Storytelling and the Climate Crisis #5
Storytelling and the Climate Crisis #5
July/August 2023: TRIGGER WARNINGS, PILOT WHALES, AND THE TWO GEORGES
Trigger Warnings
Some readers have remarked that my Women's Prize shortlisted and most recent novel Pod, should have this on the cover, so it was on my mind when I went to the BBC in June to feature on Front Row (I'm on at 31:31) Coming out, I saw the statue of one of my heroes, George Orwell, and that quote.
If liberty means anything at all
it means the right to tell people
what they do not want to hear
So I have come back to this Substack not because the world needs another one, but because in the light of recent events in the natural world, I need to remind myself that storytelling matters. Not just for the climate crisis, but as a way to get through life.
(Please scroll through to the pictures if you just want the good news)
Things I haven't wanted to hear or see since I last wrote this are so many and various that I'll just concentrate on those directly connected with Pod: the multiple strandings of pilot whales, and their ongoing massacre in the Faroe Islands.
In my novel a pod of pilot whales, maddened and in agony because their brains and means of communicating with each other have been destroyed by anthropogenic noise in the ocean, seek to die together.
In Western Australia
A pod of one hundred pilot whales repeatedly strand themselves and are finally euthanised with bullets.
(Cheynes Beach, 26 July 2023)
Will we ever know what military activities, what seismic testing of the seabed, might have been happening concurrently? Or how about this:
Scientists are carrying out a "monumental" post-mortem investigation on a pod of 55 whales that became stranded in the Western Isles.
(Isle of Lewis, 16 July 2023)
What seabed activities in search of oil or gas, what naval activities have been going on? What we do know is that by the time of the stranding event in July 2023, ten cruise ships, each one bigger than a fishing supertrawler (ie over 100 metres long) visited the port of Lerwick, on the Isle of Lewis.
And still on the subject of pilot whales, but with a nod to the dolphins of Pod,
Trigger Warning:
In the Faroe Islands more than five hundred pilot whales rounded up, dragged onto the beach and slaughtered.
And if you want to protest the Faroese Grind by saying you won't visit the islands until it is stopped: (trigger warning again)
And here's the good news!
In May this year, the British Library as part of their Animals exhibition, staged an exquisitely moving event presented by Cerys Matthews, and featuring biologist and author Tom Mustill sharing his recordings in a whale sound-bath with a packed and rapt audience.
Followed by Cosmo Sheldrake's live DJ-ing along with his recordings of fish song (they are the birds of the ocean) from his album.
The most moving - and unreported - part of the evening was that day's decision by curator Cheryl Tipp at the British Library, to use the evening event to formally accept rare recordings of orca voices from the West Coast Community of the Hebrides. These recordings were handed over in front of us, and now housed as indigenous languages at the British Library. People cried, because we knew we were witnessing the honouring of animal culture.
Make yourself happy and click this link
Now while I'm not convinced that the pen is mightier than the sword, but continuing the good news - I definitely felt a thrill in June, when I held the pen of George Eliot to sign my name as one of the latest Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature.
'This might be the pen she wrote Middlemarch with,' someone said to me, but that was not the point. The point was and is, that George Eliot managed to convey what Ben Okri recently called 'the sunlight of truth about the human condition'. More than once, George Eliot's mind has sheltered me like an umbrella of compassion and understanding and it was a true honour to use her pen to add my name to the Register of Fellows.
So Pod was shortlisted for The Women's Prize, which has brought more readers from around the world, and been a source of great support to me since I wrote (and was shortlisted for) The Bees.
Left to right, the queen that is Barbara Kingsolver, Jacqueline Crooks, Priscilla Morris, me, Louise Kennedy, and the also-queen that is Maggie O'Farrell.
That same month Pod passed muster with biologists and scientists, and was featured in the Natural History Museum's Evolve Magazine:
and then, very excitingly has been chosen by The New Scientist for its Book Club - something that makes me very happy because I really enjoy its blend of thrilling new science and accessible writing.
Here's the article I wrote for them about why I shied away from writing it for so long (because I knew it would hurt).
I'll be taking part in New Scientist Live too, details here:
Even more good news, a wealth of storytelling for the climate crisis, entertainment, and provocative ideas:
1. The Rebel Library
Launched online on July 25th, with a short reading from me from Pod and then the most beautiful and moving poem by (Sir) Ben Okri, from his new collection Tiger Work. This online library (and many other resources) is and will be increasingly important as a repository of writing that attempts to defend the planet from further anthropogenic harm, but helping us understand where and why we're in this state - and also and in my opinion, crucially, by entertaining us.
2. Leena Norms' funny and fearless podcast No Books on A Dead Planet, where, in her own words 'we have those squirmy conversations' about books about the climate crisis.
I'm looking forward to taking part soon.
3. The Duke of Edinburgh Award podcast series, episode called Navigating the Environment. I'll tweet when this one's officially out mid-August but an early listen reveals its pragmatic hope and techniques for living for (not just) young people. Proud to have been part of this one.
Thanks for reading. See you next month.
Laline
