The Fragile Earth: Writing From The New Yorker on Climate Change

This illuminating and powerful collection is filled with pieces on climate change originally published in the New Yorker. The selections are bookended by entries by science writers Bill McKibben—whose 1989 “The End of Nature” was, the editors note, “the first extensive exploration of climate change” for the general public—and Elizabeth Kolbert, with her disillusioned “Afterword.” In between, the collection includes work by essayists (Ian Frazier), novelists (Jonathan Franzen), foreign correspondents (David Filkins), and sociologists (Eric Klinenberg). It covers shrinking glaciers in the Indian Himalayas; how the acidification of the world’s oceans threatens marine life; and the unprecedented scale of wildfires in Australia, California, and the Great Plains. Other essays describe how life is changing for whale hunters in Point Hope, Alaska, one of North America’s oldest continuously settled communities; reforestation efforts in sub-Saharan Africa; a company’s efforts to wean America off meat with plant-based burgers; and scientists who explore drastic geoengineering technologies. Permeated by a sense of urgency—McKibben comments in a more recent piece that “what has defied expectations is the slowness of the response”—this is a memorable book with a resounding message. (Oct.)