For the latest post on the Plastocene, I'm linking to a piece I published yesterday in The Atlantic on the complicated question of how to keep wildlife wild on a crowded planet. We go to restoration sites in Italy and the UK, before bringing the lessons back to Montana. Saving nature clearly ain't what it used to …
The End of the Plastocene and the Renewal of Reality
Guest post by Albert Borgmann: Is the Plastocene ending? It may well have both crested in power and reached the foundations of transformation as we can see in Christopher Preston’s The Synthetic Age. But the Plastocene will definitely not pass in time to yield to a renewal of reality that will stave off the worst …
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Reshaping Wildlife
Earlier this winter, I performed some mental gymnastics on this blog trying to figure out whether I could ethically justify putting a camera trap in the woods to spy on shy carnivores. I think I decided it was okay…..kind of. Even though there is no doubt the bait and the cameras are an intrusion, it seemed …
Nazi Battleships and Anthropocene Entanglements
The Nazis were only trying to hide a big ship. Anchored in the Norwegian fjords as a deterrent against a northern invasion, the massive German battleship Tirpitz had proven effecting at keeping the British Navy at bay. Its mere presence had also made the sending of conveys around northern Norway to resupply Russia much less …
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Sticky Feet in an Anthropocene World
Imagine a lizard trying to scamper away from a predator but being unable get a grip on a smooth floor. The cartoonish image of hind legs working fruitlessly to create forward motion has been replicated on actual lizards and filmed in the lab by Kristin Winchell, a post-doctoral researcher at Washington University in St Louis. …
Turning On, Tuning In, and Dropping Out of the Anthropocene?
In a March 19th article in The Guardian, Mark Boyle wrote about the lessons he has learned from a year spent living entirely without technology. A week earlier in The New York Times, Sam Dolnik profiled a different kind of digital hermit, Eric Hagerman, a man he called with suitable appreciation “the most ignorant man …
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Could Technology Make America Wild Again?
In a recent essay published in Aeon, Henry Mance asks “can technology mend our broken relationship with the natural world?” At first, it seems, apparently not. Making points that echo those formulated by philosopher of technology Albert Borgmann in an earlier post on this blog, Mance show how technology tends to undercut any native closeness …
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Champagne, Truffles, and Climate Change
For a few scant years, the challenges of climate change lay only in the future. The prospect of transformed landscapes and disrupted ecologies was a threat that could be – and was – easily ignored. Although atmospheric scientists assured anyone who would listen that real problems lay ahead, interest in doing anything serious about it …
A Sussex Castle Rewilded
Drive past the gatehouse and head up the private, single lane road towards Knepp Castle and you do feel a little like you have arrived on the set of Downton Abbey. Pastures studded with magnificent oaks flank the narrow roadway that leads you to the main house. The landscape on both sides conveys a deep …
Wild Wolves on Tamed Landscapes
The old hunter leaned on his truffle-digging tool and took a drag on his cigarette. “Duemila lupi,” he said. Two thousand wolves. He scanned our astonished faces and then looked down at the dirt and shook his head, not even trying to conceal his disgust. We were standing in a young oak forest in Umbria …
The Plastocene 