Illustrating a Planet in Peril - Natural Science illustration in the Age of Extinction

In this video I share some of my concerns about climate change and ecosystem collapse. I discuss how my concerns about climate change are affecting my future plans and direction for my natural science illustration/botanical art career

[ThingOfSome]

Looking forward to seeing what you did while abroad, and to seeing this new focus of your work.

[thejoydecision]

Really looking forward to this dialogue across the globe of expressing our local places. I think the perspective that has resonated most with me is the concept of kaitiaki, it’s a Māori term. An attempt to explain it is that wherever you have control of a resource you have the responsibility of guardianship for it too with a mind to the generations to come. Resources are mutually supporting. They support our communities and we support them by respectfully managing them. I feel sometimes folk without indigenous backgrounds are waking up to the earth but there’s a knee-jerk hating on humans reaction—understandably but it is culturally blind and imo fails to place an appropriate level of accountability on large businesses and decision makers by diffusing the same level of blame onto a toddler as it does on a tycoon. I digress... I think the story of the relationship between people and planet is much richer than exploitation and ruin. There is also a story of kaitiaki, nurture, using resources we need but doing so respectfully, expending ourselves to conserve threatened species. Yay, for reconnecting with this beautiful story from whatever cultural and physical space we come from. (Apologies if anything I’ve said offends anyone. I’m just speaking from where I stand, trying to translate this concept as best I can.) Oh and I love compost heaps.

[larrymarshall]

Fantastic video, Lee. Brenner once wrote When The Sheep Look Up about how the environment had been degraded over time to the point where everyone was wearing gas masks just to survive. I feel we're on that trajectory and until urban centers 'look up' and see that the decline in insect and bird populations as well as many other climate-related issues are important to THEIR own existence, I think we are doomed.

[Finkeldinken]

This is going to be interesting to follow!
I eat less meat than I used to and I am more conscious about my waste and "use and lose" products, and I have bought mostly organic for the past ten years (as soon as I could afford it) but all in all I think I just live in a way that makes my footprint fairly small compared to many, but it's less a conscious decision and more just a product of how my life turned out.
I live in an area where public transport is pretty good so I have not prioritized owning a car. I generally don't prioritize travelling by plane in my budget, but for many years that primarily had to do with my mental struggles - now I just have an extra reason to not travel far.
But yeah. We need corporations on board or it's all for naught.
I doubt we'll get there.

One thing I find frustrating is about my new watercolor hobby is how superior 100% cotton paper is.
It is so rough on the environment, so I wish there was a viable alternative.

[StephenMarkTurner]

Who needs Mount Everest as a subject when you have Baden Hill. :-)