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Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL OUTDOOR BOOK AWARD
A CHICAGO TRIBUNE TOP TEN BOOK OF 2018
A GUARDIAN, NPR's SCIENCE FRIDAY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, AND LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2018
Hailed as "deeply felt" (New York Times), "a revelation" (Pacific Standard), and "the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing" (Chicago Tribune), Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love.
With every passing day, and every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant--and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place.
Weaving firsthand testimonials from those facing this choice--a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago--with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities, Rising privileges the voices of those too often kept at the margins.
A CHICAGO TRIBUNE TOP TEN BOOK OF 2018
A GUARDIAN, NPR's SCIENCE FRIDAY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, AND LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2018
Hailed as "deeply felt" (New York Times), "a revelation" (Pacific Standard), and "the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing" (Chicago Tribune), Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love.
With every passing day, and every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant--and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place.
Weaving firsthand testimonials from those facing this choice--a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago--with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities, Rising privileges the voices of those too often kept at the margins.
299 pages, Hardcover
First published June 12, 2018
445 people are currently reading
8,295 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 426 reviews
December 31, 2018
A sobering, elegant look at rising waters, climate change, and how low lying areas and the vulnerable people who live in those areas are at risk.
June 28, 2019
Rising is a sobering and unflinching look at the impact of rising sea levels from the front lines--those coastal communities dealing with hurricanes, flooding and loss of property. What this book does best is bring the theoretical problem of climate change to the here and now. It isn't some potential issue for the future. In fact, many people are already affected by it today. And Rush shows that it's not just people, but also trees and animals and entire ecosystems on the coast that are on the verge of total collapse.
However, this book is also random and boring at times. Rush often treated this as her personal journal, filling it with rambling reflections and philosophical musings, so there are many passages that have nothing to do with climate change. She also takes a long time to come to her points, so that by the time she gets there through many convoluted sentences, I've already forgotten what she was saying at the beginning of her point. She would included details and names of every single plant and tree she comes across. She also skips around in her narration, referring to people and events many chapters later without helpful hints of who and what they were. This all together made it a much harder book to read than it should have been.
Overall, I feel I learned a lot from this book. It's a timely and poignant look at all that we are already losing to climate change, and all that we still have to lose if we don't take action now. But I was hoping more for a book based on science, while this comes across more as a memoir by a climate scientist, with random musings, side stories, and philosophical questions. This wasn't the easiest book to get through, but because of its timeliness and relevance, I'm glad I did.
However, this book is also random and boring at times. Rush often treated this as her personal journal, filling it with rambling reflections and philosophical musings, so there are many passages that have nothing to do with climate change. She also takes a long time to come to her points, so that by the time she gets there through many convoluted sentences, I've already forgotten what she was saying at the beginning of her point. She would included details and names of every single plant and tree she comes across. She also skips around in her narration, referring to people and events many chapters later without helpful hints of who and what they were. This all together made it a much harder book to read than it should have been.
Overall, I feel I learned a lot from this book. It's a timely and poignant look at all that we are already losing to climate change, and all that we still have to lose if we don't take action now. But I was hoping more for a book based on science, while this comes across more as a memoir by a climate scientist, with random musings, side stories, and philosophical questions. This wasn't the easiest book to get through, but because of its timeliness and relevance, I'm glad I did.
September 14, 2018
This is my favorite read of #scienceseptember so far. Rush, who I saw read at AWP this year, combines individual narratives with broader looks at communities confronting changes in shoreline because of climate change and human impact. Fascinating stuff from a rotting wetland in Maine to a disappearing community in Louisiana. And even more interesting to read about Hurricane Sandy as Hurricane Florence approaches. Highly recommended!
January 26, 2024
Nobody in the government wants to discuss it. People think if you move west you are safe, but that was all the Everglades. Let's assume that we get about six and a half feet of rise by the end of the century, which, according to most scientists, is a pretty conservative estimate. If we get six and a half feet, there is very little land left in south Florida, and what is left is kind of like an archipelago - surrounded by rivers and transverse glades. Everything is marshy and there are no roads. The west coast is gone. The beach is gone. The east side of Biscayne Bay is gone. The infrastructure is gone. So I just don't see how people can live here with six feet of sea level rise. When I hear the mayor of Miami Beach say, "We will be here for the next two or three hundred years, we are going to design a way out, technology will save us," I think, Bullshit.
So says Dan Kipnis, a long-time resident of Miami Beach, who is in the process of selling his newly-remodeled home while he still can. He loves the place, broke his back renovating it to a retirement ideal, and yet the moving boxes are out. The writing, as he sees it, is on the wall.
Elizabeth Rush, a teacher and environmental writer, has peppered her work on the rising sea levels with such testimonials. The incursion of salt water has already begun, changing the landscape of marshland, peninsula, island - Nature nibbling at the margins and, all too soon, according to Rush, the marginalized. Because, in the end, men like Mr. Kipnis will have sold their stakes while the selling was good and it will be left to those who cannot afford to move, cannot afford to insure, cannot afford to lobby their congressmen for desperately needed financial aid, to face the future storms and the flooding they will bring with merely the tools at hand.
Rush tours areas already afflicted by the encroachment of the sea; the tidal marshes of Rhode Island, the Louisiana Bayou, the coastal wetlands of Maine, Florida, Staten Island, and the work-in-progress that is Northern California (the denizens of which would like to insist they saw this coming but actually didn't; San Francisco began its transformative efforts due to a long-standing interest in ecology, not climate change, so don't let 'em spin this). Each location brings experts to the fore - scientists, economists, and homeowners experienced in harrowing stages of devastation. What information our author can gather, she delivers to the page...and then, sometimes, a little bit more.
