Derek Caelin is writing a book

Sustainability organizer seeking a #solarpunk world. Writing a book: "Where the Roots are Long" about modern environmentalist themes in The Lord of the Rings.

Senior Product Manager at Terraso working on Terraso (npub1hhf…4mpq) and LandPKS. Member of Rocky Hill CT's Open Space and Conservation Commission. Opinions expressed are my own.

I post on #climate, #crafting, and #community.

work: https://terraso.org/https://terraso.org/meet-the-team/
book: https://derek.caelin.cloud/roots
website: https://derek.caelin.cloud/
pronouns: he/him/his

Public Key

npub1chfsaan0k0vdjw3cwf2g9fvsmqljxkg6pzuxyjf6redvfnxu3ktsewhsc6

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsvt5cw7ehm8kxe8gu8y4yz5kgds0ertydq3wrzfyapukkyenwgm9cprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmnttsr4df

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1chfsaan0k0vdjw3cwf2g9fvsmqljxkg6pzuxyjf6redvfnxu3ktsewhsc6

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Last Notes

2026-04-07 23:14:18 UTC

Rep. John Larson files articles of impeachment against Trump
https://ctmirror.org/2026/04/07/rep-john-larson-files-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump/

2026-03-19 19:49:45 UTC

More than 90% of new #renewableEnergy capacity is now cheaper than fossil fuels, study shows | Euronews
https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/22/more-than-90-of-new-renewable-energy-projects-are-now-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-study-show

2025-12-03 03:08:18 UTC

The #KenBurns #AmericanRevolution documentary is surprisingly good. Diverse, critical perspectives. Hits the highs and the lows of the revolution, tackles complicated topics from personal perspectives. Recommended.

2025-11-04 20:10:31 UTC

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I'm an atheist, but god bless Rebecca Solnit.

2025-10-08 20:16:22 UTC

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Something happened between the third and fourth panels that would probably deeply confuse me if I pondered it too much.

2025-07-26 16:49:38 UTC

Watercolor tree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYLAsh24yyE&t=234

2025-07-26 12:19:15 UTC

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The color and the reflections are 🔥

2025-06-22 11:19:15 UTC

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on #Iran's nuclear program. I learned two things:
- All countries, including Iran, have a right to peaceful nuclear power.
- Whether the U.S. condemns a country's covert nuclear weapons program depends largely on whether we are allies with the country. Israel's program is illegal, and destabilizing, but they are allies, so...🤷

2025-06-07 19:11:47 UTC

A successful #repair! This has been broken for a while and I had been on the verge of replacing it. But a few YouTube videos, a feew dollar bearing, and boom! Good as new!
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/643/654/032/099/402/original/19f95bde348685f7.jpg

2025-03-05 15:41:57 UTC

Years on, my memory of #Fez is that it invokes a postive inversion of H.P. #Lovecraft's eldrich multiverse horror.
Lovecraft told us our world rested above a dark, terrifying, incomprehensible universe of madness. A single filament layer was all that divides us from an infinite scape of terror.
Fez presents a happy world and then reveals that there is more to explore, brimming over with color and music and people and mystery, just beneath it. And more beyond that, and so on.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/110/577/724/427/802/original/f6b628b4e9e886c2.png

2025-02-07 19:49:23 UTC

The real struggle with travel is not being able to pack my massive hardcover copy "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell". 😔
It's an absolute brick. Weighs as much as the rest of my carryon.
#bookstodon

2024-12-31 02:13:36 UTC

My father gifted me a gift card to Bookshop.org, and I am paralyzed. Do I buy a beloved, already-read book to add to my home library? Or do I buy a new, untested book that my town library doesn't have in circulation?
#bookstodon siblings. I am in crisis, and I need your help.

