The Ragged Optimist 44
“A poet’s work [is] to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.” Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses
I planted a conker from the grounds of Warwick University after visiting with my son a couple of years back, and - as I’m a travelling man - it’s in a pot, in a friend’s garden. I had a look last week. After a winter looking like a dead stick, it’s starting to bud. Growing trees and finding places to plant them seems like a worthwhile thing to do in a time of climate collapse. And is there anything better for the spirit than this time of year, when things are showing signs of coming back to life, those little bundles of furled hope for the future?
A few years back, at the start of the pandemic, I started a thing and filled Twitter with photographs of blossom - people joined in, adding hundreds of photos from across the UK. It was a little act of rebellion, taking over a platform that was filling with anger and confusion and flooding it with beauty. Not all resistance has to be about marching, shouting, or smashing things up.
I left Twitter last year, after a long time there, but I’ve been on Bluesky since July 2023, if you want to come and say hello. I’m also still on Instagram, for now.
Reintroducing wolves in the Scottish Highlands could lead to an expansion of native woodland, which could take in and store a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, researchers have suggested. Wolves would reduce red deer populations to a level that would allow trees to regenerate naturally, so would lead to a possible increase in carbon capture of over 6000 tonnes of CO2, making each wolf worth about £154,000, using accepted valuations of carbon.
Meanwhile, Shropshire Wildlife Trust report that the pair of beavers released at the Old River Bed Nature Reserve in Shrewsbury are settling in well. The pair have been seen grooming each other - a sign of a good relationship between the mating pair who were relocated from Scotland in February.
Kestrels, weasels, shrews, wood mice and other small mammals have been returning to the River Lea after volunteers began rebuilding their ecosystems with piles of logs, artificial food caches and by coppicing trees. Spotted by reader and thoroughly good chap Barney.
My friends at Brilliant Bamboo have secured funding for development of a parklet for Stoke Town, growing bamboo and other plants and observing how it develops and supports native biodiversity. They’re working to secure a site.
Historic England has acquired the photos that Janette Rosing collected, 8000 images dating back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution. It includes some of the oldest photographs in England, showing the country’s transformation after the industrial revolution. They were secured using the UK Government's Acquisition in Lieu scheme, which allows individuals to donate to museums and galleries in return for a tax reduction.
Moorfields in London have become the first in the world to cure blindness in children born with a genetic condition, using a pioneering gene therapy. Patients were selected for treatment between 2019-2020, and five years on 'an objective test of visual acuity confirmed improvements in visual function'.
Entirely built with non-glued laminated beams in a design by Mixed Architecture, this new building (a cross between the space-age and ancient basket-weaving) in Colombia will be a place for reviewing 'the current situation as an invitation to carefully observe the obsolete models ... at the moment of proposing new realities.'
A discovery by John Innes Centre researchers opens the way for more environmentally-friendly farming practices, allowing farmers to use less fertiliser which harms the environment. Researchers have discovered a biological mechanism that makes plant roots more welcoming to beneficial soil microbes.
I’m enjoying reading this book, Utopia Britannica, which my family got me for Christmas. It’s a comprehensive historical gazetteer of five hundred attempts at utopian living, “telling the stories of our utopian ancestors from early Christian Sects to the foundation of the welfare state – a rough guide to a utopian future.”
Steve McQueen’s new exhibition at Turner in Margate opened this weekend, with over 200 photographs of joyous resistance, protest, and action from 1903-2003. You can read my review of Resistance for Isle of Thanet News here.