Introducing ‘Nature in Crisis’

In a time of climate breakdown and mass extinction there is a new urgency to environmental writing, both as literature and as science. So In their series, Meehan Crist and Peter Godfrey-Smith consider some of the most significant books published in the last few years, along with classic texts by Rachel Carson, James Lovelock and Robin Wall Kimmerer – tracing a loose arc from biology to society via questions of plant intelligence, biodiversity loss, the rights of nature, ecofascism and green capitalism.

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Meehan Crist is writer in residence in biological sciences at Columbia University.

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney

Books featured in the series:

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Zoë Schlanger, The Light Eaters

Helen Czerski, The Blue Machine

Sunil Amrith, The Burning Earth

James Lovelock, Gaia

Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive?

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Emily Raboteau, Lessons for Survival

Roy Scranton, Impasse

Alex Moore and Sam Roberts, The Rise of Ecofascism

Thea Riofrancos, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism

Venomous Lumspcuker by Ned Beauman and Helm by Sarah Hall