The Threats and the Beauty: a Few Words on the Concept of This Newsletter

This afternoon’s sunset on the island.

Dear Friends,

This newsletter is about two aspects of life on this planet: it deals with the threats to life on our planet and celebrates the beauty of life on this planet. 

The photo exemplifies this planet's beauty; I took it a few hours ago. Just before sunset, I walked from home into the nearby wetlands, which I recently described as former agricultural lands that have been 'rewilded' and given back to nature. It was freezing, and only the more extensive open waters weren't frozen. I saw a group of deer huddled together between some shrubs to stay warm, and, a bit further, a large hare ran away when I got too close. I love this island's natural beauty, especially the many efforts to preserve and expand natural areas.

Another one from a few hours ago

I remind readers from time to time about the concept of this newsletter, and since we are at the beginning of the new year, I'll spend a few words on it today. There is a strong connection between these two central themes (the threats and the beauty) because the more people reconnect with nature and appreciate its value, the more supportive they will become in taking action to protect and preserve it. 

I'll give a Parisian example, mainly because I just returned from France's vibrant capital. You may remember the fateful day in 2019 when the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire. The media was quick to publish the latest photos of the damage. To remind readers of the Cathedral's beauty, they added pictures that showed the iconic facade and other parts of this marvel of French Gothic architecture that were still standing, although unstable and at risk of collapse. 

So, the reporting focussed on the beauty lost and the remaining -often fragile- beauty at stake. This is an approach similar to what I use for this newsletter when writing about the impacts of climate change and other perils while telling the story of the beauty around us. 

Staying with this Notre Dame parallel for a moment, another storyline exists. Two other aspects of the fire received more attention a few days after the breaking news of the fire. Journalists and politicians wanted to know how we can prevent such disasters in the future. They also made restoring the Cathedral to its former glory a priority. 

Posters near Notre Dame show the complexity of restoring the partly destroyed monument to its former glory. The text reads: "Clearing the debris from the fire with the help of remote-controlled robots."

Again, I follow a similar approach in this newsletter, which leads to the two sub-themes: avoiding losing more of the world's natural beauty and restoring nature in case we have lost it. To summarize, this newsletter is about:

The threats: climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and many related problems that I'll catch under "governance" (inequality, poverty, media, education, justice, etc.).

The beauty of life on our planet: first of all, nature, but there is also beauty in culture, traditions, history, travel, or storytelling.

Positive action to avoid further losses: climate mitigation and adaptation, conservation initiatives, good governance, innovation, or international cooperation.

Restoration: Think of the rebuilding of a cathedral or the restored wetlands in the first photo, which on a planetary scale means rewilding, reintroducing species that had disappeared in ecosystems, buying back agricultural land, reforestation, connecting ecosystems, etc.

I promised all paying subscribers to aim for 100 newsletters per year, so after nearly three years, I should be close to 300 by now, but I'm actually closer to 500.

So the next time you receive newsletters from me that don't fit into the concept I just described, you can see them as one of the 200 or so extra newsletters I wrote. Alternatively, you may see them as part of the beauty I share with you. My travel stories or the cafe descriptions in the Coffee Chronicles fall into that category. And if I share some photos of my brief visit to Paris (which I might do tomorrow), see that as sharing the beauty of an increasingly greener city.

Some of you have already suggested some topics for this year, but more ideas are always welcome. 

A recent one on the threats:

One on the beauty:

And one on the positive action, such as renewable energy: