“None of this is normal, yet we treat it as if it is,” wrote Sam Keck Scott in his Longreads piece on the disappearing tiger salamander population in California’s Sonoma County. “And it isnโt just Northern California thatโs changed โ the entire planet has. All the way down to the fish in the sea.”
In her reading list “Low Country, High Water,” Spencer George ponders another crisis — water rise and a drastically changing coastline in the American South. “How do you cope with that reality? How do you love a place that is sinking?” she asks. “I spent my entire life waiting to leave the South, thinking I would only find happiness away from here, but now that it is disappearing I find I cannot look away. I am desperate to find ways to archive my home. To preserve it.”
Gathering perspectives that range from bleak to hopeful, the writing we’ve published and recommended on the climate crisis, wildlife conservation, and other topics is at once urgent yet reflective. This week, in time for Earth Day on April 22, we encourage you to dive into our favorite Longreads essays, reported features, and reading lists, as well as favorites the editors have selected from across the web.
Original Longreads stories
Great American Wasteland
California Burning
Dreaming of Water with Tiger Salamanders
After Water
Fire/Flood: A Southern California Pastoral
The Case for Letting Malibu Burn
Bones, Bones: How to Articulate a Whale
The Poke Paradox
Longreads reading lists
Tomorrow Isn’t Over: A Reading List About Brighter Futures
Low Country, High Water: A Reading List for a South Under Climate Change
There Are No Seasons: A Reading List on Loss, Love, and Living with Fire in California
Nature Isn’t Called ‘the Wild’ for Nothing: A Queer Ecology Reading List
The Sounds of Silence: A Reading List About Listening to Nature
A Tall Tree Reading List
Recent editors’ picks
Losing Paradise
“As rising seas swallow Louisianaโs marshes, oil companies are pretending nothing has changed โ and that now floatable, fishable waters remain their private property.”
The Capybaras Arenโt All Right
“The internetโs favorite animal is facing a dark fate.”
Limiting Not Just Screen Time, But Screen Space
“The internet has stopped being a place we visitโitโs now an environment we inhabit.”
Beneath the Long White Cloud
“The search for the eighth wonder of the world.”
Rebecca Solnit Says the Leftโs Next Hero Is Already Here
“I remain hopeful partly as defiance.”
My Road Trip With the Do-Gooding Cactus Smugglers
“Can poaching ever be ethical?”
Compost Modernity!
“The vision of solarpunk: joining nature with technology in vibrantly inclusive ways to create a world that truly blooms.”
The Olympics Are Ditching PFAS Waxesโand the โRidiculousโ Speed They Gave Skiers
“After years of concern over so-called โfluoroโ waxes, the Milan Cortina Games will be the first Olympics without them.”
Phantom Pains
“These lossesโmy limb, my studentsโ hopes, Thoreauโs mammals, the wings falling from our skiesโthey are not all that distinct from one another. They canโt be, because all of us, all of the material world, we are one and the same thing.”
Rockhopper Penguinsโ Athleticism Makes Them the Daredevils of the Animal World. Will a Warming Climate Slow Them Down?
“A visit to the Falkland Islands, where the fearless seabirds navigate the rugged topography with tenacious spunk, shows the new challenges they face.”
An Exclusive Look Inside the Largest Effort Ever Mounted to Keep the Great Barrier Reef Alive
“Australia is doing absolutely everything to protect its most iconic ecosystem โ except, perhaps, the one thing that really matters.”
How to Become a Tree
“Many people today want to commit their remains to rejuvenating the planet. But are these green deaths just greenwashing?”
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