The Ed's Up - Radiate Outwards
Last month, I was interviewed by David Marchese of the NYT for their interview series called The Interview. (“How long did it take you all to come up with the name?” I asked.) Our conversation is now online, and it’s pretty wide-ranging. I talk about my experience of “burnout” and what that unfortunate term elides; why empathy matters more to journalism than false objectivity; why I still mask at speaking events and public settings; the possibility of a bird flu pandemic; how I found my way to birding; why paying attention to the natural world is an act of care and respect; how I think about “anti-science” attacks; how I find hope in hopeless times; the thematic threads that run through all my work; and why I think it’s more important than ever to radiate outwards. If any of those themes feel important to you, have a listen.
David’s a great interviewer and I’m really proud of how this turned out. There’s an online transcript that you can read at this gift link, but it’s heavily edited and omits a lot of the full conversation. If you want the whole thing, you’ll have to listen to it.
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How to Get Into Birding
One of the questions that David asked me, which I believe isn’t in the final cut, was: What advice do you have for people who want to get into birding? I’m pretty sure I garbled the answer so here’s a more considered response. I have four suggestions, which I’ll offer from least important to most.
4) Learn about your area. eBird is a great resource for finding good birding sites close to you, which are often unlikely areas. Talking to birders—the randos you see out and about with cameras and binoculars around their shoulders—can be a goldmine of tips. For me, part of the joy of birding is getting to know the land in a deep and local way. But also: If you’re disabled and housebound, you may be restricted to whatever you can see or hear from your yard or window, and that’s totally fine.
3) Use the Merlin app. Merlin is best known for identifying birds from their calls and songs. It isn’t perfect but it gets more things right than wrong and it’s exceptional for beginners. Birding is an auditory experience as much as it is a visual one and Merlin is invaluable for training your ears. (Moreover, the app secretly doubles as an encyclopedia. You can plug in your location and date, and it will rank the potential birds by your odds of encountering them.) But also: If you’re deaf, birding isn’t an auditory experience, and that’s totally fine.
2) Get good binoculars. Birding can be expensive if you shell out on high-end cameras, spotting scopes, and travel; it can also be extremely cheap because none of those are essential. The one financial outlay that is hard to escape is a good pair of binoculars. I use the Nikon Monarch M5 8x42, which are $280. I use them almost every day and they’re basically indestructible. Cheaper models exist, but past a certain price, your value-for-money nosedives. Rinky-dink bins are only marginally better than no bins at all, while the good models are transformative. But also: If you can’t afford binoculars, you’ll just have to bird without them, and that’s totally fine.
1) Make a choice. For me, this is the only non-negotiable part of birding—an activity that is 90% intentionality and 10% everything else. You have to choose. Decide that birds, and the natural world more generally, are worthy of your time and attention. Decide that you care enough to try and look at them or for them, with your eyes or your ears, from your window or in a national park. Tell yourself that identifying birds might seem challenging but is not impossible, and that learning subtle differences is not an exercise in nerdy trivia, but a profound act of respect towards our non-human peers. Realize that spending time with birds is not a means of escapism that you should feel guilty or self-conscious about, but an immersion in the full extent of the world. Choose. That’s it.
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A Newsletter For You to Subscribe to
For folks who missed the last newsletter, Liz Neeley—an expert in science communication and sense-making, who I’m married to—has started a project called Meeting the Moment that is focused on collating the onslaught of attacks on science and higher education. Every Friday, she writes a newsletter to help people “to stay informed without getting flooded” and “to figure out what is happening, how to think about it, and what to do.” Each edition includes a list of three things to pay attention to, some useful graphics and other frameworks for thinking through what’s happening, and suggestions of what to do. I love these. They’re part-journalism, part-pep-talk, and all Liz. Here’s week 3, week 4, and week 5.
And here’s a link to subscribe.
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Bird photography (and a few guest mammals)
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More reading
“I want to make two basic points that may be helpful in restoring a little fire to everyone who does not care to live in a fascist state. First: the political faction carrying out the Trump-Musk agenda right now does not have the support of the majority of the public. Far from it. And second: the fraction of the public that is happy with the agenda currently being enacted is going to get smaller for the foreseeable future.” Some wise words from Hamilton Nolan.
“The first half of my life, as well as studying history and literature, made me understand how authoritarian political system change can arrive and stay in people’s lives, for some like carbon monoxide, for some like nerve gas, and for some like clean pure air.” I love Sarah Thankam Mathews’ newsletter and her thoughts on surviving the current moment.
“There was a time, not that long ago, when American government workers got so pissed off at the people running things that they called out of work and protested for weeks.” Mary Harris on the possibility of a general strike.
“Higher education must not back down. But to win this fight, universities need more than words. They need a plan.” This is an excellent call to arms from Rebecca Calisi-Rodriguez. Relatedly, here’s a very clear memo from a group of law professors explaining why DEI initiatives are legally defensible, and why institutional leaders should maybe not bend the knee in advance.
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way explain the form that authoritarianism would take in America. This could be either reassuring or devastating depending on where your expectations currently are, but regardless, it’s an important and clarifying read.
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Upcoming Talks
Come say hi; please wear a mask
25 February - University of Utah
25 March - University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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That’s it for this month!
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Stay safe.