Projects
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Compassionate entomology
I am promoting compassionate entomology as a way of studying insects and other arthropods that upholds the intrinsic value and welfare interests of the individual focal organisms. This challenges the prevailing viewpoint among entomologists, in which the goal of attaining more knowledge and greater understanding generally trumps such concerns.
► Read my initial article on the topic [HERE]
► Listen to an episode of the Hidden Wings and Bloodlust podcast on the subject [HERE]
► Share your thoughts on the subject with me [HERE]
Eco-fiction
At a time of great uncertainty about the future conditions that life is going to face on Earth, even in the near term, and when readers of non-fiction are increasingly wearied by facts and growing warier by the day of misinformation, I believe that fiction offers a powerful alternative means of conveying messages of deep import, be they ones that will help shift mindsets or those that will directly inspire action.
► Find out about making submissions to the eco-fiction section that I edit in The Ecological Citizen [HERE]
► Learn about my Impudent Raven eco-fiction imprint [HERE]
Tele-sports
The jetsetting of participants and supporters that permits international sports, as currently conceived, is ethically dubious and unlikely to remain feasible in the coming decades. But this does not mean that competition between geographically distant teams need cease. With tele-sports – those in which two teams in different locations can play each other in real time – such competition could continue indefinitely.
► Learn about radioball, a proposed tele-sport for international competition, in a deindustrial short story titled 'Radioball' that was published in New Maps [HERE]
► Share your thoughts on the subject with me or ask for information about radioball specifically [HERE]
Ecodemocracy
Ecodemocracy has been defined as follows: "Groups and communities using decision-making systems that respect the principles of human democracy while explicitly extending valuation to include the intrinsic value of non-human nature, with the ultimate goal of evaluating human wants equally to those of other species and the living systems that make up the Ecosphere."
Ecodemocracy is thus radically different from traditional democratic procedures. Its implementation, however, will be fundamental to any non-authoritarian ecological civilization – that is, one in which humans strive to live in harmony with the rest of nature, rather than oppressing and dominating other life through a lens of species supremacy.
Through writing articles and producing practical supporting materials – the latter under the name of MAGPIE (Methods and Guidance for the Practical Implementation of Ecodemocracy) – I am trying to help encourage a modification of the practice of democracy, in any situation that it operates and regardless of the scale.
► Read an article that I co-authored on the operationalization of ecodemocracy [HERE]
► Download a MAGPIE guide to running a simple nature council [HERE]
► Express an interest in helping with MAGPIE [HERE]
Photography
The Cairngorms Up-Close is a project in which I am documenting, via close-up photography, some of the less-acclaimed wild beings of the Cairngorms National Park. My aim is to spotlight the 'secret sights' missed by drivers, mountain-bikers, horse-riders, joggers… all but those who travel slowly and stop often.
► View the photos [HERE]
