" one blogger asked. This question is interesting to me in two ways. First, it supposes that we are most human when we are empathetic to the natural world, instead of defining ourselves against it. Second, I wonder if maybe we can fall into another trap where we demonize technology. How would our understanding of the world change if we wrote from the perspective of technology? What if the internet had a voice? We can apply the same ideas we're playing with for nature to technology. In the end, when we do so, it takes away our ultimate control over one or the other. If technology is a character in its own story, we have less control, just as if nature and landscape is a character then we must give up some control there, too. How might this change our stories?

In the end, at the base of all our posts is a fundamental set of questions: who do we write from and how do we write, what does this say about us, and how does it change the way we see the world? Maybe it is time to expand our humanness by bringing other, nonhuman, agents to the foreground.

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Michael Pollan raises an interesting viewpoint in his TedTalk about the perception of control in nature. He brings across this point by talking about his experience one day with a bee while gardening. Asking himself what he has in common with the bee and how their roles in the garden were similar and different.

"Both of us disseminating the genes of one species and not another. And both of us probably, if I can imagine the bee's point of view, thought we were calling the shots. I had decided what kind of potato to plant... and that bee no doubt assumed that it had decided, 'I'm going for that apple tree, I'm going for that blossom, I'm gonna get the nectar, and then I'm going to leave.' We have a grammar that suggests that's who we are. That we are sovereign subjects in nature, the bee as well as me. I plant the potatoes, I weed the garden, I domesticate the species. But that day it occurred to me what if that grammar is nothing more than a self-serving conceit. Because of course the bee thinks he's in charge, or she's in charge, but we know better. We know that what's going on between the bee and that flower is that the bee had been cleverly manipulated by the flower. When I say manipulated I'm talking about color, scent, pattern, flavor that have lured the bee in. The bee has been cleverly fooled into taking the nectar and picking up some powder on its legs and then going off to the next blossom. The bee is not calling the shots and I realized then I wasn't either. I had been seduced by that potato into spreading its genes giving it a little more habitat."

This idea of the perception of control in nature made me rethink my own experiences in the natural world. It made me think about how other factors could have been illusively in control of my actions and decisions. The question I pose to you is to rethink an experience you have had in nature and think about the control you didn't see, why did you think you were in control? Why do you now realize you weren't in control? How has that perception changed?

(P.S. This could be a cool idea to play around with in a nature journal.)

Meta Post

The article this week by Paul Kingsnorth focused on the under representation of nature in literature as more than just a backdrop or setting. While also questioning whether nature has a consciousness that we are or have become blind to.

@time_wasting_enthusiast talked about how people typically write characters that are humans, animals, or mystical creatures. Then focused in on how people rarely, sometimes never, write about the land being the character. In questioning this notion they quoted Kingsnorth: "The scientists investigating animal and plant consciousness, though, may be taking us back to older ways of seeing by very modern means. The living world around us may turn out to be much more sentient, aware and connected than we have allowed ourselves to believe." This made me wonder if this notion was true, and if so what stopped us from seeing?

@frizzy-headed commented with a very though provoking response: "Earth and everything that happens to be in it is a dialogue. And as humans, we have been avoiding conversation with Mother Nature for awhile now." This made me think of the underlying tension between humans and Mother Nature. This tension is something that could be turned into a great poem, short story, or essay.

@fineapplepizza33 commented trying to understand the reason why people tend to not write about the land as an actual character: "I think we as a general whole don't often write stories that feature land as a character because, simply put, land doesn't have thoughts. Of course, it's easiest to write stories about humans, because we as writers and readers can easily relate to other humans. Even with animals, we can at least imagine what it might be like to be an animal, what might be going through an animal's head, and we know (for the most part) why animals do certain things. Land, however, is such an intangible thing that I think we are too intimidated to tackle it as an actual character." 

As a reader I was really intrigued by this particular launch post and it's discussion that followed. 

Meta Post

For this week's blog posts, the main focus was Paul Kingsnorth discussion involving the nature of using humans as every character in our stories and avoiding using the land or Earth as a main character in our pieces of work. Collectively, I think many of us agree that characterization of land and the earth is difficult and left out of many stories for its challenging nature. It is difficult to personify the Earth in a non-human way that also captures the integrity of the land because land is "non-living" or "doesn't have any thoughts." This also proves challenging because writers may not know how to approach the land as a character rather than just a means of setting.

