For those interested in ocean science, MEOPAR (Marine Environmental Observation Prediction & Response network) is currently running a free-to-attend online conference. Session and registration info is here: https://meopar.ca/annual-meeting/
A Science-Art Showcase is part of the event this year and (shameless plug) I have contributed a piece, which you can listen to here: Last Days of the Pacific - YouTube
Thank you for sharing this valuable information.
Thank you for sharing your piece. It definitely grasps the emotions of the title. Your artist statement is a valid reminder that time is running out (or may have run out). The hope aspect of your statement though is what keeps me working personally. I’m not even sure what I’m hopeful for anymore, but sometimes a fellow climate activist sends me a request for assistance and I literally pull myself up out of the abyss to help. Suddenly we’re on email chains calling for action, asking each other who the right resource is to contact, what’s the timeline, what’s the facts, how to get others involved, and then there is love created, love for each other, love for the work, love for the Earth and all the lifeforms involved. It’s challenging work, fighting the good fight, and sometimes I see my fellow Environmental volunteers (because they are almost always volunteers with jobs, families, commitments, bills, responsibilities) and sometimes their eyes are hollow and their expressions are flat. War is hell, as they say, and there is no doubt in my mind that the fight to save our planet’s failing ecosystems is a war of a very precise sort.
Sending love and hope and healing from my heart to all the Earth activists, from Ocean to Mountain top.
Thank you, Melanie. Yes, the “knotwork” of connection and support is so important—sharing the load so we don’t exhaust ourselves. Climate action calls our attention to so many other inequities, too. As Paul Hawken says, “Overwhelmingly, most people wake up and immediately focus on their current needs, not future existential threats. How can someone get engaged on climate when they can’t get a job? Or properly feed their family, or have access to health care, education and personal safety?”
Re. hope: Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade has written an excellent paper on the topic, spending quality time with a word that does a lot of heavy lifting in our world these days and is, unfortunately, too often used in empty ways (“hokey hope”).