Chernozem: The National Soil of Ukraine (06/26)
In Endling, Maria Reva centers Ukrainian identity, whether her focus is on romance tours or the snail conservation efforts of one of the central 'brides' named Yeva. Through Yeva's work, we learn about the topography and life forms that shape Ukraine. One detail that stuck with me was the discussion of chernozem, the rich black soil that ...
The Intelligence of Crows (05/26)
In Palaces of the Crow, four children escaping war in a Lithuanian forest are aided and protected by a flock of intelligent crows. While the actions of the birds in the story are remarkable, they're really not that far off the mark from what modern crows can accomplish.
There are two types of crows in the European region where the ...
How Plants Use Chemicals to Communicate (05/26)
The smell of cut grass is a ubiquitous scent of summer, but did you know it's actually a cry for help? What we smell is a volatile organic compound (VOC) released by grass blades to signal that they're under attack. This is just one manifestation of how plants use chemical signals to communicate, and humans have only recently begun to ...
Carnivorous Plants: How They Trap and Eat Their Prey (05/26)
The main horror of Eat the Ones You Love comes from a ravenous orchid that can only be truly satisfied by human meat. It's a myth that some orchid species consume meat, but other carnivorous plants do exist. There are more than 600 known species that survive on insects and other animals; carnivory is such an efficient adaptation that it ...
Preventing Urban Bird Strikes (04/26)
Near the beginning of a section in María Ospina's novel Only a Little While Here that chronicles the southward migration of a scarlet tanager, the bird narrowly escapes a fate that dooms dozens of his fellow migrators. Traveling through the landscape of New York City on the way from Connecticut to the forests of Colombia, the tanager...
The Impact of the 2004 Tsunami on Thailand (03/26)
On December 26th 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck 31 miles beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean. The force generated was so vast it triggered a devastating tsunami, with waves as high as 100 feet traveling as fast as 500 miles per hour towards land. At least 13 countries suffered casualties, with the death toll estimated at around...
What's a Hare? Isn't It Just a Rabbit? Actually, No (03/26)
While commenting on Chloe Dalton's memoir Raising Hare, about her experience rescuing a wild baby hare, some of our First Impressions reviewers mentioned the common misperception that a hare is a kind of a rabbit. So what exactly is a hare?
Hares and rabbits are related, but not the same. The hare is in the genus Lepus and falls into ...
Tunnel Farming (02/26)
In Daniyal Mueenuddin's This Is Where the Serpent Lives, the character Saqib defies the odds of his caste by becoming an entrusted manager of a business venture for Hisham Atar, the son of Colonel Atar, whose estate Saqib's family has served for generations in Lahore, Pakistan. Hisham has given Saqib the task of implementing tunnel farms ...
The Devastating Earthquake Predicted to Hit Portland (01/26)
Emma Pattee's debut novel
Tilt follows one woman's journey across Portland after the city is hit by a devastating earthquake. Though fictional, the disaster is based on research that suggests such an event could take place in the not-so-distant future. Readers may recognize this future earthquake as 'The Big One' from
Kathryn Schulz's ...
The Dangers of Roundup Ready Seeds (01/26)
In Louise Erdrich's novel The Mighty Red, a rural community in North Dakota grapples with common problems facing agricultural centers—the bankruptcy of small farms and resulting consolidation into mega-farms; job loss and depopulation; and increasingly brittle economies and ecosystems damaged by monoculture.
In Erdrich's ...
Lamb Farming in the UK (12/25)
In Clare Leslie Hall's novel Broken Country, main characters Beth and Frank Johnson are sheep farmers in the North Dorset region of England. The book talks about the couple raising lambs that are then sold to market.
Sheep have been farmed on the British Isles since Roman times, and it remains a significant industry, particularly in ...
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (12/25)
A main character in Charlotte McConaghy's novel Wild Dark Shore is employed as a caretaker for an isolated seed bank. The author has stated that the facility is based on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located on the remote Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.
