The Force Majeure – Go ahead, stop it if you can

Longevity is an appealing attribute in a world of precarity, obsolescence, fragility and flux. Longevity in the sense of things committed to for the long haul. Longevity is the opposite of our obsession with now. We’re being robbed of opportunities to experience the long slow discovery of things that sleep, and gestate, and blossom into flowers more redolent with the vast truth of the universe than any pop-up store, subway sandwich, snapchat message, or throwaway coffee cup.

Inspiring then to read of a fifty year long ecological art project lovingly tended by married couple Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, in Sierra Nevada. They are about longevity. Yes, that’s fifty years they’ve been leading a team who are “physically moving groups of plant species like wild rose and red fir to higher ground with the aim of helping the seedlings become resilient both to the warming effects of climate change and at different altitudes.” The Harrisons aim to get people behind environmental issues by integrating art and sciences – looking for the long-term viable solutions to what they consider The Force Majeure. In the legal context the phrase means “a huge power that cannot be controlled, kind of like an act of god”. Used in the context of the Harrisons’ work, it has an apocalyptic feel, as “two vast forces that we have speeded up” – global warming and rising waters. Go ahead and stop them if you can.

People who remain committed to longevity against the steep odds of the great disappearing… of animal species, land, biodiversity, natural resources, space, livable land… cast glimmers of hope. The Harrisons’ ideas about finding wide audiences for “usually dry scientific data” have to do with the capacity for emotion, stirred by art, to connect people with ideas and to build empathy. This is science communication – bringing together the dispassionate with people’s most noble emotions.