At the Very Least We Know the End of the World Will Have a Bright Side By Adam Boffa Feature Solarpunk, a new genre of science fiction, demands radical optimism of its writers and readers. It takes the apocalypse as given, but doesn’t assume the worst of people living through it.
Duet for a Small Porpoise’s Extinction By Kimi Eisele Feature Kimi Eisele contemplates coherence, the near extinction of the vaquita, and the expensive bycatch of being human.
Preserving Human Life Requires Preserving Insect Life By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight While science labors to comprehend the variety and volume of insects on earth, both are declining with disturbing speed, and the ecological consequences are troubling.
‘I’ve Always Been Either Praised or Accused of Ambition’: An Interview with Barbara Kingsolver By Sarah Boon Feature Barbara Kingsolver takes a rigorous, scientific approach to her novels’ subjects — but, as a woman writer, her authority is often challenged.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things By Michelle Weber Highlight Scientists knew how serious climate change is. Politicians knew. Energy companies knew. The U.S. was ready to act, and then we… didn’t.
Drought In Post-Apartheid Cape Town: An Interview with Eve Fairbanks By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary United in a common struggle, the drought has leveled the racially divided city’s physical and social barriers in profound ways.
Storytelling the Flood: Elizabeth Rush on Empathy and Climate Change By Bradley Babendir Feature In her new book, Elizabeth Rush gives voice to poor communities and communities of color who are the first victims of the rising sea.
Farming a Warming Planet By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Even if rising sea levels flood many coastal cities, California farmers plan to grow food for a living. So what will the future California grow?
This Month in Books: ‘How Do We Stay the Right Distance Apart?’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary At first glance, there’s a pretty stark divide in this month’s books newsletter.
‘I Try Not to Have a Schedule’: Talking Writing with William Vollmann By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Renowned for the size of his books as the magnitude of his subjects, the author is ready to take on waste and climate change.
As Innocuous as Plant No. 1 By Aaron Gilbreath Feature William Vollman enters the radioactive red zone to visit the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Climate Change Is Personal for These Alaskan Women By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Here are the voices of the Alaskans threatened by climate change.
Emotional Preparedness for a Dying Planet By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight How do we deal emotionally with the many deaths of climate change?
Is This the Most Crowded Island in the World? (And Why That Question Matters) By Alex MacGregor Feature An amateur geographer travels to an undocumented island off the coast of Haiti after stumbling upon it on Google Earth.
Suburbanizing Survivalism By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary Inside the booming business of survival food.
The Planet Is Pissed and Wants You Outta Here By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Massive volcanic events are the cause of most global mass extinctions. When will the next one destroy life on earth?
We Should Be Talking About the Effect of Climate Change on Cities By Longreads Feature But we’re not. Instead, the effects on cities tend to be edited out or statistically minimized.
28 Voices From the Storm By Krista Stevens Highlight The before, during, and after of how Hurricane Harvey battered Texas for five days.
The Elephant in the Flood By Michelle Weber Highlight The troubled world of flood insurance: what happens to coastal communities as climate change leads to more and more catastrophic flooding?
The Rising Seas Are Coming From Inside the House By Michelle Weber Highlight On Game of Thrones and climate change: “Every city in the world is built on wildfire.”
Despair All Ye Who Enter Into the Climate Change Fray By Danielle Tcholakian Commentary A climate change feature at New York Magazine leads a scientist to take on its extraordinary claims.
A Village Falls into the Sea By Pam Mandel Highlight Shishmaref, an island village north of Nome, Alaska, is the front line for global warming’s effects on rising sea levels.
Rising Up Against Climate Change: A Reading List By Emily Perper Reading List On Earth Day, thousands marched in support of science and the environment. But as these stories show, the fight has just begun.
The Conservative Movement to Get the GOP on Board With Global Warming By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight These conservatives are hoping to rally Republican voters around global warming in a way that gets the GOP to finally listen.
In 1975, Newsweek Predicted A New Ice Age. We’re Still Living with the Consequences. By Longreads Feature All climate change deniers needed was one article to cast doubt on the science of global warming.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Cheerful Novel of Climate Change By Michelle Legro Commentary The sci-fi writer explains how his city-dwellers learn to survive and thrive after a climate-change catastrophe.
The Sense of an Endling By Michelle Legro Feature Scientists closely monitor the last member of a species. Is there space in a creature’s DNA to consider the prospect of no tomorrow?
Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Woolly Mammoths Roam By Michelle Weber Highlight Ross Andersen’s captivating profile of Nikita Zimov and his quest to re-create a Pleistocene ecosystem is worth reading, not least for a fascinating explanation of how grasses went from being slimy ocean plants to covering huge swaths of the planet.
The End of (Almost) Everything and (Almost) Everyone By Michelle Weber Highlight Writing in The Baffler, Laurie Penny explores what it will mean for the civilization to collapse slowly, because of climate change, rather than in a single nuclear bang.
