“The machines of climate change, carbon emissions, capitalism feel monumental, too big to address as individuals. They need big movements of people to really take them on. But individually, we can hope. And as each of us hopes, more people join in. And then more, until eventually—I hope and believe—we’ll get there.

But on an individual level, how do we remember our communities through the years? The ecosystems we’ve called home, the living beings we share the world with, as we change, and they change, and the world changes with us? Those memories and the ability to guide that change in the direction of our hope can only come from paying attention to the world hot and close around us, right now. They come from looking closely at the past, at what’s happened before, and  from remembering that once there were so many more insects in the sky in summertime. 

That the ones still up there now are miraculous and alive. What kinds are they? How do they live? How can we see them clearly before they’re gone?”

Nicolas Baird,