{"id":3934,"date":"2021-09-29T03:42:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T03:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=3934"},"modified":"2021-09-29T18:49:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T18:49:57","slug":"migrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/29\/migrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Migrations"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Finding Hope:\nBeyond Grief and Alarmism in the Climate Crisis\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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This piece was written as part of the Veritas Institute, a program of the Veritas Forum at which college students spend a week learning from top scholars in the fields of science and technology and write an essay about a topic at the intersection of science and the big questions. Fare Forward<\/em> is pleased to support the Veritas Institute by publishing some of the best submitted pieces.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Interweaving human loss and environmental destruction, Migrations<\/em> makes the case for hope in the small steps we can take to save our planet. \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Sarah Gantt
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In Charlotte McConaghy\u2019s novel Migrations<\/em>, protagonist Franny Lynch lives in a futuristic world where \u201ceighty percent of all wild animal life has died, [and] most of the rest will go in the next decade or two.\u201d In Franny\u2019s world, undomesticated animals we consider common today, such as deer and seagulls, are either extinct or confined to remote nature preserves. Judging the book by its premise, Migrations<\/em> might look like just another piece of alarmist eco-literature, but McConaghy ends up charting a more hopeful course, one that suggests a transformation in our attitude toward the climate crisis.<\/p>

The widow of an ornithologist, Franny is determined to follow Arctic terns on their last migration from Greenland to Antarctica. Fish are scarce, so she catches a ride on the Saghani, <\/em>a commercial fishing vessel, by convincing its captain that the terns will lead him to fish. Throughout Franny\u2019s perilous journey, we witness flashbacks of her romance with her late husband, Niall. We know Franny and Niall are separated physically\u2014she is on the Saghani<\/em>, and he is not\u2014but only gradually do we realize that their separation is permanent. During her first storm onboard ship, Franny narrates, \u201cIt comes in a wave, as it does, the rupturing force of missing my husband. He too loves storms.\u201d From everything we know, their marriage was a happy one, but Franny tells the Saghani<\/em>\u2019s crew that Niall left her.<\/p>

Only in understanding Franny\u2019s history do we gain clarity about her separation from Niall. We learn she has faced incredible loss in her life. Franny grew up with her father in prison, she came home one day to find her mother dead, and her child was stillborn. These experiences contribute to Franny\u2019s restless nights full of sleepwalking and nightmares.<\/p>

Franny says she has a habit of leaving people, of traveling to faraway places and rarely returning, but she never left Niall, she only wandered from him and then came home. In her marriage, Franny stayed, and Niall left. Her narrative makes readers suspicious that we are not being given the full story. Franny lives in denial about Niall\u2019s death. They used to write letters while he was alive, so Franny continues to write to him on the Saghani<\/em>; her \u201cpile of letters to send him grows fat\u201d because she has no one to send them to.<\/p>

For Franny, Niall\u2019s death and mass extinction are intricately interconnected. As an ornithologist, Niall was passionate about climate science, and throughout their marriage, Franny became invested in his work. She even lived with him on a wild animal reserve in Scotland. In his work and personal life, Niall emphasized humanity\u2019s devastating role in the climate crisis; he often said, \u201cWe [humans] are a plague on the world.\u201d Because of her family history and connection to Niall, Franny felt the weight of humanity\u2019s destructive tendencies personally.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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McConaghy leads readers to care about climate loss because we become invested in Franny and Niall and their life\u2019s work.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Throughout Migrations<\/em>, McConaghy invites us to think about the responsibility connected to loss. During Franny\u2019s time on the Saghani<\/em>, she feels culpable for mass extinction and Niall\u2019s death. The two losses inform each other as Franny revisits intimate experiences with her husband and animals. For instance, she remembers crows that followed her and brought her trinkets when she fed them, and she remembers Niall announcing the crow\u2019s extinction to her years later.<\/p>

Franny\u2019s guilt-centered narrative surrounding death is much like the narrative contemporary scientists tell us about mass extinction. For example, one CNN headline<\/a> from about a year ago reads, \u201cThe sixth mass extinction is happening faster than expected. Scientists say it\u2019s our fault.\u201d According to a recent study cited in the article, 173 species went extinct between 2001 and 2014, \u201c25 times more than you would expect under the normal extinction rate.\u201d<\/p>

As we have seen in the past fifty years of inaction, presenting an alarmist message about climate change to the public is a failed strategy. But there are alternative approaches to the climate crisis. In Migrations<\/em>, Niall chooses a dejected, jaded cynicism, and many of the fisherman aboard the Saghani <\/em>choose denial. The novel hinges on this question: What approach will Franny choose?<\/p>

At the end of her journey, we learn Franny followed the migration pattern of the Arctic terns because Niall requested in his will that his ashes be released where the terns fly. Migrations <\/em>is an imaginative effort to feel our way into a world of grand loss; McConaghy leads readers to care about climate loss because we become invested in Franny and Niall and their life\u2019s work.<\/p>

When Franny reaches Antarctica, she witnesses the flight of hundreds of terns scientists thought did not exist. She submerges herself in the frigid water, and we expect her to end her life, her final journey complete. But Franny\u2019s eyes snap open when she hears Niall\u2019s voice saying, \u201cYou showed me. We can nurture it, if we are brave enough.\u201d Franny concludes, \u201cWe are not here alone, not yet. They haven\u2019t all gone and so there isn\u2019t time for me to drown. There are things yet to be done.\u201d<\/p>

In this scene, Franny experiences a baptismal rebirth, and her despair transforms into hope. She chooses life instead of death; she chooses hope, a positive outlook rooted in meaningful work that will help produce the kind of future she envisions. And Franny\u2019s hope is distinct from blind optimism centered around technological solutions, suggesting a mass movement of nurturers united against mass extinction.<\/p>

Through Franny\u2019s shift from alarmism to hope at the end of the novel, McConaghy provides a critical perspective on mass extinction that can transform our response to the climate crisis as a whole. Although average people cannot pull any big political levers, they are capable of fruitful action. For instance, most species of bumblebees are endangered, but adding a simple bee house to your yard can help bees survive. Such an act might seem insignificant, but compared to inaction in the face of an overwhelming problem, even such a small act of radical hope can be transformative. \u00a0<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sarah Gantt<\/strong> is an Art History and English major and French minor at Williams College. She enjoys reading poetry, rowing on the Williams Women’s Crew team, and studying Gothic cathedrals.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Migrations<\/strong> was released by Macmillan Publishers on August 4, 2020. You can purchase a copy on their website here<\/a>. <\/em>
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Interweaving human loss and environmental destruction, Migrations makes the case for hope in the small steps we can take to save our planet. 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