While there is a place, and plenty of justification, for accounts of sexual misconduct perpetrated against females working in the field, Rush would have had to bring the subject into context with her journey which she failed (for me) to do here. Equally, the occasional slip into her nightly dreamscapes of imminent climate collapse overburdened a narrative already equipped with the anxiety she suffers during her waking hours. This is a woman who likes to scare herself - not purposefully, not obsessively, not with any form of literary manipulation on the agenda; she simply embraces her anxiousness every once in a while. And writes about it. And adding the dreams to that? Doesn't service it.
Still, this is a compelling voice reporting current, confirmable change to the landscape of America through the rising of the level of our seas. Honest, earnest, and remarkably informed, Elizabeth Rush was worth the time it took out of a busy day to just sit down and read.
So says Dan Kipnis, a long-time resident of Miami Beach, who is in the process of selling his newly-remodeled home while he still can. He loves the place, broke his back renovating it to a retirement ideal, and yet the moving boxes are out. The writing, as he sees it, is on the wall.
Elizabeth Rush, a teacher and environmental writer, has peppered her work on the rising sea levels with such testimonials. The incursion of salt water has already begun, changing the landscape of marshland, peninsula, island - Nature nibbling at the margins and, all too soon, according to Rush, the marginalized. Because, in the end, men like Mr. Kipnis will have sold their stakes while the selling was good and it will be left to those who cannot afford to move, cannot afford to insure, cannot afford to lobby their congressmen for desperately needed financial aid, to face the future storms and the flooding they will bring with merely the tools at hand.
Rush tours areas already afflicted by the encroachment of the sea; the tidal marshes of Rhode Island, the Louisiana Bayou, the coastal wetlands of Maine, Florida, Staten Island, and the work-in-progress that is Northern California (the denizens of which would like to insist they saw this coming but actually didn't; San Francisco began its transformative efforts due to a long-standing interest in ecology, not climate change, so don't let 'em spin this). Each location brings experts to the fore - scientists, economists, and homeowners experienced in harrowing stages of devastation. What information our author can gather, she delivers to the page...and then, sometimes, a little bit more.
While there is a place, and plenty of justification, for accounts of sexual misconduct perpetrated against females working in the field, Rush would have had to bring the subject into context with her journey which she failed (for me) to do here. Equally, the occasional slip into her nightly dreamscapes of imminent climate collapse overburdened a narrative already equipped with the anxiety she suffers during her waking hours. This is a woman who likes to scare herself - not purposefully, not obsessively, not with any form of literary manipulation on the agenda; she simply embraces her anxiousness every once in a while. And writes about it. And adding the dreams to that? Doesn't service it.
Still, this is a compelling voice reporting current, confirmable change to the landscape of America through the rising of the level of our seas. Honest, earnest, and remarkably informed, Elizabeth Rush was worth the time it took out of a busy day to just sit down and read.
March 15, 2020
Powerful, emotive, lyrical, personal stuff on climate change, particularly rising sea levels, ... but ... at so many different levels ... very different from some of the heavier, (often drier) technical doomsday genre. A beautiful (and terrible) piece of creative nonfiction (to me, an admittedly intriguing ... both attractive and interesting genre) about a critically important (scary, nay, frightening, overwhelming, too horrible to contemplate) topic (and future). And, in the end, well worth reading.
It's difficult for me to separate my reactions to this from - or not compare this to - David Wallace-Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth, which isn't fair. Although both appear on many climate change reading lists, they couldn't be more different (and, again, for better or worse, I read the other one first). So, while it's ultimately not relevant, I found that The Uninhabitable Earth spoke to me, more directly, at the moment I was reading it. Conversely, Rush's books is far more creative and, at some levels, appealing. It's not fair to make a micro versus macro comparison, but, nonetheless, Rush focuses more on sea level rise and the coasts, while Wallace-Wells casts his net much more broadly. Wallace-Wells persuades (and risks overwhelming) the reader with numbers and data, while Rush humanizes the loss ... past, present, and future ... and, still, I go back to where I began this riff ... it's impossible to really (and, frankly, there's no need to) compare the two books.
Reader's quirky perspective: I was initially distracted ... and on the edge of becoming frustrated and flummoxed ... by the author's ... at the time, seemingly out of nowhere, and fleetingly incomplete ... riff on sexual harassment ... generally, but more specifically, in the context of investigative reporters and field researchers.... But, soon after, I was grateful that she took the time to raise the issue, address it in context - both from her own experience and the experience of one of her students. It's mind-blowingly depressing that, in this day and age, such is the state of the world, but, sadly, we know it is, and that's heart-breaking. But my hat's off to the author for deftly handling the issue and, in so doing, contributing to the necessary, ongoing conversation. [While I'm on the topic, I'll throw out that, on the shelf of related stuff that I recommend, I'm particularly partial to Traister's Good and Mad, but I digress.]
It's a beautiful book. I hope people keep buying and reading and sharing and talking about it. I recommend it without hesitation.
It's difficult for me to separate my reactions to this from - or not compare this to - David Wallace-Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth, which isn't fair. Although both appear on many climate change reading lists, they couldn't be more different (and, again, for better or worse, I read the other one first). So, while it's ultimately not relevant, I found that The Uninhabitable Earth spoke to me, more directly, at the moment I was reading it. Conversely, Rush's books is far more creative and, at some levels, appealing. It's not fair to make a micro versus macro comparison, but, nonetheless, Rush focuses more on sea level rise and the coasts, while Wallace-Wells casts his net much more broadly. Wallace-Wells persuades (and risks overwhelming) the reader with numbers and data, while Rush humanizes the loss ... past, present, and future ... and, still, I go back to where I began this riff ... it's impossible to really (and, frankly, there's no need to) compare the two books.