Frizzy-headed made a strong case for why land isn't seen as a character and that's because "We no longer know what it means when the land tries to talk to us because we don't know how to speak language anymore." This sentence emphasizes the arrogance of humans and the lack of effort shown to caring for the Earth. He/she also added a powerful thought of "If we listened to the land these days I don't think we'd like what it'd have to say to us." This captures the fact that many people and writers aren't paying attention to what the Earth is trying to tell us like a natural disaster being a call for help from mother nature because its the only way we will listen. This also leads me into my next point that as a class we often don't view land more than setting or a destructive entity because we are mainly paying attention to the bad that Earth offers like hurricanes, mudslides, and tsunamis and don't pay attention to a beautiful landscape and what that land thinks or feels in its most healthy, natural state.

In essence, as a group we collectively feel that land has not been characterized in literature because of the lack of attention humans divide towards the Earth among other relateable topics in writing. This is because it is challenging to find ways to personify land in a dehumanized because we are unable to relate in any other way regarding thoughts and feelings. It seems we are all curious to see how certain landmarks and natural places like the Nile River in Egypt or trees that are hundreds or thousands of years old think and act apart from what we observe. Further questions we could then elaborate on and use in literature are observations of mankind from the perspective of land or thoughts and feelings of land towards humans. 

Meta Post

This week's topic, introduced to us through Paul Kingsnorth's article, centers on questions of our conception of the land and how it relates to the ways we write about the land, or rather the ways we don't write about it.

Generally we seem interested in the reasons why people don't tend to portray the land as its own character in stories. Some of the possible reasons we had were that it's hard or even unnatural for us to apply human-like thoughts and feelings to the land, and that casting the land, which is normally just a setting, as a character requires us to practice changing our established conventions of writing such as equating the "where" and "who" of a story to the same entity.

We seem to feel that we need to better embrace and appreciate nature to connect more with it and reverse this sort of "de-humanizing" process that's happened. There also seems to be a consideration of typical ways the land is represented in stories, such as natural forces being the destructive antagonist, and questions of whether or not it's wise to apply human qualities to non-human entities, and how to somehow personify the land without humanizing it.

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     In the "we Imagine" by Paul Kingsnorth was him mainly questioning why we are so focused on ourselves when it comes to writing? And how nature is normally the backdrop, which to us is the setting. Humans are always the most important. I really like writing the part where plants might be able to communicate with each other with the roots underground and questioning whether or not plants have souls.
     I have never read a story where nature was the main character, we might have a character that reacts to nature, close to nature or talks to nature but nature its self is never the front stage. So as ideas I think it would be cool if someone wrote about the Nile since that river has been there for ages, seeing the rise of Egyptian civilization and the rising and falling of power. Or even Mt. Everge that is towering over the world and been around so long, even having the name changed from a trible name to Mt. Everge.

    As for my questions, I want to know how you guys think our ligature would be like if we thought of nature more? Do you think we would be as far technology wise if we did? Also if a debate sparked with plants or animals having souls came up how do you think people would react?

Launch Post

Paul Kingsnorth has this really interesting notion that people write characters that are people, animals, fantasy creatures, etc., but that the land is rarely written as a character. He uses research in his essay from studies on underground fungal networks, which sees these networks as being more than just a means of transferring nutrients, but now seen as a “collective fungal consciousness”.

“The scientists investigating animal and plant consciousness, though, may be taking us back to an older ways of seeing be very modern means. The living world around us may turn out to be much more sentient, aware and connected than we have allowed ourselves to believe.”

This asks the questions: How did humans get to this point where we don’t see nature, as a whole, a living being like our ancestors from ages ago possibly did? Has modern advances over the years de-humanized us from seeing nature the way it was supposed to be seen? And if so, how do we reverse these effects and go back to being “one with nature”?

                

Kingsnorth also asks if these “human” traits of awareness, consciousness, feelings, etc. all extend beyond humans, why are novels still mainly using humans as the only actors?

So the questions I ask are: Why isn’t the land a character in more stories? Why is it just written as a setting, and just left at that? Is it because we just over look it, or is it something more; how “de-humanized” are humans now? And if we are de-humanized, how far down the rabbit hole are we, and how can we get back out?   

BREAKING NEWS: NATURE, IN A CITY

 "The Ecologists Turning Vacant Lots into Labs"
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/vacant-lot-ecological-experiments/552746/

"A research project in Baltimore is using wildflowers--and lots of data--to investigate urban ecosystems."