2024-12-02 00:39:00 UTC

Made a bookcase out of scrap 2-by-6s for the kidder's bedroom.
#woodworking #crafting #carpentry
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/580/429/516/456/332/original/a7bfdcdc88d4f9bf.jpg

2024-12-01 14:24:34 UTC

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How often would you guess that the word "hope" shows up in the #LordOfTheRings?
I just counted for research. I was surprised! Will share the results after.
(Include derivations, e.g. "hopeful" and "hopeless", prologue and the appendices) #bookstodon

2024-11-23 23:05:27 UTC

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"To hope is to accept despair as an emotion but not as an analysis. To recognize that what is unlikely is posible, just as what likely is not inevitable. To understand that difficult is not the same as impossible. To plan and to accept that the unexpected often disrupts plans-for the better and for the worse. To know the powerful have their weaknesses, and we who are supposed to be weak have great power together, power to change the world, have done so before and will again."
- Rebecca Solnit

2024-11-22 20:35:48 UTC

New Zealand threatens Maori rights — and the planet. | Grist
https://grist.org/indigenous/mass-protests-against-new-zealands-effort-to-weaken-maori-rights-and-hurt-the-planet/

2024-11-20 22:21:50 UTC

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Added a bevel to the wand handle, and started carving a pattern.
#woodworking
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/517/602/266/022/072/original/cd30dbb6193d02a8.jpg

2024-11-19 19:33:52 UTC

The US no longer supports capping plastic production in UN treaty | Grist
https://grist.org/regulation/us-backtracks-production-caps-global-plastics-treaty-united-nations/

2024-11-18 14:03:23 UTC

Kiddo wants a wand, I did the first cuts this morning. Need to figure out how to embelish.
#crafting #woodworking
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/504/316/371/709/662/original/bb81f90297e18cda.png
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/504/317/140/284/842/original/6c0b9888610bd1b2.png

2024-11-17 21:41:34 UTC

My feed is:
* 1 part people sharing pictures of wilderness
* 2 parts people blaming Democrats for losing to Trump
* 1 part someone enthusiastically boosting something in German
* 1 part tech is good, actually
* 2 parts tech is bad, actually (especially Blusky)
* 1 part BIRDS

2024-11-16 00:40:58 UTC

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Another angle, and a video link.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS804Qha0Fs&t=8655
It's wild. Dad would like remuneration or at least a citation, but I don't know who to ask about this, a scene in a 4 year old game.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/489/839/499/127/891/original/834e8e99471a452b.png

2024-11-16 00:02:25 UTC

Oh my god. My dad's painting, The Planetary Suite, is referenced in #TheLastOfUs part 2.
I am absolutely astounded.
Dad's website is https://suite3d.com, by the way.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/489/647/041/396/887/original/870a088073258e0c.jpg
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/489/648/016/824/541/original/ed7696a7f3860fca.jpg

2024-11-12 14:01:04 UTC

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Pleased with my outline themes of Hope and Despair in #TheLordOfTheRings. I'll weave together events from the story with modern climate stories.
- Hope and Despair
- The Line 3 Protests
- Impending Doom of Middle Earth
- Despair as a weapon
- The Nazgul
- The Palantir
- The Words of Wormtongue
- Responsese to Despair
- Embrace Despair (Denethor)
- Hope on, Then
- The plan to destroy the ring
- Theoden riding to glory
- Sam in the black lands

2024-11-12 13:45:52 UTC

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"I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls."

2024-11-10 13:34:35 UTC

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“We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees.’
‘Rightly said!’ cried Beregond, rising and striding to and fro. ‘Nay, though all things must come utterly to an end in time, Gondor shall not perish yet.”

2024-11-10 13:23:48 UTC

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“Come, come!’ said Gandalf. ‘We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel.”

2024-11-06 20:28:59 UTC

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Saying it again in video form: hope and action in #TheLordOfTheRings. If you're not feeling very hopeful right now, that's understandable. We see a lot of the characters in LoTR acting without hope.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/437/889/970/869/023/original/013edc6b4384642c.mp4

2024-11-06 14:25:48 UTC

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"We do it because every person organized and campaign won and fraction of a degree of global warming prevented will save lives. Because movements that believe are far more powerful than movements that don't. And, yes, we fight because fighting is one of the ways we get to nurture our courage and generosity and hope and all those other fundamentally human traits that we treasure most—because our lives will be infinitely richer in that struggle than outside of it."