Reader's quirky perspective: I was initially distracted ... and on the edge of becoming frustrated and flummoxed ... by the author's ... at the time, seemingly out of nowhere, and fleetingly incomplete ... riff on sexual harassment ... generally, but more specifically, in the context of investigative reporters and field researchers.... But, soon after, I was grateful that she took the time to raise the issue, address it in context - both from her own experience and the experience of one of her students. It's mind-blowingly depressing that, in this day and age, such is the state of the world, but, sadly, we know it is, and that's heart-breaking. But my hat's off to the author for deftly handling the issue and, in so doing, contributing to the necessary, ongoing conversation. [While I'm on the topic, I'll throw out that, on the shelf of related stuff that I recommend, I'm particularly partial to Traister's Good and Mad, but I digress.]
It's a beautiful book. I hope people keep buying and reading and sharing and talking about it. I recommend it without hesitation.
June 17, 2019
I am in the minority here. This book has garnered a lot of praise, and almost won the Pulitzer. It is, as Elizabeth Kolbert's blurb on the back said, "by turns bleak and beautiful" but I'm less convinced that it's "a compelling piece of reporting," which was the first part of that blurb.
I'd say it was "by turns compelling and self-absorbed."
I couldn't get past the numerous times the author inserted her own experiences, often unrelated, into the story. It got to the point where I began to strongly suspect that she wasn't really curiously exploring climate change and rising water, but had already formed her own conclusions and set out to write around those, likely wasting the time of the people she spent time interviewing and the plants and animals she went through so much trouble to observe.
While listening to a lecture on climate change she says, "I write all this down even though I know it already."
She compares herself to the Oracle of Delphi.
When a student of hers is impacted by a storm, or the daughter of a man who died in a storm share their stories with her she wonders why these stories have been missing from climate reporting. Climate reporting is full of stories like this, albeit perhaps not about these specific individuals as told by this one author. The author's end notes even make that clear.
There's a whole aside where she talks about being sexually harassed in the pursuit of this book. That actually is compelling content, but it feels weird and out of place here. I'm on the fence about it. The book is a series of essays arranged by place, and even this setup itself felt a little disjointed to me.
I do appreciate the social justice angle she included and I do think some of the writing was indeed poetic, it did set a certain mood, and I could see how it strived to reach for something beyond the conventional in order to really bring home the totality of what is happening to the planet. I thought the afterward was probably the most compelling part of the book and had we started from there and lived up to that promise I might have felt differently about this one.
So this book was not without merit. In the end, I just found so much to dislike with the writing. Split the difference and I landed on a two-star rating. *shrug.*
I'd say it was "by turns compelling and self-absorbed."
I couldn't get past the numerous times the author inserted her own experiences, often unrelated, into the story. It got to the point where I began to strongly suspect that she wasn't really curiously exploring climate change and rising water, but had already formed her own conclusions and set out to write around those, likely wasting the time of the people she spent time interviewing and the plants and animals she went through so much trouble to observe.
While listening to a lecture on climate change she says, "I write all this down even though I know it already."
She compares herself to the Oracle of Delphi.
When a student of hers is impacted by a storm, or the daughter of a man who died in a storm share their stories with her she wonders why these stories have been missing from climate reporting. Climate reporting is full of stories like this, albeit perhaps not about these specific individuals as told by this one author. The author's end notes even make that clear.
There's a whole aside where she talks about being sexually harassed in the pursuit of this book. That actually is compelling content, but it feels weird and out of place here. I'm on the fence about it. The book is a series of essays arranged by place, and even this setup itself felt a little disjointed to me.
I do appreciate the social justice angle she included and I do think some of the writing was indeed poetic, it did set a certain mood, and I could see how it strived to reach for something beyond the conventional in order to really bring home the totality of what is happening to the planet. I thought the afterward was probably the most compelling part of the book and had we started from there and lived up to that promise I might have felt differently about this one.
So this book was not without merit. In the end, I just found so much to dislike with the writing. Split the difference and I landed on a two-star rating. *shrug.*
July 24, 2018
This is my number one recommended read for climate change deniers. Part memoir, part history, part science article, and part empathetic interviews, Rising tells the story of climate change in this country. It is no longer a worry for the future. It is already here.
U.S. citizens living in wetlands in Florida, Louisiana, and Staten Island are already retreating inland (if they can afford it) after experiencing year after year of record-breaking storms and constant flooding. Rush does an excellent job capturing what these people are thinking and feeling with a keen listening ear to many who are dismayed at leaving their ancestral homes, and to the few who refuse to leave. Meanwhile she looks for hope in some restoration projects around the country but I can't say I'm too optimistic based on .
I don't find this book as incisive as Elizabeth Kolbert's classic The Sixth Extinction but it is a great introduction to the greatest threat of our future, and offers more than enough proof that climate change is about to sink us.
Climate change deniers likely won't be swayed by the science and research, and they are so dogmatic in their views I doubt the plight of fellow American refugees would sway them either. But I have a question that might give them an inkling of doubt: If climate change isn't real, and rising seas aren't a problem, then why do actuaries keep raising the price of flood insurance to such an exorbitant amount? Politicians lie. Sometimes scientists lie. People in general lie. The numbers don't.
"It is no longer a question of if, but when."
U.S. citizens living in wetlands in Florida, Louisiana, and Staten Island are already retreating inland (if they can afford it) after experiencing year after year of record-breaking storms and constant flooding. Rush does an excellent job capturing what these people are thinking and feeling with a keen listening ear to many who are dismayed at leaving their ancestral homes, and to the few who refuse to leave. Meanwhile she looks for hope in some restoration projects around the country but I can't say I'm too optimistic based on .
