Nature's World Cries Out for More Eco-Fiction Writers to Save Our Planet

 

Nature's World Cries Out for More Eco-Fiction Writers to Save Our Planet

"To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known…On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." Carl Sagan

Ecology entered a broader cultural attitude in the 1960's and 1970's when people became more interested in natural environmental issues and species within human connections.

A variety of eco-fiction literature developed many branches and styles to be found in many genres such as mainstream, westerns, mystery, romance, realism, science fiction and fantasy.

This collaborative genre could be any fictional landscape that was based on ecological principles which became the setting, the plot and the theme of the story. The nebulae of Nature from the smallest cells to the largest lifeforms became alive as talking, feeling characters with human attributes and emotions. Their message was to set the right standards of respecting natural order, conservation and sustainability.

So what kind of ecological principles can be embedded into eco-fiction story? 

You can talk about Nature in terms of redundancy without ego, diversity with connections, and adaptations for survival. You can express amazement at nature’s master plan of organization from the nematodes to the nimbus clouds. Without this two-hydrogen-one-oxygen molecule, any Earth life process wouldn’t exist.  You can talk about responsibility to common goals, a democratic pattern of individualism and cooperation played out in ecological terms. What about the human factors of intervention, exploration or exploitation?   

In fact, you can become more specific and talk about the reality of 4 levels in an ecosystem with plants and animals you see; but you must also involve nonliving elements (air and water) and microorganisms. Microorganisms include the bacteria, algae, fungi, and protozoa that are usually seen only with a microscope, but they must not be ignored because of their vital roles in decomposition, oxygen production and symbiotic relationships with plants so they can grow to serve as food for animals and humans.

For example, nitrogen gas (N2) makes up 80% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is one of the primary nutrients critical for the survival of all living organisms. It is required for DNA, proteins and chlorophyll. But nitrogen gas is largely inaccessible to most organisms, and must be converted into ammonia (NH3) and nitrates (NH4) before it can be used by plants as food.

Enter the nitrifying bacteria which transform nitrogen into an oxidative state for plant roots  to absorb...the essential nitrification cycle.

Now, on one hand, you can read a complex scientific treatise about this transformation or you can meet a nitrifying bacteria who explains his actions and his roles in the ecosystem. Fiction, yes, but science based as well with far reaching implications.

Or, you can read a scientific volume or two about the carbon cycle and how carbon compounds can make a series of conversions in the environment, from incorporating carbon dioxide gas into living plant cells by photosynthesis, and returning as a gas through respiration, or decaying dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels. 

Or, your story line can introduce a hydrocarbon molecule composed from the elements carbon and hydrogen who can explain his role from coal and crude oil to making natural gas, plastics, pesticides, even cosmetics and medicines.  His experience shows how the burning of hydrocarbons produces greenhouse gases which in turn depletes the ozone layer and cause climate change. Fictional character simplified, yes, but with a huge convoluted impact on the environment and ecosystems.

In summary, we need more eco-fiction stories that can talk about the relationship between natural settings and human communities.

 Their characters need to inhabit an ecosystem based on ecological principles that call attention to act responsibly to be good ethical stewards of the Earth. 

They need to share the reality of microorganisms, photosynthesis, food webs, carbon dominance, pollution, and changing weather patterns as first-person experiences. 

We must hear their joys, fears and hopes. We must pay heed to their warnings of dangers and not ignore their messages.

Also, most importantly, we need stories that show what happens when anti-ecological principles are followed; such as, believing the only bond to nature is based on cash exchanges or using nature’s bounty as individual gifts, not for common purpose. There are ecological threats everywhere from tropical forest to coral reefs to extinction of animals, once gone, forever.

People need more first-hand stories about global warming, culture diaspora, survival of the weakest links, advocacy to protect our unique natural world and create a mythology we are all connected…what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

It’s strange to say that the term eco-fiction has never been a media sensation and therefore has not become “com-modified or capitalizable, lending to its wildness.” 

Maybe its time to change that to help save our planet.

What kind of nature story would you like to hear or write? What are your fears about our planet?

Comments and questions are always appreciated. Please leave a message for a time to chat...1 833 471 4661

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com

PS: Interested in writing a paper about eco-fiction, or even teaching it? Check resources here. 

