Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Here is a concept that speaks to me.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solastalgia

"As opposed to nostalgia—the melancholia or distress experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home (or homesickness)—"solastalgia" is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment. A paper published by Albrecht and collaborators focused on two contexts where collaborative research teams found solastalgia to be evident: the experiences of persistent drought in rural New South Wales (NSW) and the impact of large-scale open-cut coal mining on individuals in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW. In both cases, people exposed to environmental change experienced negative affect that is exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding change process.[3]"

I think there should be another word, maybe "tempus-talgia", a longing for past TIMES. The place will exists, but it is utterly changed over time. Unrecognizable.

Here's a related TEDtalk.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-GUGW8rOpLY

I think there is a problem with his analysis but will hold that comment for latter.

I am going to start to use Solastalgia. I think we are beginning to see what it's like to mourn for a place that has been destroyed by climate change. Let's name a few examples from the past few weeks, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Santa Rosa, parts of Houston and Florida. Why not? I came from a place that was pulverized by overdevelopment, and understand the concept.

Thanks!

Revi wrote:I am going to start to use Solastalgia. I think we are beginning to see what it's like to mourn for a place that has been destroyed by climate change. Let's name a few examples from the past few weeks, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Santa Rosa, parts of Houston and Florida. Why not? I came from a place that was pulverized by overdevelopment, and understand the concept.

Thanks!

You live in a place that only exists because the climate warmed. Let us all mourn together now for Maine as it once was, pristine, ecosystems dependent upon cold and snow, existing on top of a mile deep ice sheet, and how it was ruined by global warming, and the melting of the sheets and the invasive species named human that then made their home there. We need to get a petition going immediately to fight the invasive species that took advantage of this warming!

The horrors of what Maine became 10,000 years ago during the real global climate crisis should not be forgotten just because the invasive species that took the place over is now irritated that some tiny fraction of that warming might show up and cause them to be...less cool....seems so...minor.

sjn wrote:
Neo"-Paganism/Heathenry communities

They appear to have already arrived. They are led by a new type of priesthood: people much like James Lovelock. Gaia is their God; a self regulating system of life more than 500 million years old. The Wiccan Witches, and their predecessors have followed this creed for more than 5000 years. They believe the power of the Earth is at their finger tips, but are bound by their own oath; "do no harm". We ignore our responsibilities to Mother Earth at our own peril!

"All life is one" Plutarch 50 AD

You live in a place that only exists because the climate warmed. Let us all mourn together now for Maine as it once was, pristine, ecosystems dependent upon cold and snow, existing on top of a mile deep ice sheet, and how it was ruined by global warming, and the melting of the sheets and the invasive species named human that then made their home there. We need to get a petition going immediately to fight the invasive species that took advantage of this warming!

The Last Glacial Maximum never reached Maine. There is definite evidence of Clovis sites in Northern Maine 12,700 years ago. The Clovis hunted the mammoth along the periphery of the ice sheet. No petition needed or wanted, the "invasive species" is not invasive; it was already there.

http://lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pag ... tpage2.htm

shortonoil wrote:

sjn wrote:
Neo"-Paganism/Heathenry communities

They appear to have already arrived. They are led by a new type of priesthood: people much like James Lovelock. Gaia is their God; a self regulating system of life more than 500 million years old. The Wiccan Witches, and their predecessors have followed this creed for more than 5000 years. They believe the power of the Earth is at their finger tips, but are bound by their own oath; "do no harm". We ignore our responsibilities to Mother Earth at our own peril!

"All life is one" Plutarch 50 AD

I for one think that not so bad as Consummerisim.

Revi wrote:I am going to start to use Solastalgia. I think we are beginning to see what it's like to mourn for a place that has been destroyed by climate change. Let's name a few examples from the past few weeks, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Santa Rosa, parts of Houston and Florida. Why not? I came from a place that was pulverized by overdevelopment, and understand the concept.

Thanks!

Revi,

That's sort of a mixed bag. I mourn the loss of natural spaces due to human development.

Personally I would not mourn the loss of Houston, and I would cheer the loss of NYC. Not that I want to see people suffer, it I want to see these scars removed.