Rising
July 26, 2019 2:25 AM - by Elizabeth Rush - Subscribe
I'm half-way through Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush. It's an essential but harrowing book mainly centred on managed (and unmanaged) retreat from the shore. As Rush is a coastal person this is a deeply personal venture.
If planet breakdown is stressing you at this moment this is not a book to read.
It's also a refreshing change from cold hard science as science won't be enough to get us through. Altho' there's plenty of science here too.
But if you can spare some mental space and want to see how some individuals, neighbourhoods and communities are working together this is helpful book. There's less of the positive arc that annoys non-Americans as this not about 'progress' but moving back from the edge, the frontier.
Largely about the US (esp. Louisiana, Rhode Island, NY, Florida). Ecology - marine, freshwater terrestrial and avian, Long-Term Ecological Research (LTERs). Native Americans and the peopling of the US South. It's very diverse yet all of a piece. We really need people like Rush who're willing to risk discomfort, threat and personal harm - the threat sadly inherent in solo female fieldwork.
CW: discussion of sexual assault, racism, climate-stress, grief.
It's also a refreshing change from cold hard science as science won't be enough to get us through. Altho' there's plenty of science here too.
But if you can spare some mental space and want to see how some individuals, neighbourhoods and communities are working together this is helpful book. There's less of the positive arc that annoys non-Americans as this not about 'progress' but moving back from the edge, the frontier.
Largely about the US (esp. Louisiana, Rhode Island, NY, Florida). Ecology - marine, freshwater terrestrial and avian, Long-Term Ecological Research (LTERs). Native Americans and the peopling of the US South. It's very diverse yet all of a piece. We really need people like Rush who're willing to risk discomfort, threat and personal harm - the threat sadly inherent in solo female fieldwork.
CW: discussion of sexual assault, racism, climate-stress, grief.
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