Clare Follmann w/ Gedney Barclay, SCAPEGOAT

Environmentalist and writer Clare Follmann visits the store to discuss her new book Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong, alongside artist Gedney Barclay. Drawing on environmental science and semiotics, Scapegoat recounts how the rhetoric of war between “native” and “invasive” species provides cover for business and political interests and their social and ecological consequences.

The problem with invasive species is a problem of capitalism.

A caste of plants and animals, labeled “invasive species,” are charged with being a key cause of habitat degradation that must be eradicated at any cost—an ethically questionable and often futile approach. While some invasive species cause great environmental damage, recent developments in the study of ecology have found that intervention efforts themselves have frequently proved more harmful than helpful to their local ecosystems. Yet the outdated narrative of “species management” persists in both public belief and conservation policy, distracting from and even justifying a far greater threat to biodiversity: the global capitalist system that is destroying our planet.

Drawing on environmental science and semiotics, Scapegoat recounts how the use of biased rhetoric and inaccessible language has created support for a popular but misleading war of “native” against “invasive” that does nothing to address the root cause of biodiversity loss. Instead, these are “plastic words” that lose their precise scientific origins with their introduction to everyday language yet still carry the weight of authority—becoming persuasive and dangerously malleable. In her surprising and clear-eyed polemic, Clare Follmann challenges the received wisdom on invasive species in light of the true ecological crisis we face. This book poses moral and political questions to make us rethink our relationship with nature (and each other) in a rapidly changing world.
Clare Follmann, M.E.S., is an author and environmentalist located in Olympia, Washington. Her writing engages with themes of landscape, ecology, climate crisis, language, and philosophy. She likes to poke holes in dominant or obsolete narratives, and strives to both listen to and help uplift the voices and stories that have been too often cast aside--including those from our more-than-human world. Her work focuses on finding and planting the literal and figurative seeds that will help support a post-capitalist society that prioritizes the well-being of people and planet.

Gedney Barclay is a writer and artist based in the Pacific Northwest. Currently on pause from creative work to focus on raising her two-year-old, she looks forward to emerging from hibernation to talk about Scapegoat with Clare in May. For more on her work, check out www.gedneybarclay.com

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