Art of a Green Future
or how to save the world with natural aesthetics

 

This would be a new way to write a book, open ended and through posts, in no particular order.

The posts cluster around themes that could become chapter headings. Since everything interconnects, everything is connected. That is to say, all kinds of material, in all kinds of forms, are grist to the argument.

The Main argument

1. Humans need to reconnect to the reality of nature
2. Humans are energetic, creative and competitive
3. Humans can engage nature through art or by experiencing nature directly
4. The future of humans and natural world will be healthier with a love of nature
5. NOW is a crucial moment in the planet’s eco-history. We have to do something.

Watch out for nodes, synapses of the book, points of connection, not always obvious, and to give a few examples:

NATURE – humans and bananas – HOMO SAPIENS – symbiotic animals – WORKING WITH NATURE – techne, skilled practice – WORKING AGAINST NATURE – the eco crisis directly affects our health – WELLNESS – health and nature, ethics of flourishing – NATURAL AESTHETICS – interactive experiences produce greater emotional engagement – ART.

The idea is to post bits and pieces (with a chapter No. where they belong in my schemata). I hope that they will coalesce like a porous sponge self-assembling after being put into a blender.  (Many evolutionary biologists have thought that humans evolved from sea sponges that came into being about 600MYA. Sponges are a key example of multicellular living, a successful innovation that evolved at least 16 different times). But like sponges that can fragment to establish new colonies, commonalities of purpose are not restrictive. The fate of individual posts is not bound to the fate of this growing multicellular colony that I hope to nourish into a book eventually.

And my credentials?

Weak – but . . . I have worked for National Parks & Wildlife in policy, am an artist (poet and photographer), have a PhD in poetics and most importantly, I think this is an important idea whose time is running out.