Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Dazzling and Dangerous: Epidemics, Space Physics, and Settler Understandings of the Aurora Borealis
By Jennifer Fraser and Noah Stemeroff Earlier this year, Explore, a multimedia company that operates the largest live nature camera network on the planet, noticed that one of its livestreams was going viral. The feed in question broadcasts from Churchill, Manitoba. Positioned directly beneath the auroral oval, this camera offers viewers a chance to catch…
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“This madness has to stop!†Indigenous Voices on the Destruction of the Amazon
By Teresa Millesi Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on Indigenous groups in Latin America, especially in Brazil, where the president Jair Bolsonaro has downplayed its severity, with his ministers calling it an “opportunity†for illegal logging in the Amazon. Horrifying videos of hospital corridors lined with corpses and pictures of mass graves in Manaus,…
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What does it mean to live a “not quite fatal†existence?
By Sadie E. Hale Lockdown in most European countries ended two months ago; but as I write this, cases are rising again, and the sense of impending confinement informs my thoughts. Questions of what constitutes a “good life†and, more chillingly, a “good death†have become more urgent during the pandemic. Yet there is a…
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The Future of Amazonia: Inheritance or Ruin?
By MarcÃlio de Freitas Amazonia is one of the planet’s last utopias. Even before the New World was “discovered,†it existed in the imaginary of foreign travelers and governments. Yet the future of Brazil’s Amazonia region is fast becoming a tragedy in the making, which is calling out for international attention.
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Lockdown and Locked In: Houseplants and Covid-19
By Darya Tsymbalyuk Just before the official lockdown was announced in Scotland, I moved all of my office plants home. There was no space for them in my room, but I rearranged my furniture to accommodate my office plants since they had been my closest companions during the crisis.
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Masking Our Uncertainties: “The Way of the Masksâ€
By Rita Brara An overwhelming sense of uncertainty fogs the Covid-19 pandemic and cityscapes in India as elsewhere in a planetary reminder of our common environment. Our uncertainties are multi-faceted—personal, practical, and social—but resonate in the insistence that we consider science-based inputs and the accompanying masked and unmasked claims regularly (if not 24/7).
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Understanding Reverse Worker Migration During the Covid-19 Lockdown in India and the Green Revolution
By Vipul Singh The Covid-19 pandemic has posed a grave challenge, with countries around the world struggling to control its spread. The easiest and most viable solution to reducing the rate of infection has been to impose a total lockdown. India is no exception. Here, too, the government announced a complete lockdown understanding the indispensability…
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The Distant Spring: Philosophy and Social Innovation
By Rafael Ziegler In response to the harm done to birds by the widespread use of pesticides, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring (1962). Her account of the “silencing of the birds†helped motivate a flock of social innovation via the emerging environmental movement. Spring 2020 has arrived with a virus pushing us behind windows and…
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Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic for Environmental Governance
By Erin Ryan The coronavirus pandemic offers lessons for leaders on every level about how—and how not—to manage complex interjurisdictional challenges, like the environment, which unfold without regard for political boundaries [1].