A seed bank's main ...
Development and Habitat Loss in Florida (11/25)
In August 2024, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) (under direction from the governor) proposed to clear land in nine state parks to make room for tourist-friendly developments—pickleball courts, golf courses, lodges, etc. Called the 2024-2025
Great Outdoors Initiative, it was anything but great. Here's just ...
Global Declines in Bird Populations—And What You Can Do About It (11/25)
From his perch among the trees, Adam Nicolson observed the birds of the Sussex woods for over a year, cataloguing his findings in Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood. By the spring migration, however, he noticed that numerous species that should have arrived—that for centuries had arrived at that time—were notably absent: ...
The Impact of Rising Sea Levels in India (11/25)
Boomba, one of the protagonists of Megha Majumdar's A Guardian and a Thief, is living on the east coast of India with his family when their home becomes permanently flooded due to rising sea levels. Although the novel is set in the near future, this type of displacement is already occurring.
It's estimated that the oceans have risen by...
Monsanto's Seed Monopoly (10/25)
In Saltcrop, the Shimizu family has relied on farming to survive for generations, and by extension, on the agricultural corporation Renewal's seeds and anti-blight treatment, Amaranthine. Sisters Carmen and Skipper worry about making enough money to purchase supplies, even as Amaranthine poisons the land. While a competitor exists in the ...
The Ties That Bind: A Closer Look at Interdependencies Between Species (09/25)
In The Call of the Honeyguide, applied ecologist Rob Dunn examines the many ways that living things in an ecosystem are synergistically connected by reciprocal relationships called mutualisms—defined as interactions between two or more species in which each benefits.
As the book shows, some of the connections between species are...
The (False) Rose of Jericho, Selaginella lepidophylla (09/25)
In Nathan Harris's novel Amity, June, a formerly enslaved woman, is forced to relocate to the foothills of Mexico's Sierra Madre range with the man who has oppressed her since childhood. As her party nears the Rio Grande, she encounters Isaac, a young Black Seminole who lives in the area. She claims the desert through which they've been ...
How Satellite Imagery of Penguin Poop Is Leading to Advanced Animal Monitoring (08/25)
In The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog¸ Carly Anne York discusses how 'silly science'—science driven by curiosity that may not have an immediate real-world application—can lead to important findings and innovations. But before they lead to anything, these research projects, especially those that are unusual or ...
The Białowieża Forest (07/25)
In Jennifer Croft's The Extinction of Irena Rey, humans' domestic and professional concerns mix with those of the natural world against the background of the vast Białowieża Forest, beside which the titular author lives and hosts a personal entourage of translators. The Białowieża Forest is a complex of woodland ...
Cetacean Trivia (07/25)
Much of biologist Hannah Stowe's memoir,
Move Like Water, records her experiences on sailing vessels researching cetaceans – an entirely aquatic group of mammals that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Some interesting trivia regarding these magnificent creatures:
- The fossil record shows the first cetaceans ...
Superfund Sites: How the Environmental Protection Agency Cleans Up Waste (06/25)
In her book Murderland, Caroline Fraser examines the lead-crime hypothesis, the theory that children exposed to high levels of lead have neurological changes that lead to increased aggressiveness in adulthood. Ted Bundy serves as Fraser's example of a child exposed to high levels of lead who proceeded to live a life of very violent crime....
Boquila trifoliolata, the "Chameleon Vine" (06/25)
Zoe Schlanger's popular science book The Light Eaters goes in-depth on several remarkable plants, one of which is the climbing vine Boquila trifoliolata. This woody vine, found in the temperate rainforests of Chile and Argentina, has a unique strategy for hiding from herbivores—in order to blend in, it changes the shape of its ...
