Admins please freely move this post about the cabin as you see fit. Do any of you find yourself to be at times, losing steam, or becoming disheartened by your increased exposure to the natural world? if so, how do you keep your head up? how do you stay on the brighter side, when for all intents and…

As Aldo Leopold famously wrote in A Sand County Almanac: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequence…

Wonderfully put. I am president of a local bird club and the topic of bird populations often comes up. As most people here probably know, for most species it’s not good. As such when I’m interacting with the public or newer members I always want to draw out positivity in a situation, even if just a…

I’m a GINK, green, no kids. But I take my hope from NGOs outreach to kids, teaching them about nature. For a closer to home example, there is a thread about the young people on iNat with us.

I find the best antidote to depression and despair is action. Find some way that you can fight back against what you see and then do it. I don’t mean just giving money to environmental causes although I encourage that too. I mean direct personal action. It can be anything from participating in beach…

Thanks for bringing this up. I share your thoughts as well as the wonderful replies already made here. It’s nice to know we are not alone and keeping the optimism is certainly better than not, however those darker ruminations still get in my head at times. Doesn’t help that I’m currently reading …

Without any judgement, maybe you have some traits that overlap with highly sensitive personality type (HSP)? I think this is discussed in Neurodiversity and iNaturalist! topic. For me, climate change and deforestation are more matter-of-fact, they don’t emotionally trigger me and talking about them…

Since I started seriously gardening for wildlife, I have experienced incredible hope and plenty of pessimism. I see all the species that are attracted by some relatively simple changes to yard management (adding native plants, no mowing or raking or chemicals). When I talk to my neighbors with their…

Some more information about Hatch Chiles , hadn’t heard about them until you posted. I guess Hatch Chilis are also the ancestors of Anaheim Chilis , named after the city where Disneyland in the US is found?

The Rio Grande in the vicinity of Hatch and for many miles upstream and downstream goes completely dry during much of the year when water isn’t being delivered for agriculture (primarily). The river is essentially a canal for providing water when needed (in NM and TX), so totally unnatural. Althou…

Staying Optimistic

Nature Talk

jnstuart July 5, 2022, 5:33pm 2

Topic		Replies	Views
Climate change anxiety Nature Talk	126	4469	April 6, 2025
Conservationists of the World: What flavour are you? Nature Talk education	23	1411	September 7, 2022
Use of a car for observations Nature Talk	58	2742	January 25, 2022
Thoughts of Lost Innocence Nature Talk	24	1347	November 8, 2020
What do we want from life? Developing insights from being 'naturally curious' Nature Talk	51	1825	July 12, 2022

Staying Optimistic

Related topics