Solastalgia

This week, after the World at One on Radio 4, there is a series about climatic tipping points (not climactic ones, which would be a bit extreme: The Climate Tipping Points). And at the end of the first episode it alerted me to a new word...

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(new both to me that is, and to traditionally published dictionaries,  although Onelook does find three online ones. And if anyone bothers to publish hardcopy dictionaries in a few years' time it may find its way into one; I doubt it though. 

The etymology given by a site called Word Spy suggests that it has two roots: solacium and -algia: 

Word Spy's definition

But this simply repeats (and over-simplifies) the explanation by the man who coined the word in a 2005 paper. If the roots are just solacium and -algia, then where does the st come from? Professor Albrecht, in that paper, cited the influences of both nostalgia and desolation – which, come to think of it, has a pleasing (if linguistically irrelevant) suggestion of land being stripped of topsoil (solum being Latin for – inter alia – soil).

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This extract from the paper gives an idea of the thinking behind the word:

That mini-series (and also podcast) on Radio 4 gives pause for thought. Tuesday's Newscast had an interview with "Climate Change Correspondent" (who  knew there was one?) Justin Rowlatt (who wrote, researched and presents that podcast) talking about, among other things, the future of coastal communities. And he quoted a US climatologist called Ben Strauss, CEO of Climaestionte Central, (a US research organization) characterizing our legacy to future generations as "a necklace of ruins around the coasts of the world". And to finish the interview Adam Fleming invited him (by way of an 'And finally...') to name a song or songs that would sum up the situation. The one that sprang immediately to my mind was Brenda Lee's I'm sorry....

Another podcast that I've been following is The Climate Question (originally a series on the World Service, The latest had the dispiriting (not to say ominous and threatening) title Is destroying the planet a vote winner?

But what is more important for my state of mind is the need for biomass reduction in the garden (specifically, mowing the lawn).

b 

PS the "Ten Green Bottles Principle" revisited:

On Breakfast this morning they played a Gaelic setting of Psalm 46, "God is our refuge and our strength", which sounded pretty unusual to my Western European sassenach ears. But the tune (if that's the word) was strangely reminiscent of the usual tune given to Amazing Grace, supplied by the American composer William Walker. I wonder whether there was any conscious borrowing, or if this is just another instance of the "Ten Green Bottles Principle", explained here:

...words spoken by an MD of my youthful acquaintance: 'There has only been one tune written in the history of the world - "Ten Green Bottles".' (This may not be original, but I had never heard it before).