Pollution is everywhere, in that ancient Greek sense of miasma: guilt experienced as abject body fluid, moral pollution defining what kinds of beings count in social space.
Timothy MortonRead
I grew up in a haunting postindustrial landscape where prehistoric ferns grew among tens of railway tracks surmounted by brilliant arc lights where birds nested and sang in the dead of night, because for them, it was day.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the juxtaposition of natural beauty and industrial decay.
Timothy Morton's quote paints a vivid picture of a landscape shaped by industrialization, yet simultaneously teeming with life and nature. It suggests that amid the remnants of man's impact on the earth—evident in the railway tracks and artificial lights—nature continues to thrive and adapt, symbolizing resilience and beauty even in a 'haunting' environment.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of environmental conservation, this quote can illustrate how nature endures and adapts despite human intervention.
Pollution is everywhere, in that ancient Greek sense of miasma: guilt experienced as abject body fluid, moral pollution defining what kinds of beings count in social space.
The trouble with ecological invocations of Nature is that they're like calling for a medieval tool, perhaps a portcullis or an arrow slit, to fix a modern problem.
The ecological crisis we face is so obvious that it becomes easy...to join the dots and see that everything is interconnected. This is the ecological thought. And the more we consider it, the more our world opens up." The ecological thought "...is a vast, sprawling mesh of interconnection without a definite center or edge. It is radical intimacy, coexistence with other beings, sentient and otherwise.
Basically, I think 21st century conservation is moving toward preserving ecosystems by dealing with the needs of people.
The sea is not a bargain basement.
There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.
The preservation of biodiversity is not just a job for governments. International and non-governmental organisations, the private sector and each and every individual have a role to play in changing entrenched outlooks and ending destructive patterns of behaviour
The traveler fancies he has seen the country. So he has, the outside of it at least; but the angler only sees the inside. The angler only is brought close, face to face with the flower and bird and insect life of the rich riverbanks, the only part of the landscape where the hand of man has never interfered.
The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear.
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