Sticky post
The blog is named after the small fungi that emerge, tongue-like, from forest floors and grasslands. It is not too much of a leap of imagination to see the tongues as representing the Earth’s efforts to protest against the manifold tragedies being inflicted on its life forms and systems by the rapacious, and sometimes cruel, behaviour of modern human societies. Continue reading Welcome to Earth Tongues
Considered ecocentrically, identity politics and exclusive social justice activism have serious flaws. They include encouraging destructive human narcissism, a stunted range of ethical sympathy, and a disregard for a healthy natural world as the precondition for any politics at all. Continue reading The poverty of identity politics
Sated with nature’s wonders, I find an unwelcome thought returning, and I reluctantly begin to turn the focus-wheel clockwise as I lift my binoculars to the opposite shore. There it is: the ghastly sight of a recent hillside clear-cut. The devastation is obvious without the aid of magnification. Continue reading Bare-faced forestry
Do people actually believe that humanity can cause a mass extinction and there will be no consequences? I am not talking only about consequences for human physical well-being, which will be numerous. I am talking about an everlasting legacy of sorrow to human posterity. Continue reading On rational and sacred ground
One night years ago, in a park in Florida, I met a wonderful couple, Carol Wolf and her husband, Herb. They introduced me to the joys of mothing, the practice of attracting moths to suspended sheets with ultraviolet lights at night, and photographing them. This can get quite exciting, especially when a new, or unusually beautiful, species turns up. Continue reading The ethics of mothing
It seems obvious to me that my first principle should be to try to consider the effect of my every decision on all other life forms at both the individual and species levels. Continue reading Making my decisions – do least harm
In a grand revival of natural history lies a significant proportion of the work that needs to be done if humanity is to awaken to the appalling crisis of life’s erasure. Continue reading The zebras of Kidderminster
Even as the existential threats of mass extinction and climate upheaval are gathering intensity and becoming increasingly inescapable, the world’s superpowers and many other nation-states, in alignment with the corporate-industrial sector, are busy adding insult to injury. Continue reading Before midnight
… on some of our walks, a sombreness falls cloak-like. These are the ones on which we pass the signs of a recent murder or evidence of a slaughter in progress. Continue reading Life and death in the suburbs
If we refuse to heed the systemic underpinnings of COVID-19, the current epidemiological debacle will surely be dwarfed by other catastrophes in the not too distant future. Continue reading The COVID-19 mirror
What am I doing? Am I doing enough? Why am I, and are we, not doing more? Continue reading What are you doing about the ecological crisis?
