I've just published a personal essay on bitterns, bereavement, and Irish literature in _The Clearing_ @LittleToller. As it happens, today is the anniversary of the execution of one of its subjects, the poet and revolutionary Thomas MacDonagh. littletoller.co.uk/the-clear…

Starmer could talk about ending right to buy & funding local authorities to build massive amounts of new council housing. He could talk about profiteering developers banking land to control supply. No. Instead he tells us newts & bats are responsible for the housing crisis

Big flaw with Labour's 1.5m new homes – house-builders can't be trusted to add biodiversity, as this important @WildJustice_org study reveals: theguardian.com/environment/… Simple solution: funding for proper inspection/enforcement/penalties.

Such an important graph in answering the commonly asked question "how the UK fucked up housing policy so badly" (From the CIH's UK Housing Review, via @jules_birch) insidehousing.co.uk/comment/…

It has been a year since my Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife came out with @pelagicpublish. I'm still so proud of it. To everyone who engaged with it, said nice things, and even bought copies - thank you so much!! 🙀📗💚

I'm fascinated by descriptions of the abundance of now rare species. This is W. H. Hudson in 1900, writing about turtle doves in the South Downs. The species is now on the verge of extinction in the UK. For more info, including how to help, see @SaveTurtleDoves

A developer wants to destroy one of the last remaining riverside meadows beside the Roding in London. 11 acres of rapidly rewilding meadow, a haven for nature in an urban area, where kingfishers nest, kestrels & bats take flight & all manner of insects, butterflies & amphibians live, is proposed to be bulldozed to create a crazy golf course. This despite the fact that there are already *two* existing golf courses within a few hundred metres of this site! The meadows used to be a publicly accessible playing field, but the person behind the development appears to have locked it up & allowed rubbish & flytipping to proliferate to make this site look ugly & unused; & thereby justify its destruction. I have been helping local residents to organise a campaign to ‘Save the Roding Meadows’ & they’ve done so much in a short space of time. Last weekend, they showed the power of community & organised a work day to do the landowners job for them and clean up the large amount of rubbish in the meadows. You can help them in their efforts by taking a moment to share this post and sign and share their petition: change.org/p/wanstead-park-w… If you live anywhere locally (in LB Redbridge or along the Roding) any additional objections to the local authority would be really helpful. The application is below, & you can use this link to log objections via the portal. The deadline is this Friday (4th October): planning.redbridge.gov.uk/re… Residents have compiled an example letter setting out the key objections at this link. Feel free to use, but personalised letters are preferable if at all possible: docs.google.com/document/d/1… Fingers crossed that the depth of care felt by local people for nature can save this irreplaceable meadow from destruction.

Visited Jenny Brown’s Point at the top of Morecambe Bay yesterday. Probably would have seen more birds if the tide had been in, but found the landscape itself enthralling. Space and light.

Thank you so much to @drdhiggins for getting our 2024-25 ‘Cultural Landscapes’ public lecture series off to a superb start this evening with a fascinating talk on ‘Rachel Carson and British Nature Writing’ @CumbriaUni @CNPPA_UoC @UoCResearch

Any green historians, env hum or (critical) plant scholars interested in submitting an abstract for our hybrid panel for #ESEH2025 in Uppsala🇸🇪? 🌿 @elinetabak and I are drafting a panel proposal: “Vegetal (hi)stories: more-than-human narratives of invasion and belonging"🌵

Exactly why I wrote The Mourner’s Bestiary, out in one week. I needed to read these books in moments like this and couldn’t find enough. bookshop.org/p/books/the-mou…

This is quite an essay by Wendell Berry. I was talking earlier this evening about children and their capacity for wonder (via Rachel Carson). So this indictment of how supposedly civilised nations treat children hits especially hard. christiancentury.org/feature…

David Higgins addresses the balance between 'dread' and 'wonder' in relation to Rachel Carson's classic 'Silent Spring' - at tonight's 'Cultural Landscapes' talk, University of Cumbria, Ambleside (here, with convener @DrPennyBradshaw) @drdhiggins @CumbriaEnglish

Enjoyed this a lot. And a good excuse to look for bitterns at Leighton Moss tomorrow. Many thanks to @DrPennyBradshaw for the invitation and to the attentive audience.

I think a lot of people in this country are really pissed off after a year with few butterflies & bumblebees We've not just lost 'pollination services' - we've been robbed of beauty and joy! Maybe @BritishSugar & @NFUtweets should read the room & withdraw their application?

Join us tomorrow (Tuesday 8th Oct) at our Ambleside campus for this free talk on 'Rachel Carson and British Nature Writing' by @drdhiggins. The talk begins at 6.30pm - details and booking via link below.

“I believe that there always will be people sane enough and compassionate enough to trouble themselves on behalf of peace.” I have always loved the writings of Wendell Berry. This is an extraordinary essay Wendell Berry: Against killing children christiancentury.org/feature…

In its literal form CCS is a fledging technology with a history of costly failure& quantitative irrelevance.But this technology interpretation has nothing to do with the £22bill. Here CCS is a rhetorical device for maintaining business-as-usual &delaying real-world emission cuts.

Imagine if they spent £22 billion on restoring peat bogs, the oceans, forests (proven carbon capture), or on public transport, insulation, solar – literally anything but this, which is just playing into the hands of the fossil fuel bros and delaying the transition to green energy