As centuries pass by, the mass of works grows endlessly, and one can foresee a time when it will be almost as difficult to educate oneself in a library, as in the universe, and almost as fast to seek truth subsisting in nature, as lost among an immense number of books. 

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper - Bertrand Russell

It’s a fact: human beings are self-obsessed – to the point where we actively deny the existence of most other species on Earth. We spend our time in homes, schools, offices, factories and cities where most other life forms are excluded. For recreation, we sit in front of screens watching humans mirroring what we do in our own lives. We are fascinated by any minor fluctuation in type: Who’s the prettiest? Who’s fattest? Who can make the sweetest hoot? Who cares?!

The minutiae of human behaviour is rarely as interesting, as the exuberant, cascading variation of the other creatures inhabiting our planet. To see through solely human eyes is to miss the majesty of creation.

‘W’ – Waterbear – can hibernate for 100 years and survive 10 days, unprotected in space. There are 750 species on Earth living in every conceivable habitat from ice shelves to hot springs.

There are critters that can go into a self-induced coma for one hundred years. Others see the planet’s magnetic field and use it on endless journeys; dolphins see with sound and whales use ocean trenches to increase the range of their love songs.

Within his book, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson turns us on to the natural world. This extraordinary and exotic book is a hugely important work. Superficially, it can be enjoyed as an expose of the many weird and wonderful creatures we share our planet with. But it is also a profound journey during which we have opportunities to speculate on the much bigger questions: the origins of life, the purpose of consciousness, the destiny of technology and the prospects for human existence beyond our biosphere.

‘A’ – Axolotl – able to regenerate entire severed limbs. Argentine writer Julio Cortazar imagines a character staring at one for so long that he becomes one

Henderson skilfully amazes us as we work through his treasure-trove of beasts from A-Z (Axolotl to Zebrafish) with unique oddities of extraordinary creatures. However, his genius lies in unravelling how our ‘being-ness’, or our humanity, emerges from other species. In each chapter he draws us back to the meta-narrative that binds all life, woven over billions of years. There is something to learn from every minutiae of wildness around us, and digging into the deep ecological, natural history of our species helps us understand who we are, and why we are.

Interacting with the natural world draws us profoundly into existence. Henderson segues into rumination on humanity’s perennial fear of dying -“a tragedy of cognition” which we may not share with simpler species, describing it as “a looming presence, a lurking, silent interlocutor behind a bewildering variety of masks, with whom we have an intermittent but unending dialogue with in our heads.” He draws on Russell and Hume to boost morale, and quotes Blake as he describes death: “the dark secret love of the invisible worm sickens and destroys the rose”, and as he accesses the ‘eternal now’ as its sublime defiance: “He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.”

Agonisingly, as the pages of the bestiary turn, the dull horror returns; many of the most exciting and unusual species we share the planet with are threatened with imminent extinction and most of us haven’t even heard of them, let alone been in their presence.

In chapter “L” Henderson recounts a deeply moving encounter with a Leatherback Turtle. “The animal is vividly alive in a realm that is largely beyond our reach and our imaginations. Later I recall a phrase from Zhuangzi: “all the creatures in this world have dimensions that cannot be calculated”” Being with a giant mother laying eggs affected him profoundly as does the realisation that their populations are decimated in myriad thoughtless ways.

‘N’ – Nautilus – secrete tiny laminations inside their shells in relation to the lunar-tide cycle. Ancient shells have fewer laminations per chamber revealing the shorter days of antiquity (21 hours)

Henderson’s discourse demonstrates the biosphere still shimmers with ancient mystery. Nautilus still rise up to the moonlit ocean surface now as they did 500 million years ago. But it also laments that time is running out and each species lost is the passing of ancient and irreplaceable knowledge.

He draws on the analogy of archaeologists grimacing as they think of the library at Alexandra burning down 2000 years ago. It may have contained 500,000 scrolls which at the time may have represented a large proportion of externalised human knowledge. In comparison, biologists tell us we may lose 95% of other species on Earth – millions of species, each with unique dimensions of existence. This rarely makes the news, let alone influences how we live.

‘T’ – Thorny Devil – has a hydroscopic body drawing moisture from dew and rain to its mouth by capillary action allowing it to survive in arid deserts

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings itself is analogous to a living process – wild, diverse, mysterious and self-organising. The conclusion is one in which “nothing is concluded.” How could it? Life is a process and we are living it. Our response to the book is the ultimate epilogue. Of course, Henderson’s urgent call is for us to wake up from our shared, mass-hallucination and see that value on our planet lies not in gold, gadgets nor gimmicks but in the broiling exuberance of the biosphere.

Our hope must be that poignant works such as this connect with enough people to change our relationship with the natural world – before it is too late. We are at a point where trying to extract more from nature will be deathly. In contrast, deepening our relationship to nature and cultivating our earthly paradise can be our salvation.

