"My home is in the south of England, near beautiful woodlands. Since moving there in 2016, the number of ticks my family has picked up in the woods has increased each year, but this summer has been astonishing. For a few weeks, our four-year-old came home from nursery with a tick almost every day. I've had many: some tiny nymphal ones that could be easily missed."
"The weather was glorious, we saw pale blue cushion starfish and crabs, shrimps and fossils, but the surrounding yellowed, parched fields were eerie, and a reminder of the uncanniness of this moment. I felt a jolt of solastalgia, a word coined by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment."
Human-caused climate breakdown has produced the UK's hottest recorded summer and is changing outdoor areas and relationships with land and ecosystems. Homes in southern England near woodlands have experienced annual increases in tick encounters since 2016, culminating in a recent period with almost daily ticks found on a four-year-old and many tiny nymphs. Ticks are now common in Scotland during visits. Increased tick encounters heighten risks from Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, with 500,000 new Lyme cases annually in the US. Heat-damaged landscapes provoke solastalgia and complex emotional responses as memory, perception and risk calculation shift.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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