"Habitat on the Edges: Making Room for Wildlife in an Urbanized World"
http://e360.yale.edu/features/habitat-on-the-edges-making-room-for-wildlife-in-an-urbanized-world

"Efforts to protect biodiversity are now focusing less on preserving pristine areas and more on finding room for wildlife on the margins of human development. As urban areas keep expanding, it si increasingly the only way to allow species to survive."

"What the West Looks Like When Women Are Telling the Stories"

Found this interview with Blair Braverman and Emily Ruskovich, two rising nature writers, on how our perceptions of wilderness have been largely shaped by how male writers define and relate to masculinity! Thought it related to our conversations about LeGuin and carrier bag theory really well :)

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2018/02/west-looks-like-women-telling-stories/

Launch Post

Paul Kingsnorth said "Glorious failures are always more interesting than unambitious successes." And it really got me thinking about what this means for creative writing and how to step outside of your comfort zone. Failures, while are disappointing, are taken lighter if there is pride in the effort. Always try to give an idea a chance, to try to create sensate work. But he posed a guestion that really got me thinking.

"If awareness, consciousness, feelings – life – all extend far beyond the human domain, why do novels continue to behave as if humans were the only actors?"

Why can't the Earth be the star of the show? Can we not use our world to dominate action and perhaps be the driving force of the story? I think back to a recent trail for a dystopian film, where the antagonist is climate and the natural disasters it produces. Why is this limited to destruction? Is there a piece that does not show nothing but destruction?

Launch Post

This week's article was written by Paul Kingsnorth, who brought up the intriguing idea that if "we can imagine how a character feels, why can't we imagine how the land feels?" He moreover questions what our writing would look like if I we took this notion seriously; in particular, what our fiction would look like. With this claim, a particular quote that stuck out to me was the idea "that the world is a machine is one story; that the world is alive and aware is another. The results of it – climate change, mass extinction, factory farming – should be enough to make us wonder if this story is badly constructed, badly told, or just plain wrong."

Do you think that if we, as fiction writers and humans living in an animate world, told the story of our animate world and the lands we tread, that the perception on climate change, mass extinction, factory farming, and other global-political issues would enlighten the world, or do you think it would only cause less involvement surrounding the topic? In other words, do you think we would be more willing to enlighten ourselves of these problems if we could envision the land with feelings? In fact, what do you think about the notion the the land we tread on can feel? Do you think that we as humans would take it less for granted if we thought that way? Or, if we don't think of the land as living, why, and how would you write about the same global-political issues if not?

Meta Post

This week’s article went over Megan Hunter and the idea of Cli-fi, and the earth’s natural and man-made climate change that influences it. It seems like as a class, we want to know this question of why there aren’t more writers doing research and writing about this topic. We as a collective seem to figure that we need to write more stories about the topic, but it can’t feel just completely political.

                There’s also this really interesting this concept of humans being a part of the earth or not, like what if humans weren’t on earth before or after right now? How would the earth be; better or worst?

                This is a link to a fun, interactive Q and A that the New York Times did about the subject of climate change and might help be a jumping off point for a Cli-Fi essay.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-climate-change.html

Meta Post

It seems we are concerned not only about whether or not we are in denial about the concept of climate change, but if we are in denial because we do not write enough. And we struggle with this concept of what if humans were not on Earth? Would things be the same? How would our planet be affected by the lack of humans? Are we encouraging that global warming does not exist because we are not writing enough about the concept? We feel that we don't really write much because we may not think about it. But why don't we think about it? Of all the political topics this is the one that affects us the most. So why don't we write more? Why is it that we seem to be focused on other things rather than our Earth?

Consider this: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

This is a well written article on global warming and its effects. Is it the fear thats driving us to pretend it isn't there? Or do we just not have enough fear?

Meta Post

In this week's article Megan Hunter discussed the intriguing idea that we, as writers, are not be writing enough about climate change— something which impacts the world we live in today and likely, as long as the human race exists.

Many people tend to agree that the topic of climate change isn't particularly written about as much as some other topics, in part because of the political investment in the topic, and in part because of our difficulty writing about the topic. Many suggest that the topic lacks creativity due to the fact that it is scientific— this suggestion seems to be the most popular and accurate regarding the perception of writing about climate change. Really, any topic is difficult, but why climate change?

