Modron Issue 6 Editorial

Find the CONTENTS page here.

The world beyond these pages can be kind and just, but it is not necessarily so. Environmental protections falter. Gains are fragile, contested, or uneven. Deforestation slows in Brazil, but extraction and ecological displacement surge elsewhere. In the United States, the Environment Protection Agency has revoked some of its endangerment findings, erasing a scientific foundation for regulating greenhouse gases. Elsewhere, progress lurches forward or stumbles. Nature restoration laws in the European Union exist but there is fierce debate over their implementation. To witness the weakening of protections or the dismal slowness of progress is trying. Perhaps a deeper fear too is that we may lose the belief that care, restraint, and responsibility still matter.

Meanwhile, the environmental costs of AI are a rumbling background noise. When it comes to this new technology however, the toothpaste has already been squeezed from the tube. Mrinank Sharma, a Safety Officer at Anthropic, recently resigned with a clear warning: 

“We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences. Moreover, throughout my time here, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions.

“I’ve seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too.”

-Mrinank Shama, qtd. Andrew Griffin ‘AI safety expert quits Anthropic and says the “world is in peril”,’ The Independent February 13th 2026. 

What is Sharma’s best plan on quitting Anthropic? He plans to “explore a poetry degree and devote myself to the practice of courageous speech”. 

Increasingly the human is reduced to the machine, to the data processable by the artificial intelligence of the Large Language Models. Under such conditions, the fluid complexities and mysteries of love, of inspiration, of psyche, are dismissed and evaporate. But yes, courageous speech. We’re reminded of the words of Czesław Miłosz, who wrote, “what is articulated strengthens itself. What is not articulated, tends towards non-being.” We’re faced with a question then, a choice, and the best answer we can give, is poetry.

Meanwhile, huge thanks to the rest of the team who help us to keep this magazine going – to Glyn F. Edwards who applied successfully for us to be part of an important project with Climate Conversations for this issue, to Taz Rahman whose video interviews showcase the best of environmental writing, and to Siân Melangell Dafydd, our Cymraeg Editor, who has a few words to add below.

Zoë Brigley and Kristian Evans

Rydw i’n dewis eich croesawu i’r rhifyn bach hwn o Modron gan gydio’n dynn yn nadl Zoë Brigley a Kristian Evans, uchod a rhannu dyfyniad gan y bardd, Wendell Berry sydd wedi bod yn bwysig yn fy myfyrdodau a’m sgyrsiau creadigol yn ddiweddar: 

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”

Mae yn y rhifyn hwn wahoddiad i gofio ein hunan fel creaduriaid, ond hefyd y cread ei hun a’n rôl yn ei ddyfodol. Trowch at gerdd Sian Northey – ‘Codi tatws efo Nina’– am y “pridd brau” ar ôl codi tatws ond hefyd ar ôl rhannu’r dasg gyda rhywun mewn angytundeb. Dychmygaf y bardd yn profi math o “great division”, a’r ddaear ei hun yn ei dwylo. Edrych i’r ffurfafen wna Judith Kaufmann ar y llaw arall, yn ‘Sêr a Thân’ ond hefyd at ffwrnais y cread. “Dan bwysau tân ffurfiai’r priddoedd” mae’n ysgrifennu, gan deithio o’r dechreuad i’r dyfodol, a gofyn i ni ystyried ein dyletswydd i’r byd.  

‘Un ddaear’ sydd ym myfyrdod Richard Scott yn ei wibdaith o gynhadledd ddiweddar oedd yn dwyn y teitl ‘Cymru, Cristnogaeth a’r Cyfyng-gyngor Ecolegol’ gyda chyfraniadau a gwelediadauam lenyddiaeth, ffenestri lliw, tirwedd a phererindod. Hyd yn oed yn y wlad fechan hon, mae digwyddiadau lu hynod ddifyr yn digwydd yn ein cymunedau na allwn eu mynychu, bob un. Gwerthfawr iawn yw cael y cipolwg hwn i sgyrsiau rhwng rai o’n deallusion. Wrth wraidd popeth, yn ymarferol, yn foesol ac yn ysbrydol, ystyriwn ‘lili’r maes, pa fodd y maent yn tyfu’, ystyriwn y tatws, ystyriwn y pridd, ac awn ati â’n cyrff i wasanaethu’r un ddaear hon. Rhown le i farddoniaeth ac i iaith wrth ymhel â’r cwestiynnau sy’n codi. Diolch i’n cyfranogwyr am ymbehllhau’r sgwrs, a diolch i chithau am ddarllen. 

Siân Melangell Dafydd