2024-11-06 14:25:12 UTC

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Rebecca Solnit has some great things to say here:
"So, what do we do when the world is ending? The same things that so many of the giants on whose shoulders we stand did when their worlds were ending. We choose to face our despair—to walk toward it and through it—choose to take action, choose to build movements. We do it because we don't know how it ends, because there are possibilities out there that we simply can't see from here."

2024-11-06 14:23:32 UTC

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The big difference between Denethor and the Company is actually not whether they have hope. Most of the company agree that it is unlikely that they will succeed.
Denethor is different because he loses hope, and decides to give up. Not only does he decide to kill himself - he is willing to bring down others who depend on him. He tries to kill Faramir. He gives up on the defense of Minas Tirith, where he could have been helpful to rally his people against despair.
Giving up hurts other people.

2024-11-06 14:18:38 UTC

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The third section of my book is going to talk about the role of hope in climate action - how do people keep moving when...
/waves hand at the situation.
The big takeaway, for me, is that hope is not a prerequisite for action in LoTR. It is a reward.
Sam gives up hope on the slopes of Orodruin, but resolves to carry on regardless. Faramir fights even though "it is long since we had any hope". Gandalf gambles everything on a what is admittedly "a fool's hope".
They act, even so.

2024-11-06 14:02:40 UTC

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“He turned to the Company. ‘We must do without hope,’ he said. ‘At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.”

2024-11-06 12:33:05 UTC

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‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

2024-11-03 20:58:39 UTC

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What do #Ents have to do with illegal miners in the Amazon rainforest? What do water protectors share with Hobbits traversing the wastes of Mordor? "Where the Roots are long" is an upcoming book (by me!) which explores environmentalist themes in the Lord of the Rings and how they resonate in the modern movement to address the climate crisis.
Read an excerpt: https://derek.caelin.cloud/where-the-roots-are-long/
#LordOfTheRings #writing #books #bookstodon #ClimateCrisis
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/421/030/011/563/672/original/f7b0e0a986d507e0.jpg

2024-11-02 18:11:30 UTC

It is November... *November*, here in Connecticut. I should have turned this bed two months ago, but this tomato plant is producing more than it did all summer.
#gardening
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/414/703/240/590/137/original/fbb4daa70a02425d.jpg

2024-10-29 21:37:58 UTC

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In addition to being gorgeous, funny, and devastatingly intelligent, my beautiful partner @npub17d8…qsl3 is a talented editor. She's helping me polish my pitch sample, which I'll be sending to publishers (and maybe sharing with you lovely people.)
Feels like this is happening.

2024-10-27 19:36:42 UTC

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I've finished part 2 of my book on environmental themes in the Lord of the Rings. Next up... the role of hope and despair.

2024-10-27 13:23:23 UTC

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20,000 words. ✊
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/379/593/402/916/818/original/95810fe329ca4293.png

2024-10-19 14:21:59 UTC

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"A proverb that was circulated in Qianyanzhou at that time revealed the harsh environment at that time. Soil erosion in the hilly areas of Qianyanzhou was becoming increasingly serious, and the fertile red soil was washed away, resulting in a decline in crop yields."

