No more quiet, Colour of Silence
Saving our World starts under our feet
By Chameleon Inhighheels
Saving our planet starts at home
Did you see the first ever Earthshot Prize Awards last Sunday? Five £1m prizes were handed to the winners of a selection of impressive finalists, all concerned with inventions that will help reverse and combat climate change. It was an inspiring and encouraging programme to watch, not just because people all over the world are passionate about sustainable living, but because the UK is clearly committed to leading this change in the world. It’s not the only thing happening this month, shining the spotlight on the environmental crisis we as humans have created.From 31st October until 12th November the UK will, in partnership with Italy, host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Whilst we seem to have Covid under control, the climate crisis persists and it is becoming clear that we are entering dangerous territory. Therefore, this conference promises that the UK will “ work with partners to take forward action on protecting and restoring forests and critical ecosystems, and will champion the transition towards sustainable, resilient and nature positive agriculture.”
“No more empty summits, no more empty conferences.”
Greta Thunberg
The pandemic certainly opened our eyes and hearts to the beauty of nature around us, in the safe radius we were allowed to move in. We marvelled at the beauty of the British countryside, its flora and fauna and got busy booking ‘staycations’, realising that it’s actually rather quite nice here. Reports from cleaner air in cities due to less traffic, clearer water in rivers as pollution declined and an appreciation for everything local was on the rise, whilst we were waiting for the pandemic to pass. We vowed to change, we promised to love nature and care for it and remember those glorious summer days in quarantine, certain that this was a turning point for humanity.
And then the lockdown ended, and we slowly returned back to whatever normal meant for each of us. We jumped back into our cars, we bought the coffee in the take-away cup, we slipped back into old habits, we started muddling through life because it is fast-paced and noisy and busy and we need to keep up with demands on us, our social lives and work.
With many of us complaining that we didn’t have a real summer and how lucky we were in 2020, enjoying glorious sunshine and mediterranean-like weather, the beginning of August brought further bad news from the UN. Code Red for Humanity was the reality we had closed our eyes to, the worst-case scenario many of us never thought would happen: That humanity had mistreated Mother Earth to such an extent that it has changed the climate, maybe even in irreversible ways. The report predicted “increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade.” If nothing changes, we face a catastrophe, one we have created ourselves.
However, we can change things, if we work together, if we start changing now. It is a sobering moment, one that shows that there is no room for delays anymore.
For many of us this may be frightening and we also may feel quite helpless, not sure what we can do, things that are within our power. The answer could be simpler than we expected. Whilst we cannot physically stop another tree in the rainforest being felled, we can step outside our front door and start changes here and now, this moment. Yes, we need to support and campaign for saving our planet as one world, however, there is much work to do here in the UK, and we can absolutely get involved in that.
A recent article by the BBC suggested that the UK has
“…little room for nature due to development and agriculture”.
It also claims that the UK is one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. In addition to this, the UK’s biodiversity, of which 90% is considered safe from falling into ecological meltdown, has only got 50% of it left. Those alarming figures tell us that we are in dire need to start caring for nature locally, rethink the way we live and review how we treat our ecosystem.
Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB suggests that,
“to play our part, we need the UK to step up and turn our global promises into action at home, to show that we are not going to let another lost decade for nature slip past.”
Globally, so the BBC reports, “biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. Since 1970, there has been on average almost a 70% decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. It is thought that one million animal and plant species – almost a quarter of the global total – are threatened with extinction.”
It is true that extinction of species naturally occurs over time, as dinosaurs proved, however, the extinction of species in today’s world is being drastically accelerated because of humans. It is said that humans were responsible for the demise of the mammoth, the giant sloth and the sabre-tooth tiger, but since the mid 18th century, humans have had ever-growing demands on nature. We use nature to grow food, to get water, to find building materials to name a few, and with this, we are depleting and destroying the home of many species. In order to save species from mass-extinction, we have to preserve their natural habitat.
Given those tragic figures, it becomes clear that we have to take action here and now in the UK. We need to protect species and their habitat around us. We need to listen to environmental agencies, we need to stop destroying nature to build more houses. We need to stop killing animals because they don’t fit into our living spaces.
Photography to show the beauty in the mundane; Love all nature
Here at Happy London Press we are proud to announce that we are committed to this change and we proudly publish our latest book.
Clare Newton, award-winning photographer and author, is discussing this in her new book “The Colour of Silence”, a thought-provoking work of art that holds up a mirror and makes us face reality. Newton, an award-winning photographer, has turned her attention to the unspoken elements of nature. Using her skill in combining researched messages and the art of creative photography, she has created a book to draw a non conservation-aware reader into a sense of reality and trigger a deeper interest in acknowledging the fast approaching truth.
It’s time to change. It’s time to reverse Code Red. It’s time to work together, and do a little bit more, every day. Small changes by many can lead to big progress. There is no time left. Our future, and that of our children depends on it. As Emma Marsh writes:
“Nature is fragile, beautiful, ugly and harsh; but in every form it is beyond precious. As adults we no longer see the simple things and the beauty that’s within them. Take for example a wasp – we fear their presence, but have overlooked their striking and graphic patterns. Or do we watch them long enough to see how intelligent they are…? They come along onto our plates, have a sniff, maybe try a bit and go. Like us they need to eat and if hedgerows and wild meadows are ploughed up, where do they get food?” (Newton, 2021).
