Future Ecologies

Future Ecologies presents: The Right to Feel (Part 2 — Eulogies)

Jul 17, 2024

Dive into a world where emotions collide with climate realities. Students articulate fictional eulogies for vulnerable species, exploring the profound grief of ecological loss. From pteropods to wolves, the narratives reveal urgent truths about interconnected ecosystems. Discover the heartfelt stories of a farm's closure and the community's fight for sustainable practices. The power of collective action shines through, showcasing how artists, scientists, and activists unite against environmental challenges for a hopeful future.

55:07

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Quick takeaways

The emotional writing practice allowed students to express complex feelings around climate impacts, highlighting the importance of integrating emotional narratives into climate discourse.

The extinction of wolves serves as a powerful metaphor for humanity's disruption of natural ecosystems, urging a reconnection and respect for all species within ecological systems.

Deep dives

Eulogy for Terrapods

The role of terrapods in marine ecosystems is crucial, serving as a significant food source for species like salmon, herring, and whales. These tiny zooplankton are immensely impacted by ocean acidification which threatens their survival, posing a risk to the salmon population that relies on them. As the oceans absorb more CO2, terrapods struggle to maintain their calcium carbonate shells, leading to potential collapse of the food web. The decline of these organisms symbolizes a broader ecological crisis, illustrating how human activities have far-reaching effects on marine life.

Intro

2min

Ecological Echoes: The Plight of Pteropods

11min

The Farewell of a Farm: A Eulogy of Loss and Change

5min

Roots of Resistance

6min

Echoes of the Wild: Wolves, Caribou, and the Human Impact

28min

Collective Action and the Resilience of Nature

3min

Future Ecologies presents "The Right to Feel," a two episode mini-series on the emotional realities of the climate crisis.

The second and final episode, “Eulogies,” is based on fictional writing from the class. Students imagine and eulogize something that could be harmed by the climate emergency, and then imagine a speculative future in which action was taken to mitigate that harm.

Over a two-year period, associate professor of climate justice and co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice Naomi Klein taught a small graduate seminar designed to help young scholars put the emotions of the climate and extinction crises into words. The students came from a range of disciplines, ranging from zoology to political science, and they wrote eulogies for predators and pollinators, alongside love letters to paddling and destroyed docks. Across these diverse methods of scholarship, the students uncovered layers of emotion far too often left out of scholarly approaches to the climate emergency. They put these emotions into words, both personal reflections and fictional stories.

“The Right to Feel” was produced on the unceded and asserted territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Find a transcript, citations, credits, and more at www.futureecologies.net/listen/the-right-to-feel

— — —

Part 2: Eulogies

02:15 – Clione by Annika Ord

12:49 –The Abundance Will Be Forever by Judith Burr

24:03 – A Eulogy for Wolves by Niki

33:33 – Return of the Hidden Worlds by Sadie Rittman

44:59 — Eulogy for the Bees by Rhonda Thygesen

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