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World Is Burning, book club edition. We talk about reading to ease climate anxiety, how art helps us process complicated emotions, and coming back to your favorite work over the years.
We read from The Wreck of Time by Annie Dillard as well as poetry by Wumen Huikai, Nnimmo Bassey, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, and Mikko Harvey.
But first, we discussed climate anxiety as defined by the American Psychological Association as “a chronic fear of environmental doom.”
We also talked about the growing number of artists using their creative skills to talk about the climate crisis, including Creative Action Network’s Green New Deal Poster Book that benefits the Sunrise Movement.
Story #1: The Wreck of Time by Annie Dillard (Elise)
Sources:
The Wreck of Time by Annie Dillard (PDF of essay / buy For The Time Being)
Brain Pickings, Annie Dillard on Choosing Presence Over Productivity
Wikipedia on the 1991 Cyclone in Bangladesh
Olivia mentioned the “calm” website, which is Pixel Thoughts’ 60-Second Meditation Tool.
Story #2: Environmental Poetry (Olivia)
Poems:
Wumen Huikai, Translation 1, Translation 2
Nnimmo Bassey, I Will Not Dance to Your Beat and When the Earth Bleeds
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Dear Matafele Peinam (poem and UN Climate Summit video)
Mikko Harvey, The Poem Grace Interrupted
Other climate poetry collections to check out:
Poets.org, Poems About Climate Change
The Guardian, Keep It In the Ground: A Poem a Day
The Poetry Foundation, Poetry and the Environment (especially ‘Anthracite Country’ by Jay Parini)
Chicago Review of Books, 10 Poems About Climate Change to Read Right Now
The RSA, 9 Original Poems on Climate Change
Other sources:
Lapham’s Quarterly, Wumen Huikai
CMS Impact, Fair Use in Poetry
We briefly mentioned the activist Vanessa Nakate and her posters that read “We cannot eat coal, we cannot drink oil.“
The Dump
We are so obsessed with Jon Bois and SB Nation’s 17776 that we are recommending the sequel, 20020, before we’ve even read it.
Elise has been enjoyed the podcast Clothes Horse about demystifying the fashion industry. They have an episode on vegan leather that is a good companion to our last episode!
Our World is Burning themed playlist is on Spotify.
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World Is Burning 