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@RobGMacfarlane
“The future is not in oil,” Greenland’s government said, “The future belongs to renewable energy.”
Courageous & exemplary decision, just out, by GL’s government to abandon all future oil exploration (despite c. 18bn barrels of oil under west coast alone). bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Nan Shepherd was born OTD 130 yrs ago.
In case of interest, The Living Mountain—a 30-min radio love-letter to the Cairngorms & Nan’s writing I made in 2013––is back up on @BBCSounds.
Some extraordinary things happened up in the hills as we recorded this…
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Mesmerised to watch this female golden-ringed dragonfly—longest of UK’s dragonflies; lover of moorlands & peat-bogs—laying her eggs, one by one, in this delicate dipping dance.
Stained-glass lacing of her wings, beautiful banding of her body.
A perfectly engineered micro-craft.
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@RobGMacfarlane
Superb essay dismantling the “biological deserts fallacy”; the perception that cities are barren of wildlife/nature.
I’ve spent years arguing against this idea.
Tell me the wildlife of your city/town.
Mine, Cambridge: peregrines, bee orchids, grass snakes…e360.yale.edu/features/urban…
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@RobGMacfarlane
In case of interest, "The Living Mountain"––a 1/2-hour radio love-letter to the Cairngorms & the writing of Nan Shepherd that I made in 2013––is back up on @BBCSounds.
Some extraordinary things happened up in the hills while we were recording this.
Here: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Conservation good news: the collapse of California’s Mono Lake has been reversed.
How? Stream rehabilitation & limits on water diversions (cc @Feargal_Sharkey).
“The lake is now an inspiration for efforts to heal degraded ecosystems worldwide.”
💥 insideclimatenews.org/news/30102022/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Very cool news: first baby beaver (“kit”) born in Exmoor since…a few years after Shakespeare died.
Now around six weeks old.
If it gets a name, I hope it’s better than his mother’s, “named ‘Grylls’ for her survival instincts.” bbc.com/news/uk-englan…
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@RobGMacfarlane
“What the Government has proposed potentially tears up the most fundamental legal protections our remaining wildlife has.”
Please, please read & share this @RSPBEngland thread about the huge intensification of the war on nature that’s beginning under Truss. twitter.com/RSPBEngland/st…
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@RobGMacfarlane
In Newark (near where I grew up), a Library Garden is to be tarmacked over for a carpark: a net gain of 22 new parking spaces.
Fumes & asphalt replacing community green-space & mature trees.
Huge local resistance.
Pls share widely & urge @NSDCouncil to pause felling & reconsider. twitter.com/AdamCormack_/s…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Moved by this discovery of 100s of skeletons in dunes of Whitesands Beach, dating back to 6thC.
Early Christian burials on this then-remote bay.
Buried w/ heads to the west.
And—the detail that pierces—white quartz pebbles placed on the graves of children. independent.co.uk/news/uk/skelet…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Pretty huge if it passes; under a draft plan, the US Treasury Department would tax several of the biggest emitters of planet-heating pollution to pay for the climate crisis.
That's $500bn in "climate damages".
nytimes.com/2021/08/04/cli…
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@RobGMacfarlane
The long-established right to wild camp on Dartmoor is under threat:
theguardian.com/environment/20…
@Right_2Roam & I want to crowd-source memories, photos etc. from those who've camped up there (10 Tors, DofE...), to show what stands to be lost.
Pls RT––& share thoughts etc in replies.
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@RobGMacfarlane
“In short, the Amazon is dying. Entire genetic libraries and symphonies of species—trees, birds, reptiles, insects and more, eons in the making, fine-tuned by natural selection—are being wiped out to make room for methane-belching cows.” theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Ah...the Hardy Tree has fallen today in London.
An ash tree, of course; the World Tree.
Hardy stacked gravestones around it 160 yrs ago––like the leaves of a circular book––after the dead of those graves were exhumed for the railway.
Life-in-death-in-life.
theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/d…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Xavi Buo's astonishing 'Ornithography' photographs use collage-imagery to track the flight-paths of different birds (Raven, Alpine Swift & Starling below).
Swoops, loops, braids & scribbles: what dreamwork!
More here in this @lottielimb interview with him.
euronews.com/green/2022/08/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
On street trees & climate crisis:
"Trees are, simply, the most effective technology we have to guard against heat in cities."
& so good to hear a city tree manager say this:
"our default position is, you don't take out big trees to put in small trees."
nytimes.com/2021/07/02/cli…
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@RobGMacfarlane
🔥 Well this is immense & breaking news🔥
The Labour Party has today announced it will pass a Right To Roam Act for England *&* reverse the Dartmoor ban if they come to power.
Such an act wd need be based on Free, Fair & Informed Access for all.
A big moment in access history. twitter.com/Right_2Roam/st…
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@RobGMacfarlane
In 10-day isolation, seeing Greece burn, thinking (again) about the convulsive global response to the COVID crisis, contrasted to the calamitously slack, slow global response to the climate crisis.
Can anyone point me to good work comparatively analysing the 2 modes of response?
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@RobGMacfarlane
"Big old trees are the keystone structures of forests on which many species depend...forked, twisted, lightning-struck, rotten [they] harbour the most life"
@GeorgeMonbiot on valuing "slow ecologies".
Send images/stories of gnarled old trees & their lives.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
“Certainly it is in October that one may see the skeins of geese arrowing their way south…Primeval forces are there, made for a moment visible.”
(Nan Shepherd)
It’s bird migration time of year again; the skies are on the move.
Who’s arriving & who’s leaving where you are? twitter.com/jake_fiennes/s…
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@RobGMacfarlane
A heads-up that, to my delight, Barry Lopez's masterpiece Arctic Dreams (1986) will be Book of the Week on @BBCRadio4 this week, starting 09.45am today.
The book––and the writer––that made me a writer.
Barry passed away in December this year.
bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…
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@RobGMacfarlane
A month now until our 12-part audio-drama adaptation of Susan Cooper’s great novel The Dark Is Rising begins on @bbcworldservice…
Short film & link to Ep 0 are out today 👇
Can you complete these lines from the novel?
“Tonight will be bad, and…”
“When the Dark comes rising…” twitter.com/bbcworldservic…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Hello parents, teachers, children—to mark #NationalPoetryDay there’s a Lost Words spell-poem writing competition launching today.🖋🪄
I’ll be judging the entries.
Open to 7-12 yos.
Enter! Spread the word! Write on!
Details here & below:
nationalpoetryday.co.uk/the-lost-words…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Big plans to “re-wild” London: redshank & lapwing back along Thames, beavers in the marshes, nature corridors, micro-parks…
A reminder of how biodiverse cities are & can be, esp. with more blue & green space.
Good for humans, good for other-than-humans. theguardian.com/environment/20…
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@RobGMacfarlane
"More money is being spent destroying the UK environment than protecting it."
* UK most wildlife-depleted of G7 nations
* 25yr Environment Plan lacks robust monitoring/enforcement
* Public sector investment in conservation down 33% in 5 years.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
@RobGMacfarlane
Books: Is A River Alive? (WIP) Underland, The Lost Words, The Old Ways, etc. | Films: River, Mountain, Upstream | Nature, climate, people | Prof @Cambridge_uni