I don't find this book as incisive as Elizabeth Kolbert's classic The Sixth Extinction but it is a great introduction to the greatest threat of our future, and offers more than enough proof that climate change is about to sink us.
Climate change deniers likely won't be swayed by the science and research, and they are so dogmatic in their views I doubt the plight of fellow American refugees would sway them either. But I have a question that might give them an inkling of doubt: If climate change isn't real, and rising seas aren't a problem, then why do actuaries keep raising the price of flood insurance to such an exorbitant amount? Politicians lie. Sometimes scientists lie. People in general lie. The numbers don't.
"It is no longer a question of if, but when."
December 4, 2022
Interesting look at climate change from the ground up. I learned a great deal about the situation in the United States and the rest of the world, and needless to say, it's not good.
The authors insistence on inserting herself into every facet of this story was slightly distracting. Small, seemingly irrelevant passages will just appear out of nowhere in the book. "Here's how Neil Armstrong landed on the moon..." begins one of them. Then proceeds to explain step by step how Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I was waiting to see how she'd relate these slices of history back to the greater narrative of climate change, but I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. The times I enjoyed this book the most were when she was interviewing regular people about their situations.
The authors insistence on inserting herself into every facet of this story was slightly distracting. Small, seemingly irrelevant passages will just appear out of nowhere in the book. "Here's how Neil Armstrong landed on the moon..." begins one of them. Then proceeds to explain step by step how Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I was waiting to see how she'd relate these slices of history back to the greater narrative of climate change, but I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. The times I enjoyed this book the most were when she was interviewing regular people about their situations.
April 22, 2023
Ugh I don’t want to give this any sort of negative review because I want everyone to read / talk about climate adaptation and this was really a tough one. The author is also a white woman who is a professor at Brown.
tldr is I hope to find a five star book I can recommend with a lot of similar content but this is not it for me.
Things I liked:
1. Lots of science, especially about the importance of wetlands and their role in climate resilience as well as the Consequences of their degradation. I learned a lot here, and it was cool to think about the land as this smart adaptive mechanism and explicitly tie where that falls apart to human development.
2. Lots of direct authorship from people living in coastal communities that are in disaster zones. I wanted more of this.
3. Lots of discussion of US policies and their impact / usefulness for adaptation. Discussion of NFIP and the history of FEMA, how disaster grants work - this was great.
What I absolutely did not like
1. The way this author included herself in narratives that just � had nothing to do with her. She’d be talking to a native homeowner who is faced with the devastating situation of a homeland becoming unlivable and would somehow interject an anecdote about leaving her fiancé in Brooklyn as a parallel?? I was like I don’t need this wHt??
2. The way she talked about some of the folks she interviewed - at one point she was describing how she felt afraid of this black man who lived in the Tanyards in Pensacola and I was like ?? You’re literally in his house probing him to tell you about how the government has failed him and how immensely devastating climate change and institutional climate racism has been for him ?? She tried to make this self aware and a learning moment about how she was wrong to feel that fear - I think it’s good to learn / have that personal development but I think it’s just another example of how she weirdly centers herself in these narratives that have nothing to do with her. I feel like you can have empathy and connect with experiences without making it about yourself - I wanted to learn more about different communities and their adaptation experiences and this general trend in her writing was just weird and upsetting to me.
On the hunt for more technical adaptation books / reporting by authors of color :)
tldr is I hope to find a five star book I can recommend with a lot of similar content but this is not it for me.
Things I liked:
1. Lots of science, especially about the importance of wetlands and their role in climate resilience as well as the Consequences of their degradation. I learned a lot here, and it was cool to think about the land as this smart adaptive mechanism and explicitly tie where that falls apart to human development.
2. Lots of direct authorship from people living in coastal communities that are in disaster zones. I wanted more of this.
3. Lots of discussion of US policies and their impact / usefulness for adaptation. Discussion of NFIP and the history of FEMA, how disaster grants work - this was great.
What I absolutely did not like
1. The way this author included herself in narratives that just � had nothing to do with her. She’d be talking to a native homeowner who is faced with the devastating situation of a homeland becoming unlivable and would somehow interject an anecdote about leaving her fiancé in Brooklyn as a parallel?? I was like I don’t need this wHt??
2. The way she talked about some of the folks she interviewed - at one point she was describing how she felt afraid of this black man who lived in the Tanyards in Pensacola and I was like ?? You’re literally in his house probing him to tell you about how the government has failed him and how immensely devastating climate change and institutional climate racism has been for him ?? She tried to make this self aware and a learning moment about how she was wrong to feel that fear - I think it’s good to learn / have that personal development but I think it’s just another example of how she weirdly centers herself in these narratives that have nothing to do with her. I feel like you can have empathy and connect with experiences without making it about yourself - I wanted to learn more about different communities and their adaptation experiences and this general trend in her writing was just weird and upsetting to me.
On the hunt for more technical adaptation books / reporting by authors of color :)
January 16, 2022
Rush delivers engaging testimonials from numerous people whose lives have been impacted by "rising" waters as a result of climate change or inadequate infrastructures to control the problem. She also takes the reader on numerous outings to observe nature, not just crises, but birds up close beautifully described.
I especially enjoyed the rapport she built with one Louisiana resident, Chris. The personal exchanges shared brought life to what sometimes can be dull, off-putting scientific warnings we like to close our ears to. This author makes it easy to listen to hard truths. Her respect for the natural world is a beacon of light and hope.
Library Loan
I especially enjoyed the rapport she built with one Louisiana resident, Chris. The personal exchanges shared brought life to what sometimes can be dull, off-putting scientific warnings we like to close our ears to. This author makes it easy to listen to hard truths. Her respect for the natural world is a beacon of light and hope.
