Tympanum palace Dam square

Kew botanical gardens

"Classical theories of climate dating back to Hippocrates have been reworked to explain the distinctive racial, pathological, economic, and moral characteristics between different parts of the world. In a European imperial context, climatically determined differences between human “races” and cultures were central to Western European self-conceptions of an inherent superiority over other peoples, offering to early expansionists apparently scientific grounds for believing in their own imperial sense of cultural supremacy."

"…the late 19th century effort to more precisely describe the atmospheric dynamics of monsoon failure and drought served, for Mike Davis, to help naturalize famine. If famine could be “scientifically” attributed to natural physical causes — as opposed to questions of political economy—the empire would be relieved of direct responsibility for India’s devastating famines, while also being emboldened in its efforts to understand, predict, and manage tropical environments"

"A decade ago, Australian philosopher and professor of sustainability Glenn Albrecht set out to coin a term to capture the particular form of psychological distress that sets in when the homelands that we love and from which we take comfort are radically altered by extraction and industrialization, rendering them alienating and unfamiliar. He settled on “solastalgia,” with its evocations of solace, destruction, and pain, and defined the new word to mean, “the homesickness you have when you are still at home.” He explained that although this particular form of unease was once principally familiar to people who lived in sacrifice zones —lands decimated by open-pit mining, for instance, or clear-cut logging—it was fast becoming a universal human experience, with climate change creating a “new abnormal” wherever we happen to live."