 It is because all of the conventions of a convincing story to audiences these days are not statistical, but rather, fantastical or made-up. As humans, we're drawn into what we cannot be, and what cannot be— fiction and fantasy seem to satisfy those who are. So, as Hunter suggests, we should turn to fiction to write about the truth of climate change, and it seems we all agree.

To end this post, I offer you this list of "must-reads" on climate change: https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/opinions/sutter-2-degrees-book-club/index.html

Will you be the next to write about the difficult topic?

Mega Post

     As a class, we seem to want to know how can we do our part as writers to bring more attention to climate change. How can us, as writers, discuss climate change without sounding preachy or just plain boring? Also, can our stories really help? It goes back to being only one person trying to change the minds of all these in denial. Perhaps we can write a story about our world where humans never existed since we all seem interested in knowing what the difference would be. What animals would be alive and what would be dead? What would the climate be? I think it would be a very interesting story, some research might have to go into it but it would be cool.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-is-what-the-world-would-be-like-if-humans-had-never-existed_us_55ddde64e4b0a40aa3acf428

If you want an idea of what it would be like the link above will take you to the HuffingtonPost that discusses research on what the world might be like if humans never existed. 

I just read this great story about Nigel, the world's loneliest bird who inspired scientists to write poetry! Thought I'd share it with you all.

Launch Post: A World without Humans

In her article, Megan Hunter discusses the effect humans have on our planet and climate change. While the planet had a naturally changing course before humans, Hunter explains how humans have "irreversibly altered ... its dynamics."

One of our potentially saving graces, she argues, is fiction. "As Sylvia Plath once pointed out, it is in the novel that people brush their teeth," Hunter says, furthering the concept that literature opens our eyes to the beauty around us, and it can be used to possibly change minds on climate change or inspire eco-friendly acts.

So, with these ideas in mind, let's ponder the following questions:

1. What was a work of fiction you read that greatly influenced your views on the planet/climate/environment? Why did it have such a resounding effect on you? For the purpose of this class, we may think about what factors these influencers all have in common and how we can incorporate them in our own works in order to inspire our readers.

2. What might the world look like now if humans didn't exist? How would the planet have naturally changed? (Remember: the planet was once completely frozen, the continents used to be one, etc; the sky's the limit here.) Use this as a prompt in the future: write a story that takes place in this world, or write a poem describing how this world would look.

Launch Post: This Is The Way The World Ends Not With a Bang But?

This week our topic settles on climate change and denial. Our author, Megan Hunter, talks about the anxiety in the writing world: are we writing enough about climate change? What does it mean to write anything with the theme of climate change and why do people deny it so harshly in the world of literature? I am interested in what it means to write about climate changes in our work. If we do not write about it are contributing to the "bystander effect?" Perhaps, we believe in climate change but we do not write about in our works. By not acknowledging it is it the same thing as denying that it exists? Is it wholely necessary to talk about it in every piece we write? What is the limitation of action we have?

A quote from her that I loved was, "To address the psychological denial provoked by climate change, we need to explore the changes it has wrought in our self-perception at the most fundamental level, to examine the contradiction of the fantasy of our mastery and the reality of our dependence." Can we really breakdown past perception of this event with self-evaluation? We know writing has power but how far can it go before no one wants to listen anymore? I leave you with these thoughts for now!

What happen's to birds During Hurricanes?

Check this out! I love ShiShow.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNvJ4E3mw9Q&index=2&list=LLvOXoAM29Iwbx0u2vPLO30A

Launch Post - Climate Change: Are You in Denial?

Megan Hunter argues that people experience two different types of denial regarding climate change. The first is your garden variety denial where people do not believe that man-made climate change exists. The second Hunter describes as a "defence mechanism" style of denial where people who believe in climate change "live as though it is only a distant possibility." I found this type of denial to be interesting because it's true. Most of us continue to waste resources even whilst arguing the importance of environmental protection. How many of us have driven somewhere we could easily walk just to avoid minor discomfort? We often do little things in our daily lives that, when added up, create serious environmental problems.

So my question for you all: do you believe that this "defence mechanism" denial is an issue? What could we all do to be more aware of climate change in our day to day lives? Which do you think is worse, completely denying the existence of climate change or accepting it and refusing to do anything to alleviate the problem? And finally, if you were in a position of power, how would you motivate people to stop climate change?