The Blog of Barely Imagined Beings

‘S’ – Southern Right Whale – “males compete not by fighting but by trying to out-compete each other… in the sheer quantity of sperm that they pass to females in frequent and promiscuous couplings from their prodigious testicles (each about half a tonne)”

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Louie Psihoyos founded the non-profit organisation Oceanic Preservation Society, produced Academy Award-winning film The Cove and has helped reduce the slaughter of dolphins and whales in Taji and worldwide. What next?

Louie and his team are tackling the biggest issue on our planet. The current, human-caused mass extinction event.

Although largely ignored by the media and politicians, collapsing biodiversity critically undermines society. Our civilisation is founded on planet earth’s ecosystems. As species are lost, ecosystems change. Lose too many species and the change could be catastrophic for humanity. We have to preserve enough wild spaces for other creatures to thrive.

Scientists are saying we could lose half the species on the planet by the end of the century. Behind this mass extinction? Us. The OPS team is pulling off The Heist to inspire people to take action on behalf of the species that are blinking out on our watch.

More information here

The crew of the documentary, “The Cove” Translator, Goh Iromoto, Simon Hutchins, Joe Chisholm, Charles Hambelton, diretoctor Louie Psihoyos, Marine mammal activist, Ric O’Barry and freedivers Mandy-Rae Cruickshank and Kirk Krack

Public Service Announcement

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Snacking for the Planet

Yeah we love animals! We love animals so much we chop them up on an industrial scale stick them in tins full of gravy and then feed them to other animals we call ‘pets’. In 2007 sales of food for cats and dogs alone amounted to US$ 45.12 billion . Ironically this is almost the exact cost as an estimate for conserving total global biodiversity, $42 billion (UNEP 1992).  The hot spot approach could make total biodiversity conservation even cheaper.

Yangtze River Dolphin

Conserving biodiversity is as urgent and important as stopping climate change; we are living through the 6th great planetary extinction event. This means that species are being lost at at least 100 times the natural rate. An estimated 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species face extinction. The last such loss of species was 65 million years ago and saw the departure of the dinosaurs. Recently, the Yangtze River Dolphin was announced as gone forever. Losing such characterful species is tragic but more significantly ecologists have compared the loss of species to rivets falling off an aeroplane. Losing 1 or 2 rivets isn’t a problem but lose too many and you’re up shit creak without a paddle and there are no friendly dolphins to save you either.

Woof!

The climate impact of pets is enormous. An article in New Scientist reports that A typical medium sized  dog has an ecological footprint more than twice that of a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser. There are many other dark ironies about our peculiar love for certain species. We really love cats, 7.7 million felines live in the UK even though they decimate the local populations of small mammals; things we don’t like e.g. the endangered field mouse, voles and shrews. Scientists estimate that each year in the US domestic cats kill hundreds of millions of birds, and more than a billion small mammals, such as rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks .

We also love birds. The RSPB has over 1 million members (including 150,000 youth members), making it the largest wildlife conservation charity in Europe.^[3] Bird lovers like to feed birds in their garden. Done responsibly this can boost biodiversity. Unfortunately, at the commercial scale this is likely to be boosting UK biodiversity whilst depleting it elsewhere. Most bird seeds sold in shops will contain imported nuts. We may not know exactly where or how these nuts were grown but most likely it was in countries with weaker agricultural and environmental legislation then the EU. The mass production and consumption of these products may decimate biodiversity in the producer countries.

Peanut Bird Feeder

Peanuts are found in most bird seed mixes. Brazil is 1 of the 5 major producers/exporter countries (United States, Argentina, Sudan, Senegal) accounting for 71% of total world exports. It is well reported that agricultural growth in Brazil is largely responsible for the loss of the Amazon Rainforest, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. This means that sweet old animal loving Mrs Blogs is effectively trading the Amazon for a few blue tits pecking outside her windowsill. Bad trade!

All animals are part of the global eco-system that we conflate to call ‘nature’. If we love animals the most important thing to do is to ensure our behaviour and choices support, conserve and protect nature as a whole (aka Gaia). In general, supporting nature means consuming less. This is especially true of imported products which may have a huge environmental impact and meat which requires much land to produce. If some of the energy resources and love currently channelled by UK citizens into the pet industry were diverted into nature conservation we could save a large number of species from going extinct.

Baby Orangutan and Mother

The love that we feel for a pet can be an egocentric love. We may desire the companionship, adoration, and unquestioning love that the pet-human relationship establishes. This love is focused down onto an individual creature onto which we project many of our emotional needs. This love for an individual animal can be broadened and expanded to incorporate all of the life on the planet. We gain many well being benefits from expanding our pet-love relationship to a wider love and respect for all nature. The forests, birds in the sky, fish in the sea and all wild creatures can be our friends too.

Indigenous tribes attribute personalities to wild creatures which are pivotal parts of their world view. We can too. Clearly global ecosystems benefit when we can attribute a personality to the whole biosphere. Gaia, The Great Mother / Great Mystery is dying while we sit divorced from nature in our heated cubeoids stroking our well fed pets. Let’s open our eyes and see the whole world is full of ‘pets’ and we don’t need to own them to love them.

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