The Promise and Peril of the Haber-Bosch Process (05/25)
As Ferris Jabr describes in Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life, he and his spouse discovered an all-too-common problem when they tried to plant a new garden—ruined, lifeless soil. Despite our millions of acres of farmland, the intensity of modern agriculture, grazing, deforestation, and land disturbance have severely ...
Lake Superior as Dystopian Setting (05/25)
'The setting is a character in itself' is a moth-eaten critical insight about any book (or film, or TV show), but I Cheerfully Refuse stops just short of literally making Lake Superior a character. As the protagonist Rainy sails across the largest of the Great Lakes, he describes it as 'a three-hundred-mile fetch of malevolent spirit,' ...
Climate Change Mitigation Strategies (04/25)
In The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue, author Mike Tidwell offers an overview of strategies being researched and implemented to mitigate climate change. Overall, the main strategies are decarbonization and the drastic cutting of greenhouse gas emissions by switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Geoengineering technologies also aim ...
Sugar Beets (02/25)
In Beta Vulgaris — titled after the scientific name for sugar beets — workers come to Minnesota from across the country to work long shifts on big machines called pilers to harvest the crop. Is that what you picture when you hear the term 'sugar beets'? Me neither — I always imagined deep red or borscht, but as it might ...
The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon (01/25)
When we think about how pioneers changed the American frontier — or if we think about it — we may picture the hunting of bison herds as one of the biggest environmental changes wrought by settlers. The grainy photographs of thousands upon thousands of bison skulls piled unimaginably high, a near-extermination that seems mind-...
The History of the Everglades (11/24)
For thousands of years, the southern half of Florida was one of the most vibrant, unique ecosystems on Earth, composed of water flowing over land, interspersed with plant and animal life in a massive mosaic of wetlands. What came to be known as the Everglades was formed by fresh water spilling out from Lake Okeechobee and flowing slowly ...
Monarch Butterfly Habitat Restoration on Roadsides and Beyond (09/24)
As Ben Goldfarb notes in Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, we're in the midst of an insect apocalypse. It's largely agreed now that our planet is experiencing a sixth mass extinction event, and insect species are among the most imperiled.
Habitat loss is a critical component, driven by road construction ...
Keep America Beautiful and the "Crying Indian" Ad (07/24)
David Lipsky's history of climate change denial, The Parrot and the Igloo, exposes many of the strategies deniers have used to prevent governmental action on environmental issues. One of the key approaches has been to shift responsibility for pollution off of industries and onto individuals. An excellent example of this strategy in action...
Capability Brown and the English Garden (07/24)
In The Garden Against Time, Olivia Laing traces the evolution of gardens and the different meanings they have taken on in society. One major European development she addresses is the work of Capability Brown and the advent, in the mid-18th century, of a style that came to be known simply as the English garden.
Lancelot '...
Insects as Food (06/24)
In T.C. Boyle's Blue Skies, environmentally conscious Ottilie tries her hand at raising her own livestock—not chickens or pigs, but crickets. In Western society today, people often react with horror at the idea of eating insects, but there are advantages to including them in your diet. Many insects are an excellent source of ...
The Impact of Climate Change in Florida (05/24)
Climate change is an international problem but its impact can already be felt more intensely in certain areas. This is particularly true in locations that are warm and coastal, which are more susceptible to the effects of increased temperatures, rising sea levels, worsening tropical storm systems and erosion. Florida is one such example, ...
De-extinction Projects: The Example of the Auroch (04/24)
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel describes a cutting-edge scientific endeavor to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction by combining its DNA with that of a modern Asian elephant and growing the resulting embryo in an elephant's (or an artificial) womb. The animal that is born will not be genetically identical to a wooly mammoth, ...
The Failure of Plastics Recycling (02/24)
Most of us are familiar with the mantra 'reduce, reuse, recycle,' and the effectiveness of this slogan inspired a generation of Americans to put plastics of all kinds into recycling bins rather than their trash. The problem is that, as contributor Nina Schrank points out in The Climate Book, 'this narrative is perhaps the greatest example...