Library Loan
June 24, 2018
The best climate change book I've ever read. So much useful information but so personal and relevant to things that have already happened due to climate change! A must-read.
December 27, 2023
if you only read one of the books I recommend from my year, let it be this one (or know my name, or first they killed my father). perfect depiction of the overlap between climate change and intersectionality. doesn’t just touch on the obvious issue of rising sea levels, but also how race/class/gender factor into the effects of climate change and even the careers of those studying it. absolutely phenomenal - easily one of my best reads of the year
September 27, 2019
This nonfiction book about rising ocean levels and devastating hurricanes stunned me; I could not speak when I finished it. The author combines science writing, personal essays, and vignettes from interviewees into a powerful, poetic call to action. For me, the book prompted curiosity about all of the regions she visited, indignation over the blatant racial and class discrimination in housing, and yearning to reclaim what was lost, what we are losing. As I read, I thought of several other books: Evicted, Salvage the Bones, H is for Hawk, and Where the Crawdads Sing. It's not that Rising is exactly like any of those books, but they all have notes of strength and sorrow. Even if you are not typically a nonfiction reader, or if you have no inclination toward science writing, or if you are not interested in climate change, I urge you to look up Elizabeth Rush's articles. She has written broadly on the topic, and like this book, the pieces are well worth your time.
---
I have no uncertainty about the climate science, but I do have a lot of uncertainty about what to do. (Laura Sewall, 43)
... I began to understand that the vulnerability of these places can and ought to be transformed into a battle cry. (131)
... what I once thought of as inquiry into vulnerable landscapes - and the plants and animals that call those places home - has also become an inquiry into vulnerable human communities. (139)
I am done dreaming the earth undrowned; it is no longer a useful skill. (161)
When we relocate to higher ground we will at least be able to hold on to each other. I mean if we can stay together, then we won't have lost as much. (163)
I have a hard time separating excavation from elegy. (175)
When people love a place, it can change in shape and we can adapt our love to its transformed state. (179)
... just as paying attention to another person fosters intimacy and makes us feel less alone, perhaps scientific observation allows us to enter into a similar relationship across species. (199)
When I think about the different species I have encountered along the water's edge over the past five years, I know that we are all in this together. But I don't think that we have collectively come around to thinking in this way just yet. Though I hope - no, pray - that we will. Because I know that if we do nothing to address the ways in which sea level rise will deepen economic and social inequality while simultaneously displacing and potentially drowning half the species currently considered endangered, then we won't need a Robert Moses sea level rise. The increased segregation and exclusion and extinction will happen all on their own. (244)
I am thinking about how the ability to move and remain unchanged is a privilege not shared equally by everyone and everything currently residing along the water's edge. (245)
I am thinking about justice, and what it might look like if we thought of sea level rise as an opportunity to mend our relationship with the land and with each other. (245)
---
I have no uncertainty about the climate science, but I do have a lot of uncertainty about what to do. (Laura Sewall, 43)
... I began to understand that the vulnerability of these places can and ought to be transformed into a battle cry. (131)
... what I once thought of as inquiry into vulnerable landscapes - and the plants and animals that call those places home - has also become an inquiry into vulnerable human communities. (139)
I am done dreaming the earth undrowned; it is no longer a useful skill. (161)
When we relocate to higher ground we will at least be able to hold on to each other. I mean if we can stay together, then we won't have lost as much. (163)
I have a hard time separating excavation from elegy. (175)
When people love a place, it can change in shape and we can adapt our love to its transformed state. (179)
... just as paying attention to another person fosters intimacy and makes us feel less alone, perhaps scientific observation allows us to enter into a similar relationship across species. (199)
When I think about the different species I have encountered along the water's edge over the past five years, I know that we are all in this together. But I don't think that we have collectively come around to thinking in this way just yet. Though I hope - no, pray - that we will. Because I know that if we do nothing to address the ways in which sea level rise will deepen economic and social inequality while simultaneously displacing and potentially drowning half the species currently considered endangered, then we won't need a Robert Moses sea level rise. The increased segregation and exclusion and extinction will happen all on their own. (244)
I am thinking about how the ability to move and remain unchanged is a privilege not shared equally by everyone and everything currently residing along the water's edge. (245)
I am thinking about justice, and what it might look like if we thought of sea level rise as an opportunity to mend our relationship with the land and with each other. (245)
March 16, 2020
3.5 stars
Preface to my review: I am a harsh rater of popular science books. Especially popular climate change books. Part of that is because I myself am a scientist with a lot of knowledge on climate change (am I still? I have entered into the legal field, but I still think I qualify). I know so much of what is going on and where some of the biggest challenges lie, so it takes a lot to impart new wisdom or for me to be convinced that your book will be convicing.
With that in mind, I will say that I thought the author did two great things and one not so great thing.
First things first, the writing was great! She did a beautiful job of crafting compelling stories on behalf of the people she interviewed. Rush certainly has a way with words and she painted lovely, heart-breaking images. She got a little self-indulgent at the end, but more on that later.
Secondly, the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the book was solely about the impact of sea level rise on salt marshes and the communities that live near/on them. She interviewed people in select communities who had been impacted and told their stories with compassion and understanding. I flew through this part of the book. I thought it put a human face to climate change. To the hard decisions these communities have to make. To how a restored environment could actually provide protection to them and their homes.
But, then things went off the rails.
For some reason, she spends a chunk of her book talking about spotted owls in the Pacific northwest. A topic I really like. But it shifted from the focus of the book--sea level rise and marshes--and jolted us to a different land of warming temperatures and owls. I feel like she got this writer-in-residence gig in the middle of writing this book and just shoe-horned it in. She made a broad connection to the rest of the book by saying that the spotted owls are coming back largely in part because we protected not only their current range, but their future range as temperatures rise. But it was a loose connection and I would have rather had her just leave it out.
