#environmentalism

#environmentalism

(Courtesy of Disney) James Cameron's latest Avatar movie opens with a scene of innocent wonder. Two young brothers soar through the air on winged beasts, taking in the vertiginous views of their majestic home world. Both are Na'Vi, lithe bipedal inhabitants of the verdant moon Pandora introduced back in 2009 in the series' first entry. The boys experience Pandora as a playground, its psychedelic flora and fauna a boundless source of delight. The catch is that one of the brothers is dead.

This week's quote comes from Duke Senior's speech in Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1. Let's enjoy the hidden experience that attentive time in nature reveals. It can unlock wonder, awe, and insight. "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

This Earth911 inspiration comes from American environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill: "I wake up in the morning asking myself what can I do today, how can I help the world today." Earth911 inspirations. Post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day. Click the poster to get a larger image. Editor's Note: This poster was originally published on August 28, 2020.

But the film's singular animation style, watercolored, layered, and dreamlike, is its strongest hook, situating Wolfwalkers (2020) far apart from the CGI-heavy ilk and flattened, samey output proliferating in American kids' animation. Co-directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart of the Ireland-based studio Cartoon Saloon employed a mix of hand-drawn elements and digital tools to animate Wolfwalkers, pairing blocky city renderings of Kilkenny-inspired by medieval woodcuts-with organic, gestural depictions of the forest outside its stone walls.

After twenty years of campaigns, though, he sensed that the movement was going nowhere-and missing the deeper point. Too many environmentalists had "no attachment to any actual environment," he complained; they talked up the Earth but showed "no sign of any real, felt attachment to any small part of that Earth." A few years earlier, he had co-founded the Dark Mountain Project to promote what he would call "dark ecology." Its manifesto declared the fight against climate change lost and a "collapse" inevitable.

Anthropologist and environmentalist Margaret Mead inaugurated the first Earth Day in 1970.

Her heart is huge and she is passionate about so many social causes, but sometimes her save the world ethos can be annoying. Case in point: she loves picking up litter that isn't hers. Maybe loves is too strong a word, but she can't help herself when it comes to picking up rubbish, and sometimes I feel it's unnecessary. If she sees a piece of rubbish on the pavement, she will pick it up.

Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change; they shift their channels; they forge new routes to the sea; they move both gradually and violently; they teem (usually) with life; they may die a quasi-natural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered.

During the protest, a tribe member blessed the protesters opposing the construction of an immigration detention center in the Everglades, emphasizing cultural significance amid ongoing tensions.

You're more intimate with the water, because you can get in and out of it. And then the perspective is different because you're standing.

The very idea of de-extinction raises profound questions about the meaning of extinction and how we treat life, whether living, endangered, dead or extinct.

The Kupkas have become familiar faces to other regular walkers, who are very supportive of their actions along the Los Gatos Creek Trail.

The ocean reveals a different way of being, where time is found in the movement of clouds, the ebb and flow of tides, and the surf's pulse.

Prevost stressed it is time to move 'from words to action' on the climate.

Neil Young's new single, "Let's Roll Again," calls for American automakers to build electric cars but misses a broader point about reducing car dependency.

"As long as we let them keep on, there is hope," writes Weisman, referring to the people he writes about in this book.