The Once and Future World
by J.B. Mackinnon · first published 2013
50% recommend50% neutral
A look at how the natural world has changed because of the impact of humans and what we should be doing to help restore it for future generations.
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…America had more large wildlife than Africa. Whales as far as the eye could see all day long. Walruses in the Thames in London. I did a couple video essays on what I learned from a wonderful book The Once and Future World: My video essays: https://youtu.be/ZLAvBiols2Y and https://youtu.be/U4NZdciDozI The book: https://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-World-Nature-Could/dp/030...
on “Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco” ↗…are nearly 8 billion humans on Earth. Can you see the disparity? And here is a slice of the result: https://xkcd.com/1338/ If you feel like learning more about „The Great Forgetting“, read this: The Once and Future World, by J B MacKinnon (http://jbmackinnon.com/books.html). Contact me if you want the ebook.
on “Salmon spawning in the upper Columbia River, first in 80 years” ↗However much life has returned, it's nothing compared to before the Industrial Revolution. The wonderful book The Once and Future World by JB MacKinnon changed my understanding of how much more wildlife there was, everywhere. The Thames, for example, had walruses. Captain's logs of ships before steam wrote of being stopped in the middle…
on “London's Thames, once biologically dead, has been coming back to life” ↗I recommend MacKinnon's The Once and Future World, which talks about the world before our population exploded and overtook the world. It's shocking how much more untouched nature there was, or however I should describe it. Fish were so dense in the…
on “The Myth of a Wilderness Without Humans” ↗…birthrates without coercion or legislation, yielding greater happiness and prosperity. - The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, for illustrating our effect on the world colorfully and inspirationally. - The Once and Future World, by J.B. MacKinnon, for illustrating how much more nature there used to be, how much we've lost, and how much more we stand to lose. - Limits to Growth, the 30-year Update, almost 20 years old, but the…
on “Science Books of 2019” ↗Read The Once and Future World https://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-World-Nature-Could/dp/030... to learn how much more whales there used to be and their effect on making the environment more stable and able to sustain life. It's stunning…
on “Whales Keep Carbon out of the Atmosphere (2017)” ↗…is irreversible and everyone here knows we're causing more than ever. I recommend The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (audiobook free on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8z6vsg1OH8) and The Once and Future World by J. B. MacKinnon http://www.jbmackinnon.com/index.html. I recorded a video essay on Once and Future World: http://joshuaspodek.com/your-daily-environment-009-the-once-.... We've crossed tipping point…
on “Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists” ↗I highly recommend The Once and Future World, by J B MacKinnon (http://jbmackinnon.com/books.html). If you're outside Canada (North America?) it can be difficult to get an ebook version; I can help with that... ;-) (Note: with the author's agreement!)
on “Nature's 'Brita Filter' Is Dying and Nobody Knows Why (2019)” ↗I'm reading The Once and Future World by J.B. MacKinnon, and I'm reading extra slowly because I'm enjoying it so much. It's about nature, how we're wired to think the wild landscapes we grew up with were pristine, how it's truly evolved…
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗An equivalent book, which covers the same topic, and which I consider to be one of the most influential books I've ever read: The Once and Future World, by J.B. MacKinnon (https://www.jbmackinnon.ca/the-once-and-future-world) Unfortunately, the ebook version is rather difficult to buy outside of the US, but if you contact the author, he may be able…
on “Nature’s Ghosts: The World We Lost and How to Bring it Back” ↗Along these veins I recommend the book "The Once and Future World" by Mackinnon.
on “Rewilding the Self” ↗…killing them. It's curious how megafauna extinctions coincide with human arrival... Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and other "First Peoples" were just as deadly as later European settlers. The Once and Future World by J.B. MacKinnon eloquently describes our disastrous impact on Nature: https://www.jbmackinnon.ca/the-once-and-future-world
on “Bear-Sized Giant Beavers Once Roamed North America” ↗> Life is teeming nearly everywhere in the oceans Historically, this was true but no longer. There is a fraction of the life that the ocean used to support. A great source is the book Once and Future World, which describes captains' logs before steamship. They reported that ships at sea would be stopped in the middle of the ocean, far from land, by schools of fish that densely packed. Today, people are…
on “Scientists build new atlas of ocean’s oxygen-starved waters” ↗…whales, then the ocean ecology is itself a problem. Bear in mind that before voracious industrial-scale harvesting, oceans were teeming with life. This book says it all: https://www.jbmackinnon.com/the-once-and-future-world
on “Something is killing gray whales” ↗Essential reading: https://www.jbmackinnon.com/the-once-and-future-world
on “Ecological Amnesia: Life Without Wild Things (2019)” ↗