This episode is the second in a 3-part series. Before listening to this one, you may want to catch up with FE3.1 - Nature, by Design? Part 1: Taking the Neo-Eoscenic Route

As we continue to discuss the practice of ecological restoration, an important question emerges: is wilderness itself an illusion? We all have a picture of wilderness in our minds, but how did that image come to be? Join us for a tale of two simulacra.

For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

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For a new season of bonus Patreon mini-episodes, we’re going beyond kelp worlds to meet the rest of our seaweed sojourners.

Today, we’re stepping into a world of colour – of light, and shadow. Our first algal introduction is a stunning seaweed, known to some as rainbow leaf (or Mazzaella).

We're unlocking this first episode of of our Patreon-exclusive series: “Seaweed Sojourning”, as we explore The Curious World of Seaweed with Josie Iselin. Pay what you can – as little as a $1 per month – to get the rest of the series, and our whole back catalogue of bonus content.

https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Episode artwork by Josie Iselin (from The Curious World of Seaweed). For more images of Mazzaella in its iridescent glory, check out our Instagram

Is “Nature” a real thing, or is it just an idea? When we talk about restoring ecosystems, what are we restoring them to? Or more precisely, when?

This episode is the first part of a conversation between Mendel, Adam, and two of Adam’s mentors, wherein we explore what it means to practice ecological restoration as a form of art.

Click here for photos and details of Oliver’s artwork / restoration project in the Grandview Cut.

For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Two corrections for this episode:

• Prototaxites and giant horsetails (Calamites) were extant ~350 million years before the Eocene
• It is indeed a telescope, and not binoculars.

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Support the show and join our Patreon community

What is queer ecology? How do queer theory and artistic practice inform environmental activism and climate justice? How can we think decolonisation and queerness together?

Victoria Sin welcomes guest host Serpentine Assistant Curator, Kostas Stasinopoulos to dive into transformation, queerness, the natural and unnatural, wild, decolonial and submerged perspectives. Together with guests Ama Josephine Budge, Macarena Gómez-Barris and Jack Halberstam they ask: “where does wildness live?” and they collectively explore questions of desire, pleasure, queer resistance and affinity within apocalyptic world making.

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Future Ecologies presents this episode from the Serpentine Podcast series Back to Earth – a nine part podcast series that follows artists and an art organisation developing projects, interventions and campaigns at the crossroads of art and the climate emergency.

Learn more about the Serpentine Galleries at https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/

Subscribe to the Serpentine Podcast at https://playpodca.st/serpentine

While we work on Season 3, we're featuring an episode from one of our favourite podcasts: Plastisphere

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We want to know what you want to listen to! Take our 2020 Listener Survey and help shape the sound of Future Ecologies Season 3.

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Finally, we're releasing 2 albums: the official soundtracks of Season 2 and our Scales of Change series, featuring the instrumental compositions of Sunfish Moon Light (a.k.a. Adam Huggins), Loam Zoku, and Vincent van Haaff. We hope these help you pass the time before we kick off our next season. You can download both and name your price.

From Mountaintop to Seafloor – The Music of Future Ecologies Season 2

Scales of Change – The Official Soundtrack

This is our final chapter, and our last genus of Dragon: Immobilis – the dragons of Limited Behaviour. This genus contains only two species: Immobilis signum, or the Dragon of Tokenism, and Immobilis jevonsii, or the Rebound Effect. They are among the most pernicious dragons, especially for people who already care deeply about the climate.

As we unpack this small but important genus, we discover how they are tied to the global movement to divest from fossil fuels. Once again we find ourselves with the themes that have run throughout our entire series: the power and flexibility of language & narrative.

Visit futureecologies.net/dragons to learn more about the Dragons of Inaction (including their names, descriptions, and phylogeny), and find all of our citations, guest speakers, and musicians.

In our sixth genus, we dive deep into the Dragons of Sunk Cost – the investments that work against our climate interests.

Some of these may simply be financial, but they may also be emotional: our goals and aspirations, our patterns of behaviour, and our attachments to the places around us.

In this episode, we focus our attention on Place Attachment, as we tag along with the ṮEṮÁĆES Climate Action Project: a W̱SÁNEĆ-led eco-cultural revitalization project.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

Our fifth genus includes the Dragons of Perceived Risk: functional, temporal, financial, social, and physical. These dragons are at the root of all fears – steering our decisions in a continuous assessment of risk versus reward.

When it comes to climate change, the risks are global, but distributed unequally. In this chapter, we explore what physical risk can mean to the people dedicated to the health of the planet, as we follow one woman’s journey to becoming a force of nature.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

The Dragons of Discredence are agents of mistrust – the species of this genus are responsible for climate deniers, contrarians, and conspiracy theorists. But it’s not only the fringe that suffers from the dragons of discredence. They can act in subtle ways on all of us: casting doubt on well-intentioned policy, and dissuading us from aligning our self-interest with the interests of our environment. To tip the scales, we have to prove that there’s plenty of honey to go around.

Many of the Dragons of Inaction are insights for individuals – leading change from the bottom up. In this chapter, we discuss the other side of the equation: how governments and policy makers can design programs for climate change that people actually want.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

Our third genus contains the Dragons of Social Comparison and Social Norms.

Every aspect of who we are is mediated by these Dragons: we adjust to the norms of our communities – the people we interact with, and the people we consider to be our peers around the world. As with everything, these norms are subject to change. Their flexibility is based on our collective willingness to share, and to listen.

When it comes to the climate crisis, community conversations – in whatever form they may take – are integral to our ability to adapt. 

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

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Please note that this chapter does not contain direct reference to the ongoing protest movement against white supremacy and police brutality. However, we believe the lessons of this episode are as relevant to this cause as they are to issues of climate change.