An excerpt from Carl Zimmer's new book.
snip
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Last spring, coyotes strolled down the streets of San Francisco in broad daylight. Pods of rarely seen pink dolphins cavorted in the waters around Hong Kong. In Tel Aviv, jackals wandered a city park, a herd of mountain goats took over a town in Wales, and porcupines ambled through Rome’s ancient ruins. As the canals in Venice turned strangely clear, cormorants started diving for fish, and Canada geese escorted their goslings down the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard, passing empty shops displaying Montblanc pens and Fendi handbags.
Nature was expanding as billions of people were retreating from the Covid-19 pandemic. The change was so swift, so striking that scientists needed a new name for it: the anthropause.
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it's always with us
In varying degrees, but this bit by Baldesar Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier
Duke Federico was [one day] discussing what should be done with a great load of earth that had been excavated for the foundations of this palace, which he was then building, and he remarked: “My lord, I have the perfect answer for where it should go. Order a great pit to be dug, and then it can be put there without any further ado.” And to this the Duke Federico replied, not without laughing, “And where will we put the earth that comes out of the pit?” Responded the abbot: “Have it dug so large that it will take both loads.” And even though the Duke kept insisting that the larger the pit was made, the more earth there would be to dispose of, the man could never get into his head that it could not be made big enough to take the two loads…
06:16 in Books, General Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)