Change Archives - Mark Goldthorpe

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018

msb ~090 Realigning managed retreat

Realigning managed retreat

The process of managed retreat in Oakwood Beach, Staten Island. Nathan Kensinger — The process of managed retreat in Oakwood Beach, Staten Island

Burning Worlds’ Amy Brady interviewed filmmaker Nathan Kensinger about Managed Retreat, his documentary looking at “at the uneasy relationship between humans and nature in New York City” through neighbourhoods that are pulling back from the waterfront. Following Hurricane Sandy, residents “asked the government to buy their houses, so they could move to somewhere safer. Their homes are now being demolished and turned back into wetlands.”

Kensinger says that few New Yorkers know “their neighbors are tearing down their own homes, to escape from sea level rise. I’m hoping the film will give audiences a better picture of what may be in store…” Continue reading “msb ~090 Realigning managed retreat”

November 8, 2018

msb ~072 “We will grieve the glacier”

“We will grieve the glacier”

Andri Snær Magnason: grieve the glacier — Andri Snær Magnason

In his beautiful, stark contribution to Dark Mountain’s new collection, TERRA, Andri Snær Magnason takes us from his family’s Iceland home — “one of the harshest homesteads in Europe … you can only see the next house with binoculars” — into northlands of moss-covered lava fields and geothermal zones. Here, “it is like a window or a wound on the surface, you can feel the power that moves continents and you can feel the hostility.” Continue reading “msb ~072 “We will grieve the glacier””

November 7, 2018November 14, 2018

msb ~071 Knowledge that does not know itself

Knowledge that does not know itself

questions marks on trees in a forest — Forest of unknowing?

Revisiting Donald Rumsfeld’s sage words on knowns and unknowns, philosopher Mark Kingwell helpfully unpacks different species within Rumsfeld’s missing fourth quadrant of knowledge: the Unknown Knowns.

Some might be our subconscious dreamscape of suppressed knowledge — a form of surreal self-mapping, which sometimes surfaces in disguise into the conscious world.

Others might be the very real workings of our selves within the world, through the store of tacit knowledge we bring to our daily practices: knowledge that’s routinised, submerged. Continue reading “msb ~071 Knowledge that does not know itself”

November 6, 2018

msb ~070 Inheritance

Inheritance

Veteran environmentalist Tom Burke talked about inheritance on the BBC’s One to One this morning. As an unmarried man without children, whose wealth is mostly in the market-boosted value of his London home, he’s thinking about how to hand on something which benefits the natural world and people. “I don’t have a lot of trust in the priority that any government I’ve experienced is putting on preserving biodiversity. I understand that our future security, our future prosperity, depends on doing that. I’m not sure there’s anyone in politics very much who does.” Continue reading “msb ~070 Inheritance”

November 5, 2018

msb ~069 Loss, light and ice

Loss, light and ice

Library of Ice by Nancy Campbell — Loss and light in the Library of Ice

I published ClimateCultures’ latest post this morning: Sally Moss’ review of The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate, by Nancy Campbell. Both are fine pieces of work! I’ve just started listening to The Library of Ice audiobook and am enjoying Nancy’s vivid imagery, her thoughtful reflections.

Early on in the introduction, she describes her day job at a manuscript dealer prior to her artist’s residency in Greenland – a formative experience for the book. A photographer bearing a box of transparencies of an abandoned and ruined family house invited Nancy to write for the exhibition. “How do you write about that kind of loss?” Nancy wondered and found herself researching the science of photography as a way in. Continue reading “msb ~069 Loss, light and ice”

November 1, 2018

msb ~067 Expertise

Expertise

When I was looking into boundaries between ‘experts’ and ‘public’ on local coastal change, I explored ways to classify expertise. One typology, proposed by Michael Carolan, suggests that most of us can usually contribute abstract (e.g. scientific) or practical (e.g. local) knowledge. He described this as ‘contributory expertise’, but also identified an additional category: ‘interactional expertise’. Individuals use this to help bring together those with different forms of knowledge: essential when the issues are contentious and the debate can be confrontational. Continue reading “msb ~067 Expertise”

October 26, 2018

msb ~063 The problem with awareness

The problem with awareness

This old but excellent Discard Studies post demonstrates how, in transforming choices for greater sustainability, our focus should be on infrastructures that produce waste etc or lock in unsustainable consumer choices further down the line. In contrast, our usual focus on making individuals ‘aware’ – despite its merits – depends on many steps, reaches a limited number of people and has to battle against those same infrastructures. “Focusing on these systems for change actually scales up to the scale of the problem.” Continue reading “msb ~063 The problem with awareness”

October 23, 2018

msb ~060 Safe space

Safe space

Where do you feel safe? Interesting to learn about the changing meaning of ‘safe space’ on BBC Radio’s Keywords for Our Time. This phrase moved from its original 1940s business context — permission for employees to give feedback without fear of retribution — to feeling secure when revealing your innermost feelings to a counsellor, to a conference’s quiet space as refuge from overpowering social noise, into an agenda for personal protection from harmful speech and, by extension, ideas. A case of ‘freedom to’ shifting into ‘freedom from’? Continue reading “msb ~060 Safe space”

October 16, 2018

msb ~055 Brave ambition

Brave ambition

Call for bravery

I’ve been enjoying this post looking from the IPCC 1.5C report to the next intergovernmental climate conference, COP24 in Poland next month. I think Sarah Sutton’s choice of two words has impact: ‘ambition’ and ‘bravery’. COP21 agreed the goal of limiting the global rise to 1.5C; can COP24 agree a plan? As Sarah says, “for complex geopolitical entities, and highly-complex problems, setting goals while the path remains unfocused is how you establish ambition – the contagious desire to achieve more than ever before.” Continue reading “msb ~055 Brave ambition”

October 11, 2018October 11, 2018

msb ~052 A moral maze

A moral maze

I rarely listen to BBC Radio’s The Moral Maze. The sound of the panellists’ un-mazelike certainties clashing off each other grates on my nerves too quickly. But yesterday’s programme on climate change and the IPCC 1.5C report contained a lot more sense than I’d expected and a useful spectrum of viewpoints to explore, even though (or because) they were never going to meet. Continue reading “msb ~052 A moral maze”