The final part of the book seemed like it was supposed to focus on actions people are taking to protect marshes and help them adapt to sea level rise. But, she fell into the same trap that all people who do not actually work in science or restoration do--she seems to think she has brilliant insight that everything being done needs to be done on a bigger scale to really have a meaningful impact. Why aren't people doing more?!? And this irks me. Scientists and restoration specialists and states and NGOs are doing as much as they can, but there are real hurdles to doing more. Political will, collaborations, money, community buy-in, open space, and the list goes on and on and on. And, honestly, I didn't care for her tone as she put down the hard work that people are doing as not being enough.
I am still rounding the book up to four because I want to remember the majority of the book that focused on personal stories that really spoke to me. And not the judgey tone at the end.
Preface to my review: I am a harsh rater of popular science books. Especially popular climate change books. Part of that is because I myself am a scientist with a lot of knowledge on climate change (am I still? I have entered into the legal field, but I still think I qualify). I know so much of what is going on and where some of the biggest challenges lie, so it takes a lot to impart new wisdom or for me to be convinced that your book will be convicing.
With that in mind, I will say that I thought the author did two great things and one not so great thing.
First things first, the writing was great! She did a beautiful job of crafting compelling stories on behalf of the people she interviewed. Rush certainly has a way with words and she painted lovely, heart-breaking images. She got a little self-indulgent at the end, but more on that later.
Secondly, the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the book was solely about the impact of sea level rise on salt marshes and the communities that live near/on them. She interviewed people in select communities who had been impacted and told their stories with compassion and understanding. I flew through this part of the book. I thought it put a human face to climate change. To the hard decisions these communities have to make. To how a restored environment could actually provide protection to them and their homes.
But, then things went off the rails.
For some reason, she spends a chunk of her book talking about spotted owls in the Pacific northwest. A topic I really like. But it shifted from the focus of the book--sea level rise and marshes--and jolted us to a different land of warming temperatures and owls. I feel like she got this writer-in-residence gig in the middle of writing this book and just shoe-horned it in. She made a broad connection to the rest of the book by saying that the spotted owls are coming back largely in part because we protected not only their current range, but their future range as temperatures rise. But it was a loose connection and I would have rather had her just leave it out.
The final part of the book seemed like it was supposed to focus on actions people are taking to protect marshes and help them adapt to sea level rise. But, she fell into the same trap that all people who do not actually work in science or restoration do--she seems to think she has brilliant insight that everything being done needs to be done on a bigger scale to really have a meaningful impact. Why aren't people doing more?!? And this irks me. Scientists and restoration specialists and states and NGOs are doing as much as they can, but there are real hurdles to doing more. Political will, collaborations, money, community buy-in, open space, and the list goes on and on and on. And, honestly, I didn't care for her tone as she put down the hard work that people are doing as not being enough.
I am still rounding the book up to four because I want to remember the majority of the book that focused on personal stories that really spoke to me. And not the judgey tone at the end.
February 28, 2024
This is a truly beautiful book, and I am (once again) not only in awe of Rush’s writing but also the way in which she comes to this work. She is able to braid together her narrative with the voices of people on the front lines of sea level rise in an effortless way that was both thoughtful and powerful. The afterword is worth the read, too. Her take on climate storytelling and how to center and amplify the voices of people who are most impacted is incredibly timely and moving.
February 28, 2020
I think this book is really important. I'm a lover of swamps and this book changed the way I think about these important ecosystems. It also changed the way I think of coastal cities and offered thoughtful insights about the different impacts global sea level rise will have on folks based on race and class. Definitely worth a read.
June 2, 2020
What a book. Phenomenal. Climate Change is no joke and it is happening now. As always, the most affected are poor people and marginalized communities. This book focuses in the United States, but it’s a mirror of what’s happening worldwide. Communities are being driven out of their neighborhoods because of flooding. People are dying because city planners decide to build on areas that should be reserved to nature.
What I liked the most about this book is not the scientific side or the magnificent prose, but that it sheds a human light in Climate Change. By interviewing multiple subjects, Rush is able to generate empathy in the reader. And if we are going to fight this phenomenon, we need to be empathic.
What I liked the most about this book is not the scientific side or the magnificent prose, but that it sheds a human light in Climate Change. By interviewing multiple subjects, Rush is able to generate empathy in the reader. And if we are going to fight this phenomenon, we need to be empathic.
October 23, 2018
This is an important book that should be read by all. It is not a dry, academic read, and you won’t find any textbook definitions of climate change or global warming here. Instead, this is a boots on the ground account of what is really happening out there in our world right now. And it’s not good.
Elizabeth Rush documents how land is disappearing before our eyes, right here in our own country. Every year, maps of the coastline need to be redrawn, as tidal marshes, mangroves, and swampland erode at an unprecedented rate. Salt water levels are rising up and getting into the root systems of trees and plants, effectively killing them. These trees and plants provide habitat for wildlife, and when they disappear, the wildlife disappears with them.
Neighborhoods off Florida’s coast routinely flood during high tide, when they never flooded years ago. And after Hurricane Sandy devastated New York City and the surrounding region, staunchly Republican neighborhoods on Staten Island, recognizing the effects of climate change, made the decision to have their homes bulldozed and to let the area return to tidal marsh, to stem the effects of global warming and future weather-related events affecting the area. The oceans are rising, and the evidence is there before our eyes.
