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The feeling of everyone studying the natural world now is one of overwhelming loss, that everything they've devoted their lives to is disappearing before their

The feeling of everyone studying the natural world now is one of overwhelming loss, that everything they've devoted their lives to is disappearing before their eyes. There isn't any way to make an honest nature documentary and not include that. To do otherwise would be to pretend that the careful selection they do to show a pristine wilderness and healthy animals is reflective of reality.

apocalypstyx 7y ago
Sometimes it seems all nature documentaries are implicitly becoming (unintentional) sequels to Last Chance to See. Maybe they should just start opening with the line: we're recording this so we'll know what it was like after it's gone.
colechristensen 7y ago
> The feeling of everyone studying the natural world now is one of overwhelming loss I am beginning to have my doubts about the reasoning behind these feelings. It is not that I deny that there are problems which have happened, are happening, and certainly will happen. I'm starting to think most people thinking, talking, and feeling about it are being driven and biased by a shared sort of doomsday cult not in major but only subtle ways. "Everyone" just "knows" it. There is loss, there is reason for concern, there is change in progress, and lots of reasons to feel about it. The feelings though don't seem like they are driven by fact, reason, analysis, and – well – science, but driven by shared feelings and ambiguous knowledge that things are bad.
- moultano 7y ago
  You should read a bit more about it. The changes are so visceral as to be unignorable. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-th... >She had been taking these sorts of research trips for two decades, and over recent years she had witnessed about 85 percent of the island’s reef system perish due to rising ocean temperatures. “I was diving with tears in my eyes,” she recalls. http://theconversation.com/sadness-disgust-anger-fear-for-the-great-barrier-reef-made-climate-change-feel-urgent-119232 http://theconversation.com/sadness-disgust-anger-fear-for-th... > We found a large proportion of respondents, including Australians and overseas visitors, expressed forms of grief in response to loss and damage to the iconic ecosystem. Negative emotions associated with words given in short statements about “what the Great Barrier Reef means to you”, included sadness, disgust, anger and fear. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/greenland-residents-traumatised-by-climate-emergency https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/greenland-resi... > 76% claiming to have personally experienced global heating in their daily lives, from coping with dangerous sea ice journeys to having sled dogs euthanised for economic reasons tied to shorter winters.

apocalypstyx 7y ago

Sometimes it seems all nature documentaries are implicitly becoming (unintentional) sequels to Last Chance to See. Maybe they should just start opening with the line: we're recording this so we'll know what it was like after it's gone.

colechristensen 7y ago

> The feeling of everyone studying the natural world now is one of overwhelming loss I am beginning to have my doubts about the reasoning behind these feelings. It is not that I deny that there are problems which have happened, are happening, and certainly will happen. I'm starting to think most people thinking, talking, and feeling about it are being driven and biased by a shared sort of doomsday cult not in major but only subtle ways. "Everyone" just "knows" it. There is loss, there is reason for concern, there is change in progress, and lots of reasons to feel about it. The feelings though don't seem like they are driven by fact, reason, analysis, and – well – science, but driven by shared feelings and ambiguous knowledge that things are bad.

moultano 7y ago
You should read a bit more about it. The changes are so visceral as to be unignorable. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-th... >She had been taking these sorts of research trips for two decades, and over recent years she had witnessed about 85 percent of the island’s reef system perish due to rising ocean temperatures. “I was diving with tears in my eyes,” she recalls. http://theconversation.com/sadness-disgust-anger-fear-for-the-great-barrier-reef-made-climate-change-feel-urgent-119232 http://theconversation.com/sadness-disgust-anger-fear-for-th... > We found a large proportion of respondents, including Australians and overseas visitors, expressed forms of grief in response to loss and damage to the iconic ecosystem. Negative emotions associated with words given in short statements about “what the Great Barrier Reef means to you”, included sadness, disgust, anger and fear. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/greenland-residents-traumatised-by-climate-emergency https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/greenland-resi... > 76% claiming to have personally experienced global heating in their daily lives, from coping with dangerous sea ice journeys to having sled dogs euthanised for economic reasons tied to shorter winters.