101
@RobGMacfarlane
Happy Winter Solstice, one & all.
The turn of the year’s tide—& a day of hope.
We’ve made it round one more time, & from here the light spills slowly back, minute by minute.
I celebrate this day more than Christmas or New Year.
Fiat lux!
102
@RobGMacfarlane
After all we've learned about octopus sentience, intelligence & life-ways in recent years...how/why can humans be devising methods of mass-production for these playful, clever creatures?
#DontEatOctopuses
Please read this, by @BBCMarshall.
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…
103
@RobGMacfarlane
Calling walkers, ramblers, path-followers...!
The inspiring @SlowWaysUK project is looking for volunteers to help walk/grade the thousands of walking routes they're presently mapping.
Pls RT/find out more/volunteer in the thread below.
Help weave a webwork of walking ways! twitter.com/SlowWaysUK/sta…
104
@RobGMacfarlane
It's #internationalmountainday.
A celebration of these deep-time-keepers, these perspective-givers, these spirit-lifters.
A recognition of the communities that live among them. And a recognition of their vulnerability.
Send photos of the mountains that mean most to you.
105
@RobGMacfarlane
The UK Red List of critically endangered birds is updated today by @Natures_Voice/@_BTO.
Red List now 70 birds long: doubled in 25 yrs.
New Red Listees inc. Swift, Ptarmigan, House Martin, Dunlin & Greenfinch (catastrophic drops).
"Wildlife is in freefall"
theguardian.com/environment/20…
106
@RobGMacfarlane
Fabulous!
First global attempt to map vast underground fungal networks.
Big step in bringing fungi within conservation frames (flora, fauna *&* fungi).
As a cartophile & mycophile who wrote a book on underworlds, this story is *right* in my wheelhouse.
theguardian.com/science/2021/n…
107
@RobGMacfarlane
This is (l to r) Sam, Reuben & Denzel of @ElmhurstSchool in London.
They've learned the Jackdaw Spell from The Lost Spells by heart & here they are rocking it in the woods.
Poetry, outdoor learning, smiles, dance!
Will you give them a shout, tell them how awesome they are?
108
@RobGMacfarlane
Outstanding (breaking) news: the National Trust’s Board of Trustees has today confirmed the earlier members’ vote, & announced that it will no longer issue any "trail hunting" licences on @nationaltrust land.
👏 👏 keeptheban.uk/post/breaking-…
109
@RobGMacfarlane
Silver winter light out there today & the trees round here are suddenly all flame, blaze & furnace.
This is the best infographic I know explaining the biochemistry of autumn/fall's fire-palette.
All hail anthocyanins!
By the excellent @compoundchem
Send me autumn colours...
110
@RobGMacfarlane
This:
* Europe has 600m fewer breeding birds than 40 yrs ago. 600 million.
* Skylarks, Yellow Wagtails, Starlings, & House Sparrows suffering immense losses.
Common birds becoming less & less common; slipping from eye, mind & sky.
They need protection too.theguardian.com/environment/20…
111
@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…
112
@RobGMacfarlane
"We often admire trees for their steady rootedness, but right now, around the world, forests are on the move."
Beautiful, thought-provoking multi-media essay by @ChelseaScudder & Jeremy Seifert abt the "great tree migration" from the Pleistocene-Present.
emergencemagazine.org/feature/they-c…
113
@RobGMacfarlane
Well this utterly delights me.
A Dadaist re-write of The Old Ways by harvest mice.
Thank you to my avant-garde collaborators!
Book become a place of shelter, words as winter nest. Sometimes that’s what writing can feel like. twitter.com/paulpowlesland…
114
@RobGMacfarlane
This, at last!! 👇👇 👏👏
And a thumping majority in the vote, too. twitter.com/Keeptheban_/st…
115
@RobGMacfarlane
Book-lovers, book-believers, readers, writers: the @scottishbktrust is running a crucial new campaign to get books into the hands & homes of Scottish children who don't have easy access to them.
Please share on, consider a donation if you can & find out more below.
📚🪄 twitter.com/scottishbktrus…
116
@RobGMacfarlane
Johnson’s government’s sustained deplete-and-degrade approach to the teaching of the creative arts/music at secondary schools continues.
This time with the removal of a “ring-fenced” £270m fund.
NB decline in uptake of arts subjects at GCSE & A-level.
Via @PrivateEyeNews.
117
@RobGMacfarlane
This story...
The oldest drawing of a ghost discovered on a 3500yo Babylonian tablet.
A man bound & led by a mortal lover.
If you light it, "the figures leap out at you across time."
From an exorcist's guide to returning unwanted spirits to the underworld.
theguardian.com/culture/2021/o…
118
@RobGMacfarlane
"Contrast the silence from politicians and the absence of editorials in the billionaire press about [the arson attack] suffered by Chris Packham with the furious response to the protests by Insulate Britain." theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
119
@RobGMacfarlane
EO Wilson speaks of "The Eremocene"––the Age of Loneliness––entered as we degrade & erase the species we share this Earth.
New @NHM_London research finds UK *one of the world's most nature-depleted countries*, & the most nature-bereft in the G7.
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…
120
@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/…
121
@RobGMacfarlane
I found everything about this essay deeply depressing, from the brutal ecological asset-stripping of Nauru by high-income countries, to the imminent, unregulated wrecking of the abyssal plains of the oceans.
Nevertheless, it needs reading.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
122
@RobGMacfarlane
Never much liked the phrase "kill two birds with one stone".
Last week I was introduced to the aviphile variant: "feed two birds with one scone."
Brilliant!
I'll leave the scone/scone pronunciation controversy well alone, save for saying it clearly doesn't rhyme with stone...
123
@RobGMacfarlane
Huge ambition & vision.
200,000 ha of Highlands joined up to create a “vast nature recovery area”:
Afforestation
River corridor/peat restoration
Habitat-connection
Wildlife return
I’ll be walking across this region, from Shiel to Affric, next month.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
124
@RobGMacfarlane
"The most astonishing element of the Elwha restoration is how quickly ecosystem changes can be reversed. Everything is connected. And with connection comes life."
Such an essay about such a story: a watershed's return to wild, fabulous life once un-dammed.
orionmagazine.org/article/a-rive…
125
@RobGMacfarlane
"I can tell ministers from experience that hope is being destroyed in the places they never deign to visit and there is desperation in the faces they never see."
@GordonBrown coldly furious & clear on the imminent, "indefensible" £20 universal credit cut.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
@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