Note this blog about Disney making a movie based on an eco-fiction character and story line ... in fact, the most important superhero essential to our planet's survival.

 

 

Introducing The Incredible Journey of a Water Sprite with Roots on Earth Day

INTRODUCING: The Incredible Journey of a Water Sprite with Roots on Earth Day, April 22, 2019

"Young people: They care. They know that this is the world that they're going to grow up in, that they're going to spend the rest of their lives in. But, I think it's more idealistic than that. They actually believe that humanity, human species, has no right to destroy and despoil regardless.” Sir David Attenborough

There are many reasons for writing this Water Sprite with Roots story on his journey to find Cyclical Truths especially on Earth Day in honor of this "blue speck" in the universe.

In the nebulous world where the difference between the real and the imagined is only a matter of perception and preference and in what direction the sun's beams are slanting and in what direction the shadows are falling, there is cast into the atmosphere a young water sprite to begin his cyclical journey in one of the Earth's most essential cycles. He takes this undertaking very seriously and calls it his mission of Cyclical Truths. His accounts and feelings set a purpose and demand for morality for all generations in preservation of a finite planet.

His short name is Corddo-mont, and he personifies the most valuable, but limited resource, known as pure, fresh water.  He is unique because he is also part plant with retractable roots and cellular chloroplasts with which to make his own food from the sun's energy.  This gives him a unique perspective on the symbiotic interdependence among plants, animals and even micro-organisms at the four important levels of healthy ecosystems..

He is young, ebullient and curious with an attendant sense of humor and freshness of experience.  Along the way, he encounters various experiences that impress him with a number of cycles that describe the cooperative natural world where everything has a purpose and a right to exist to maintain potential.  In fact, he won't admit it, but he has formed a close bond with a special micro-organism known as a rotifer.

He becomes more aware of his vitality as he learns about the difficulties that threaten and exploit his nature; even to become an agent of pollution to gravely affect the myriads of life-forms that rely on his solubility factor and all-embracing sustenance.  A unique encounter impresses him with the most abundant carbon element found in all organic matter including the hydrocarbons in fossil fuels.

It is only with his encounters with humankinds that he feels a loss of self; and learns consciously,sometimes painfully, the truth of the need for conservation and preservation of balance in nature.

This story combines imagination, fantasy with scientific reality. The figurative language personifies the water sprite as a friend we should all care about his manners, fears and hopes.  Because he shares an affinity with any organic life form derived from carbon and hydrogen, he can communicate with other beings and express their stories from their realities. Most importantly, they help explain the cyclical truths that are very real and essential to ecology and the Earth's bio-systems.    

   

It is important to introduce this valuable superhero water sprite with roots on

 Earth Day, April 22, 2019.

By relating to his journey, you will also relate to Cyclical Truths and understand the confluences of Climate Change speeding out of control:

....The highest reliably recorded temperatures on Earth have happened in the last couple of years. Temperatures have reached 129 degrees (oven temperature) plus humidity. How can people work? What if “no-go zones” continue for weeks on end? How will humans survive before forced migration? 

...Climate change will have major and unpredictable effects on the world's water systems, including an increase in floods and droughts, powerful storms, and causing in turn, an impact on food supply, displacement and conflict.

...Polar ice is melting, coastlines are receding, rising sea levels threaten entire nations on low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, increasing ocean salinity, degrading the iconic Great Barrier Reef.

...Climate change is shifting the seasons with extreme weather conditions such as precipitation patterns which will impact farming and agriculture, a source of food and livelihood for more than half of the global population.

It is time to treat our Blue Planet with respect and spirit of Ecology where every community has a purpose, right to exist and maintain potential. 

Check out this valuable story for all ages today.

Your comments are always welcome.

Sincerely, Annemarie 

Excerpt: My thoughts wander about the kind of ecology that humankinds believe in, as I have witnessed. Do they get it that natural life begins with DNA in a nucleus, one celled animals and plants, then species and then an ecosystem? Do they know that every small ecosystem is part of the total large biosphere on Earth that connects them all; water, air, food, resources, and shelter? Do they realize that perpetual growth, industry or destruction of any habitat is not sustainable on a limited planet?