2024-10-19 14:21:49 UTC

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There's a generation-long restoration project in Qianyanzhou. This auto-translated article probably has some errors, but the poetry of the language comes through.
"A piece of copper on a sunny day, a bag of pus on a rainy day. Looking from a distance, it's all yellow, looking closely, it's all water and soil."
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1684292712024495264&wfr=spider&for=pc

2024-10-17 15:23:19 UTC

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I have a pretty good excerpt of my book on Tolkien themes and the modern environmentalist movement. I'm mixing together the Ents destroying Isengard with the Brazillian government breaking up illegal mining infrastructure in the Amazon. I'm going to publish it soon - hope you folks are interested.
#Tolkien #ClimateCrisis

2024-10-17 14:53:27 UTC

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What a line from Tolkien. I actually teared up a little in reading it. I think about the things we lose daily.
"Well, cheers and all that to you dearest son. We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/j-r-r-tolkien-from-a-letter-to-christopher-tolkien

2024-10-14 13:45:23 UTC

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I spent much of my early career thinking about peacebuilding. But in this book, I can only reference in a few paragraphs what I spent years trying to learn about nonviolent civil resistance.
It makes sense. It's a book about Tolkien and trees, not arguments on the impact and efficacy of nonviolence.
It just feels like I'm exercising a ghost limb.

2024-10-14 00:21:15 UTC

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Here's an interesting example of state violence against mining infrastructure.
How Brazil is taking the fight to destructive illegal mining
https://www.ft.com/content/5eb64108-3181-4352-804e-aca76e1be505

2024-10-13 22:55:26 UTC

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I want to find a real-world equivalent to the Ents breaking Isengard.
I am tempted to draw parralels to incidents of eco-sabotage, but the comparison is imperfect. The ents are a nation, for one thing. The fight in Isengard is more of a seige of an army than an incident of monkey-wrenching.

2024-10-02 16:32:52 UTC

Is there such a think as *too much* organic matter? Our garden bed was just generic "soil" and has been pretty unproductive the last few years. I worked in compost, a layer of grass mulch, and bagged plant matter. Now it looks positively hairy!
#gardening #compost
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/238/784/013/542/660/original/1a6fb104f47cb6d7.png

2024-10-02 14:43:46 UTC

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Cool!

2024-09-29 19:25:52 UTC

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Have you heard of the Te Urewaera Act of 2014? It's a pretty cool law from the Māori that recognized a New Zealand forest as its own legal entity.
"The key principles of the new Act are:
- Te Urewera ceases to be a national park and is vested in itself as its own legal entity; and
- Te Urewera will own itself in perpetuity with the Board to speak as its voice to provide governance and management in accordance with the principles of the Act"
https://www.environmentguide.org.nz/regional/te-urewera-act/
#Nature #PersonhoodOfNature

2024-09-10 13:22:15 UTC

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I went looking for a recent long-odds climate struggle and found the #StopLine3Pipeline protests.
I had forgotten Tim Walz was governor of Minnesota during the protests.

2024-09-09 17:32:26 UTC

Our native wildflower garden is, for the first time since seeding (3 years ago?) producing #aster! It's nice to have a color other than yellow. The #goldenrod from my childhood home still looks lovely, though.
#nativePlants #pollinators
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/108/773/911/995/662/original/2258261121e0c186.png
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/108/779/861/251/832/original/e91425059c67279f.png
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2024-09-08 16:50:21 UTC

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Thinking about #conservation and the Elves in the #LordOfTheRings The elves want to preserve things as they were in the elder days. They don't really have a vision for future - some hope to use the power of the three to heal the world, but the wisest, like Galadriel, assume that their time is coming to an end even if Frodo succeeds in his quest.
In the real world, the environmental movement brings together people with many different motivations, and different degrees of hope for the future.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/102/939/147/618/270/original/8904ed02d8076edd.png

2024-09-02 17:15:57 UTC

OK! I'm at ~13,000 words and I've got loads more to say about environmentalist themes in the #LordOfTheRings. I really think this could be a book!
Today I looked at building with living nature. Real world indigenous peoples such as the Khasis in India use living trees as bridges. The elves of Lothlorien live in a city in the branches in the trees. Nonfiction, fiction; these are both visions of a world in which we live more in harmony with the world.
#lotr #sustainability #writing #solarpunk
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/069/040/079/206/089/original/9fd33e7ff8bf927d.jpg
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