Human Nature, by Kate Marvel

I read Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet, written by astrophysicist turned climate scientist Kate Marvel and with audiobook narration by Courtney Patterson.

This was a good overview of where we are and where we’re headed. Marvel makes the science of climate accessible to the lay reader, and may I just say, as someone who has edited writing by astrophysicists, I strongly appreciate that.

Marvel weaves her personal experience into the narrative, not enough to make the book a memoir, but enough to make her relatable. She writes about missing California, not just because she relocated to New York, but because she misses the California she knew as a child. Climate change has made it a hotter, dryer place. I’ve never been to California, but I recognize her grief. That’s how I feel about North Carolina.

Reading books about the climate is never emotionally easy, but Marvel does include reasons to hope, including the advances we have made in sustainable energy and the promise of future technologies that may one day scrub our atmosphere of the excess carbon and methane. Climate change is my biggest fear and my biggest grief, but Marvel personally has hope for the future, which makes me feel less pessimistic.