Among Ancient Moss Forests : Observing Twenty-five Years of Change single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Among Ancient Moss Forests : Observing Twenty-five Years of Change
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'IT WAS FEBRUARY 2022 when I started writing this essay, and I was returning from three weeks in Antarctica. As we flew back to Hobart I caught glimpses through the clouds of massive, glistening white, tabular icebergs suspended in semi-­transparent sea ice in the intensely blue Southern Ocean below. From the sky the bergs look tiny, but are kilometres long. We had just completed intense work monitoring the moss beds in and around Casey Station. Two flights were due to leave Wilkins Aerodrome that day – ours and a second flight, an Australian Airforce C-­17, that would bring the rest of the team and our precious cargo of samples back to Tasmania, the first step in their journey to the Janet Cosh Herbarium at the University of Wollongong. This is where the moss would be identified and added to the only set of data monitoring long-­term continental Antarctic vegetation – data that have revealed how humanity’s changes to our climate are damaging even these remote ecosystems.' (Introduction)

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    y separately published work icon Griffith Review Real Cool World no. 77 2022 24893928 2022 periodical issue

    'Antarctica is both a physical locality and an imaginary possibility – as a pivot around which the world turns, it has proven historically to be a space where human ideas of exploration, investigation and fantasy have played out. 

    'Yet it is the only continent on Earth that is truly free of government – a place where an international treaty from sixty years ago holds firm. National governments stake claims in the understanding that they will never be enforced, either conceptually or militarily. 

    'But this vast, dry continent is a litmus test for change – a canary in the coal mine of climate crisis. It is a deceptively rich eco-system that negotiates extremes every day, yet the signals it is sending are increasingly ones of distress: ice melt, glacial erosion and a profound change in the character and distribution of its sparse and precious flora.

    'From climate science, glaciology and marine biology to geopolitics, international law and more, this collection, produced in association with the Australian Antarctic Division, foregrounds subjects and stories from the planet’s deepest south. ' (Publication summary)

         2022     pg. 154-164
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Last amended 2 Aug 2022 11:11:26
154-164 Among Ancient Moss Forests : Observing Twenty-five Years of Changesmall AustLit logo Griffith Review
Subjects:
  • Antarctica,
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