This blog follows closely on the heels of the previous one on ‘Writing v. Reporting’. It could be considered a postscript.
Anne Crossman sent me the link to a ‘green interview’ by Silver Donald Cameron with the author, Margaret Atwood. Cameron has just been appointed to the Farley Mowat Chair of the Environment at Cape Breton University (CBU). Graham Gibson (Atwood’s partner) received an Honorary Doctorate at CBU for his contribution to literature and environmental activism. Cameron has conducted over one hundred ‘green interviews’ since 2009.
https://youtu.be/f7etZO74F9o?t=2721
Atwood considers herself a writer of ‘speculative fiction’, in the tradition of Jules Verne and George Orwell. Her interview with Cameron was framed in the context of ‘celebrating literature and the environment’. She is a knowledgeable writer on the state of the environment and climate change. Interview topics included Project Drawdown, plastics in the ocean, sea level rise, the extinction revolution and planting trees. In her words, if we are seeking hope, we must begin at the micro-level.
One of Atwood’s action has been to contribute to the ‘Future Library of Norway‘, a concept developed by Katie Patterson. She submitted a manuscript which will not be read for one hundred years.
This link ties in well with today’s Brain Pickings by Maria Popova. It includes the illustrated story of Wangari Maathai ‘ Planting Trees as Resistance and Empowerment’.
References
CBU green interview. https://www.cbu.ca/mowat-chair
Future Library of Norway
Brain Pickings June 9th. newsletter@brainpickings.org
Acknowledgements
To Anne Crossman for joining the dots between Silver Donald Cameron and Margaret Atwood. Edward Wedler for his graphics contribution.
Ernest Blair Experiment 