Rush interviews not only experts, but also residents of flood-prone and storm-ravaged areas, and in most cases shows how the poor are disproportionately affected by these changes. Rush’s narrative also takes a disturbing turn as she provides startling revelations of being sexually harassed and stalked while engaged in her research. Some readers may question her decision to include her personal experience as part of a scientific narrative, but this is her story, and how she chose to tell it. It doesn’t take away from the issue of climate change and her findings.
Rush’s account shows that we must do something, and we must do it soon. Much of what is happening already may be irreversible, but we must make decisions that will provide solutions for the next generation, as we may be only 30 to 50 years away from huge areas of the coastal regions of our country being entirely underwater.
Elizabeth Rush documents how land is disappearing before our eyes, right here in our own country. Every year, maps of the coastline need to be redrawn, as tidal marshes, mangroves, and swampland erode at an unprecedented rate. Salt water levels are rising up and getting into the root systems of trees and plants, effectively killing them. These trees and plants provide habitat for wildlife, and when they disappear, the wildlife disappears with them.
Neighborhoods off Florida’s coast routinely flood during high tide, when they never flooded years ago. And after Hurricane Sandy devastated New York City and the surrounding region, staunchly Republican neighborhoods on Staten Island, recognizing the effects of climate change, made the decision to have their homes bulldozed and to let the area return to tidal marsh, to stem the effects of global warming and future weather-related events affecting the area. The oceans are rising, and the evidence is there before our eyes.
Rush interviews not only experts, but also residents of flood-prone and storm-ravaged areas, and in most cases shows how the poor are disproportionately affected by these changes. Rush’s narrative also takes a disturbing turn as she provides startling revelations of being sexually harassed and stalked while engaged in her research. Some readers may question her decision to include her personal experience as part of a scientific narrative, but this is her story, and how she chose to tell it. It doesn’t take away from the issue of climate change and her findings.
Rush’s account shows that we must do something, and we must do it soon. Much of what is happening already may be irreversible, but we must make decisions that will provide solutions for the next generation, as we may be only 30 to 50 years away from huge areas of the coastal regions of our country being entirely underwater.
August 24, 2021
This book is one of the worst books I've ever read. I've never read such self-absorbed, racist, pretentious trash in my life. I literally wanted to burn the book, it was that bad. But sadly I had to use it for a class.
The absolute worst part of this book was when Rush admitted she was "afraid" of a "poor, elderly, ailing, black man". Like why would you admit that? Why would you admit that as if it's some super intimate, exposing, novel thing? Everybody already knows that white people hate black people. Not to mention it was totally random (she was interviewing him about the ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM he faces.)
And then she goes on to center herself like always and writes a whole paragraph about the white guilt she feels from being "Afraid" of an elderly black man. Instead of focusing on the fact that she was extremely disrespectful to this man trying to help her ass out, shes just like "ugh Im just so privileged and I have different biases".
She speaks in first person the whole time, even when talking about other's experiences. This just adds to the self-absorbed aura of the book. She tries way too hard to be poetic. It seems like she's trying to imitate a poet. She humble brags so many times in the book. She acts as if Native people don't understand that fossil fuels are bad. She equates Native people (humans btw!) to clueless birds. She equates her divorce to a Native person having their land destroyed and no longer being able to live there life like they always have for centuries. She dances around the conclusion of "capitalism is bad", despite her first chapter incessantly saying that you have to say the name to truly acknowledge something. She is the classic example of a white savior. She is the definition of a white liberal.
I can't believe this book has so many positive reviews. It's just pretending to be something it's not. It's not "Dispatches from the New America Shore", it's Elizabeth Rush's memoir.
The absolute worst part of this book was when Rush admitted she was "afraid" of a "poor, elderly, ailing, black man". Like why would you admit that? Why would you admit that as if it's some super intimate, exposing, novel thing? Everybody already knows that white people hate black people. Not to mention it was totally random (she was interviewing him about the ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM he faces.)
And then she goes on to center herself like always and writes a whole paragraph about the white guilt she feels from being "Afraid" of an elderly black man. Instead of focusing on the fact that she was extremely disrespectful to this man trying to help her ass out, shes just like "ugh Im just so privileged and I have different biases".
She speaks in first person the whole time, even when talking about other's experiences. This just adds to the self-absorbed aura of the book. She tries way too hard to be poetic. It seems like she's trying to imitate a poet. She humble brags so many times in the book. She acts as if Native people don't understand that fossil fuels are bad. She equates Native people (humans btw!) to clueless birds. She equates her divorce to a Native person having their land destroyed and no longer being able to live there life like they always have for centuries. She dances around the conclusion of "capitalism is bad", despite her first chapter incessantly saying that you have to say the name to truly acknowledge something. She is the classic example of a white savior. She is the definition of a white liberal.
I can't believe this book has so many positive reviews. It's just pretending to be something it's not. It's not "Dispatches from the New America Shore", it's Elizabeth Rush's memoir.
July 4, 2018
Beautiful, beautiful writing about climate change and the ways it is currently affecting coastal communities, both human and non-human, in the US. Rush blends science, politics, nature writing, and history into a compelling narrative. The book is full of keen observations about nature and landscape, and a nuanced understanding of the ways that classism, racism, history, and privilege affect who climate change harms most. This book was a hard read, but it was not without hope. Not because Rush argues that we can stop (or even slow) climate change, but in her thoughtful reflections on what it means to retreat, and the opportunities that retreat and adaption provide for learning how to live in a drastically altered world.
The inclusion of several interviews from people who live (or lived) in the various costal communities she writes about added a lot to the honesty and power of the book. The essays themselves were also beautifully crafted--each one felt whole, weaving together various different strands in interesting ways. Highly recommended.