“Nature is Not a ‘Nice-to-have’ ~ ever. It provides our life support system” (in Newton, 2021).
Colour of Silence
ISBN 9781912951031
Price £24.95
Publication date: Autumn 2021
Book can be purchased :
Waterstones
https://www.waterstones.com/
Amazon
References:
Briggs, H. 2021, Biodiversity loss risks ‘ecological meltdown’ – scientists – BBC News <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
COP26. 2021. HOME – UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) at the SEC – Glasgow 2021 (ukcop26.org) <https://ukcop26.org/> (Accessed 17th October 2021)
Lock, S. 2021. Prince William reveals Earthshot Prize winners in global bid to tackle climate crisis | Prince William | The Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/
McGrath, M. 2021. Climate change: IPCC report is ‘code red for humanity’ – BBC News <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
Newton, C. 2021 The Colour of Silence. London: Happy London Press
If you are a photographic book reviewer and have a proven following of 5k ++ readers, please get in touch for a free copy of the digital book version.
I am going to throw a wrench into the mix of answers here and go by the definition of the word “nature” to show everyone that every answer I read has one important contradiction in description. Everyone, including Websters dictionary wants to separate human activity from nature, when everything that takes place on earth is a part of nature, including humans. No matter what humans do to the earth, good or bad, it is still nature. If you are separating humans from nature because of the harm we do to the environment, you will find out that the nature of the earth has destroyed the environment far worse than humanity via natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, climate change, etc. There is no right or wrong way to evolve in nature. It is what it is and does what it wants.
If you throw anthropic principles into the mix you change those rules because humanity then becomes foremost, thus shares responsibility for what nature does. Those who care about the health of our environment like myself do so first because they want humanity to continue to exist and know that we must work with nature and not against it to make that happen because nature is ultimately in charge and not us.
Chuck Mickey
Nature is what is natural and empirical (observable) vs Metaphysical realities which are highly subjective. You have physical sciences 101 and Pseudoscience's. For an example Evolution is a pseudoscience….here is why.
Olbers paradox “dark night sky paradox” argument that darkness of the night sky is an assumption of finite universe meaning has finite amount of stars IF infinite the sky would be filled with light universe completely illuminated, extremely hot and filled with waves of radiation levels too great for any life to exist at all. Static universe?
Atheist believe this: 1 Evolution magically existed before time 2 big bang took place creating universe out of nothing 3 life came from none life and eventually evolved into a species possessing's genetic DNA codes that changed one species into a new one perpetually over millions of years.
First question everyone ask is what mechanism of communication did evolution use to perpetually change DNA codes, how was new information added and why did it need time? Time is metaphysical reality of your own mind not father time. You can not find a pound of time in nature, its not a physical thing. So why does Evolution need time if it doenst exist? plus we spontaneously change from a baby to adult—what more change would evolution need then us totally changing?
Sciences has made it clear, no one has ever observed something come from nothing and its impossible to get life from none life…..lastly no species has ever been observed to change into an entirely different species.
Any one who finds a complex machine in the amazon and implies that machine created itself or was by chances would be considered mentally unstable, insane person.
Before I can think OF nature, I have to take myself OUT of nature - to place myself as an observer, even though in reality, I am IN nature, part of its chain, web, and cosmos.
Now that I am apart from nature, viewing it from a created space outside of it, I think nature is amazing. I see you in it as well, as part of the human species within nature.
But the strange thing about humans in nature, is that we use labels to split nature apart into “good” and “bad” parts. Humans in nature also seem to separate themselves from nature, turning themselves somewhat like wild horses into workhorses, racehorses, and showhorses. These “horse-like humans” have to live in fenced up areas in nature called towns, barns, cities, and farms. It almost appears to be a form of self-domestication.
Nature can still exist outside of these domesticated areas, and sometimes nature is allowed in as well, unless the humans deem these elements of nature, weeds, pests, vermin and other labels that justify their elimination.
From this far away, nature looks pretty strange. Humans are in it, but they seem to be trying to get away from it.
Nature is nothing but an illusion, imagination and unreal. There are 2 states of nature. One is non dual and the another one is dual. In non dual state nature is none else but CREATOR. In dualistic state it is CREATION. Creation is attempted by creator without losing its non dualistic state. In this act it created an element called mind which is the smoke screen on which the process of creation is attempted since existence. This creation is a non stop, on going process which is without beginning and without end. It is endless. So the mind is the smoke screen where temporary state of nature is taking shape endlessly and creator who is the only one permanent and eternal is hiding furiously and fiercely its true and core nature, identity and the form.
So at the end it is all illusion because we do not know who the creator is and what is being created is temporary which gets dissolved or disintegrates over a period of time without any identity . So nothing is real and permanent except illusion and imagination. This is what the nature is and this is how it is designed or structured or programmed. It is our insanity or intoxication where we forget the temporary nature of our existence.
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