Ninth Issue of Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review

How does environmental change impact language? Who handles our old phones, our discarded clothes? And is anthropocentrism really at the root of the environmental crisis? The newest installment of Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review offers a dialogue on human nature and the origins of environmental degradation, taking inspiration from tradition and Indigenous practices.

In “The Inhuman Condition,” environmental humanist Jonatan Palmblad questions whether anthropocentrism is truly driving the ecological crisis, proposing that socioecological justice can only be achieved by embracing human nature. Through an ecological anthropocentrism, which begins but does not end with the human self, Jonatan argues that genuinely caring for humanity implies a care for the ecological conditions on which all organisms depend.

Literary scholar Jake Goetz’ poem “Der Bartgeier” is an homage to the bone-eating Alpine bird, who was hunted to extinction in the early twentieth century and reintroduced to the Alps in the 1980s. Atmospheric in its reach, the poem shifts across vast spatial and temporal scales while also ruminating on the reparative potential and limitations of language, ultimately seeking to return a sense of agency to the largest bird in the Alps.

In “Recycling Cultures in India” science-policy scholar Anwesha Borthakur takes us to various “castoff capitals” across the country to study electronic and textile waste, and finds that traditional methods of handling recyclables largely persist, aligning with a circular economy system. If social injustices at informal recycling sites were addressed, she writes, India could serve as “a model for sustainable waste management in the Global North.”

With serious laughs, literary scholar Rowan Deer’s “How We Got Here” narrates a brief history of the universe from the big bang to the Anthropocene, as related by someone older and wiser than all of it. A fable for clever beasts. A bedtime story for a species. A commentary on the stories we inhabit.

In a thought-provoking interview, anthropologists Jan David Hauck and Pooja Nayak discuss how “Growing Up amid Environmental Change” shapes conceptions of morality and human well-being. Drawing on Jan’s decades-long research with a small hunter-gatherer community in Paraguay, the conversation shows how these experiences shed light on ways to “creatively find alternatives” when established subsistence practices are no longer viable.

When invited to prepare a traditional dessert from the Channel Islands, geographer Rory Hill journeys through the environmental and cultural history of apple cultivation in Jersey, blending it with childhood memories. “Making Bourdélots and Tasting Terroir” reflects on how the distinctive character of Jersey’s apple products might continue to resonate even after most of the orchards have disappeared from the island and its economic life has drastically changed.

Beyond these exciting additions, Springs continues its efforts to assemble writing from other open-access RCC publications. Our Springs archive curates articles from the online and print journal RCC Perspectives (2010–2020), the peer-reviewed online journal Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History, and publications from RCC’s multigenre ecopedia, Seeing the Woods.