The inclusion of several interviews from people who live (or lived) in the various costal communities she writes about added a lot to the honesty and power of the book. The essays themselves were also beautifully crafted--each one felt whole, weaving together various different strands in interesting ways. Highly recommended.
December 28, 2018
3.5 stars. I really loved lots of this book, liked a bit and disliked some.
The observations about the disappearing coastline are troubling and, on their own, make this book worth reading. The author presents the science in a comprehensible and interesting way and the personal stories of the individuals directly impacted by storms and rising waters are excellent. The short, reflective interview chapters are standouts.
My stylistic nitpicks: The author's reflective/philosophical asides weren't high points for me. The brief mentions of her foreboding dreams were low points; and the chapter that included portions about sexual harassment just didn't fit with the theme of the book and the author's attempts to tie it in with the rest of the material just didn't work.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter. (An audience that will likely grow as the water levels rise.)
The observations about the disappearing coastline are troubling and, on their own, make this book worth reading. The author presents the science in a comprehensible and interesting way and the personal stories of the individuals directly impacted by storms and rising waters are excellent. The short, reflective interview chapters are standouts.
My stylistic nitpicks: The author's reflective/philosophical asides weren't high points for me. The brief mentions of her foreboding dreams were low points; and the chapter that included portions about sexual harassment just didn't fit with the theme of the book and the author's attempts to tie it in with the rest of the material just didn't work.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter. (An audience that will likely grow as the water levels rise.)
June 27, 2018
Read my review in Earth Island Journal.
August 20, 2023
collecting my thoughts to write a review because what is this book
June 21, 2024
The book that made me want to do a masters and obvs have since dropped out of masters lol but it rlly hit me
June 29, 2023
Rush’s book is a powerful requiem for our disappearing coast. Rising sea levels are a result of climate change that is happening today. Rush is an environmental writer that traveled coastlines to document individual and community responses to their changing environment. The underlying theme is sea level rise and its impact on US coastlands with the people who live in them. She describes the wetland degradation-caused by human activity (drainage, construction, agriculture, shipping) that goes back hundreds of years.
The patterns she observes are all over the country. She observed in New York, Maine, Louisiana, Florida, California, and Oregon but it is along all coasts, the encroaching wetlands that cause havoc for people who live there as their land is disappearing. The poorest suffer the most as they carry the burden of finding ways to live there. She details how the environmental collapse of these fragile areas accelerates everything. She notes that individuals and communities cannot indefinitely adapt to the accelerating rise in sea level.
The author interacts with individuals during her 5-year journey exploring and researching in depth the topic. She introduces science, history, politics, economics, and social justice into this study. She includes first-person essays. In many cases state and local governments are looking the other way leaving the residents to stick it out or pay their own way to relocate. Where there are funds for buyouts, they are used to buy out lower income blue collar neighborhoods. The rich second homeowners set their properties back protected through beach renourishment and on stilts and can afford high priced flood insurance. Rush makes a case for inclusion of communities at risk in decision making about the future. Without a change in approach and response to climate change it is only going to exacerbate inequality.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves the shoreline and how we must think about nature and how we intersect with our precious planet.
The patterns she observes are all over the country. She observed in New York, Maine, Louisiana, Florida, California, and Oregon but it is along all coasts, the encroaching wetlands that cause havoc for people who live there as their land is disappearing. The poorest suffer the most as they carry the burden of finding ways to live there. She details how the environmental collapse of these fragile areas accelerates everything. She notes that individuals and communities cannot indefinitely adapt to the accelerating rise in sea level.
The author interacts with individuals during her 5-year journey exploring and researching in depth the topic. She introduces science, history, politics, economics, and social justice into this study. She includes first-person essays. In many cases state and local governments are looking the other way leaving the residents to stick it out or pay their own way to relocate. Where there are funds for buyouts, they are used to buy out lower income blue collar neighborhoods. The rich second homeowners set their properties back protected through beach renourishment and on stilts and can afford high priced flood insurance. Rush makes a case for inclusion of communities at risk in decision making about the future. Without a change in approach and response to climate change it is only going to exacerbate inequality.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves the shoreline and how we must think about nature and how we intersect with our precious planet.
February 21, 2024
I took a break from this book during my binge of Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow and then The Bluest Eye, but Beloved is lowkey getting spoooooky 🫣 so I’ve been reading this before I go to bed 🤠And I thought it is SOOO good! What a year for reading so far! I learned a lotttt about the lack of equity in sea level rise mitigation and policy that I did not know I didn’t know. I think this book is very important for that reason. I would definitely recommend reading this sooner than later if you’re interested (It was published in 2018? 2019? Long enough that the intensity of many of the natural disasters discussed has started to dull in my memory). Great storytelling and really accessible incorporation of more complex environmental topics and (especially useful to me, lol) environmental policy.
September 6, 2019
Incredibly written book about communities and landscapes, and thus flora and fauna, affected by climate change which is resulting in rising sea levels all over the coasts of the United States. Will these people stay or go? CAN they go? WHY aren't they going? and so on are explored and I loved the interviews with people in the affected communities- very eye opening. This book is written beautifully and gives us just enough launch to make us want to learn more (in fact, I picked up another VERY incredible climate change book while reading this one and loved reading both in tandem) and make things change- the author made it human and relatable to all of us, because it does affect all of us. I very much recommend this read.
April 12, 2021
A rare mix of exquisite prose and technical scientific rigor. Poetic while grounded in the science behind costal erosion and sea level rising. I was very moved by this read and highly recommend. To all those living in costal areas, an especially harsh, but needed wake up call on the existential changes around us.
September 22, 2020
“Attention is prayer� indeed. Absolutely inhaled this one.
December 3, 2019
Climate change, particularly hurricanes and its impact on our lives, told through stories.
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