So many of these books have been influenced by you lovely people.

After my house burned down and my whole life turned inside out I was grasping to find something to help me understand my new reality. I have always been afraid of climate change. It’s always there simmering on my mind. Jesse @blackgirlreading suggested I read Generation Dread by Britt Wray. I finally picked it up this summer and the introduction alone made me cry. Finally. A book that validated all my fears. Spoke to my worries. Allowed me to feel all of my grief.

I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever come to terms with the crisis we face. I think what makes confronting climate change so hard for people is we’d have to look in the mirror and understand our own culpability in this system. The global north fuels the heat but will not pay as steep a price as the global south, those who contribute the least amount to climate change. I think our white supremacists patriarchal systems make it hard to lean into the guilt and shame we feel every day. Because I am a hypocrite too. Here I am. Posting on Zucks metaverse. I sometimes eat meat. I use an iPhone. I still use planes to travel and get around. The list goes on. But I would rather lean into my shame. And face it head on a million times over than a lead a life that feels inauthentic. The world is burning. It’s better to try and save all we can imperfectly than do nothing because we can’t do it perfectly. It’s hard to talk about these things. It’s uncomfortable. But the only way through a problem is to talk about it. Through interviews with climate therapists and activists Wray grounds the reader in understanding that the grief is part of the process and we must learn to live along side it while also continuing to fight. For everyone. Not just ourselves.

I hope if you too don’t know what to do with your feelings of climate grief you pick up this book. I hope you sit in your discomfort. You can pull up a chair next to me. We can cry together and rage against the systems that force us to make impossible choices. But then we have to get up and we have to go out and try to save all that we can. Together. #ecoanxiety #climategrief #generationdread #nonfictionbooks #bookstagram ...

All I can say is hell ain’t hot enough for our tech overlords. Karen Hao’s book completely opened my eyes to all the ways AI is causing us and our world to suffer. More importantly that this piece of technology is NOT inevitable as they would have you believe. It’s what they NEED you to believe so you can’t live without and they go on building their data centers and ruining tech workers lives in the global south. Karen Hao’s thesis through the whole book is clear eyed and she never wavers in her comparison of AI and empire. I know it’s a long one and not for the casual reader but if you want to know more I highly suggest you research about openAI and Kenya. Look up Gebru and Google. Google and data centers in Chile or Uruguay. The chapter titled “Disaster Capitalism” alone is superb and worthy of its own article.

It’s astounding Altman’s hero is Oppenheimer. But in his pursuit to create the one ring to rule them all he doesn’t care. My only dream is that as the tide turns people continue to understand our collective power. There is an ethical way to create generative AI models as shown in this book. If only Altman and the rest had a soul.

“Over the years, I’ve found only one metaphor that encapsulates the nature of what these AI power players are: empires. During the long era of European colonialism, empires seized and extracted resources that were not their own and exploited the labor of the people they subjugated to mine, cultivate, and refine those resources for the empires’ enrichment. They projected racist, dehumanizing ideas of their own superiority and modernity to justify—and even entice the conquered into accepting—the invasion of sovereignty, the theft, and the subjugation. They justified their quest for power by the need to compete with other empires: In an arms race, all bets are off. All this ultimately served to entrench each empire’s power and to drive its expansion and progress. In the simplest terms, empires amassed extraordinary riches across space and time, through imposing a colonial world order, at great expense to everyone else.” -Karen Hao

#ai #nonfictionbooks #empireofai ...

Last. Now. Next. A girls gotta have range ya know?

What are you reading?

#summerreading #generationdread #dungeoncrawler #taiwantravelogue ...

I have been teaching for 11 years now and I have to say, this year has been my favorite. Teaching fifth grade was so much fun! I was pretty nervous to start a dramatic change but honestly it felt like the right fit almost immediately. When we did our last community circle meeting students I have had since THIRD GRADE said it was their favorite year. Like every school year it had its challenges, but after everything we went through together we felt pretty unstoppable this year. I’ll be riding this high into sixth grade where I’ll be looping with the same kids. What an honor I get to be a part of their lives this long. Such a rare privilege I don’t take for granted. Now to relish in my book stack and enjoy that well deserved summer bliss. #teacheronbreak #summer #teachersofinstagram #bookstagram ...

Finished rereading Circe and I definitely think it’s a favorite book now. I appreciate it so much more now than I did when I first read it years ago. I cracked open This is How You Lose the Time War last night and I think I’m finally read to sink my teeth into it. And Kin. You are my summer plan. #lastnownextreads #books #lastnownext ...

It took me years to finally finish this one. I would start it. Then stop. Just knowing I was not in the right head space. In all I’ve read it in bits and spurts over the course of the last seven months. Nature writing cannot be consumed quickly, at least not for me. I always have to slow down. I absolutely loved this one and I’m so glad I took my time with it. I loved the writing. It almost felt like you were there with her, bending down and REALLY looking at nature. Observing slowly. Not rushing.

I’m afraid we still have not heeded Kimmerers message. In one essay she writes how she was evacuated for one night due to a gas explosion at a nearby factory. Her warning loud and clear. And one I’m sadly too familiar with. There are no words that can quite encapsulate what it’s like to leave home suddenly, and never return because it’s reduced to ash. My story is not unique and in the coming years and decades it’ll become more common than we all think. It’s never too late to slow down and listen to the world around us. How can I participate in the Honorable Harvest? How can I express my gratitude to the Earth?

Thank you for this gift Robin Wall Kimmerer. I will return to it always. Favorite essays include: a Mother’s Work, The Three Sisters, The Honorable Harvest, Old Growth Children, The Sacred and the Superfund, Collateral Damage, and Defeating the Windigo.

#nonfiction #essays #naturewriting #braidingsweetgrass ...

I finally got around to taking this off my TBR and I have to say it completely lived up to my expectations. It’s hard not to draw parallels to what happens to Kathy and company to what happens to others in a society that are viewed as less than. As I always say the best science fiction books hold a mirror to current times as if to say “gotcha!” And although it is easy to read a book like this, about how clones are simply created (or more than likely farmed) to be used by other humans as they age or fall apart, and gasp and say how horrific! One does not need to step outside the door too far and realize these nightmares live on our streets. Haunt our nightmares. How does one cling to hope amongst such darkness? I guess sometimes just putting your feet out on your doorstep and moving forward with the promise to help your neighbor has to be enough. This book is so sad. But strangely filled with such warmth. I guess that’s life most days it seems. #kazuoishiguro #neverletmego #sciencefiction ...