Species Reintroduction to Save the Permafrost (01/24)
In his book
The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth, Ben Rawlence describes how global warming is altering northern ecosystems like the tundra of Siberia. As temperatures rise, the permafrost no longer lives up to its name; instead of staying permanently frozen, the ice within is melting. This causes the ground to ...
A Brief History of the Peach (12/23)
In Shelley Read's debut novel, Go as a River, the heroine's life revolves around her peach farm in Colorado.
Genetically the peach is part of the rose family, but its closest relative is the almond. Its genera, Prunus, also includes cherry, apricot and plum trees. While its formal name, Prunus persica, translates to 'Persian plum,' it...
The Catamount (12/23)
A mysterious recurring figure in Daniel Mason's Massachusetts-set novel North Woods — starting with the cover image — is the 'catamount.' This folk name, which originates from the Middle English 'cat of the mountaine,' usually refers to a particular North American wild cat species, the cougar (Puma concolor), which is also ...
Burmese Pythons in Florida (11/23)
In her book
Pests, Bethany Brookshire provides several examples of introduced species becoming huge destroyers of local wildlife and ecosystems. One of the most well-known (and perhaps, if you dislike snakes as much as I do, most terrifying) examples of this phenomenon is the Burmese python in Florida. A
whole section of the Florida Fish ...
Controlled Prairie Burning for Maintenance (10/23)
In Nathan Hill's novel Wellness, protagonist Jack is from the Kansas prairie, where his father was an expert at managing prairie fires. Prairie fires may look terrifying and unwieldy, but in fact they are often purposeful and controlled, and play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. In much of North America, prairies were ...
Wishcycling (09/23)
Let's say you have an empty shampoo bottle or yogurt container. Should it go in your recycling bin or the trash? Chances are you'll check for the familiar three-arrow recycling symbol before deciding. But as Oliver Franklin-Wallis explains in Wasteland, the symbol we've all come to equate with recyclability simply means that ...
Serengeti National Park (06/23)
Chris Bohjalian's novel The Lioness is set in Serengeti National Park, a 5,700 square-mile wildlife refuge on the Serengeti Plain of north-central Tanzania. Established in 1951, it was one of the first areas proposed to be a World Heritage Site, obtaining that status in 1981.
The park is a subset of the larger Serengeti ecosystem, ...
The Rising Threat of Hurricanes (05/23)
In Michael Farris Smith's novel Salvage This World, society is slowly breaking under the pressure of near-constant hurricanes. In real terms, it is already clear that storms have become increasingly powerful in recent years as a result of climate change. What will only become clear with time is whether this is the 'new normal' or if this ...
The 1970 Great Bhola Cyclone (04/23)
In The Vortex, Scott Carney and Jason Miklian explore the environmental and societal impacts the 1970 Great Bhola Cyclone had upon South Asia, specifically what was East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The tropical storm began brewing in the Bay of Bengal on November 8, 1970, gaining strength to eventually achieve winds of up to 140 mph when ...
Tidal Pools (03/23)
Tidal pools are pockets of saltwater that exist in the intertidal zone — the area in which the ocean meets the land. They are formed due to the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, as well as the centrifugal pull of the Earth as it turns, which draws the water in gentle waves around the globe. Tides vary around the world ...
The Spread of Indigenous American Foods to Europe (03/23)
One of the more flavorful influences of the New World on the Old in the age of Christopher Columbus was the impact Indigenous Americans had on the food of Europe. This occurred as part of what is popularly known as the 'Columbian Exchange,' or the general mixing of goods and culture (as well as disease) between Indigenous peoples in the ...
The Hadza and the Honeyguide (02/23)
In Dan Saladino's book
Eating to Extinction, readers find themselves in the midst of the Hadza people. The Hadza live in northern Tanzania, in camps that average between 20 and 30 individuals.
The Hadza have been in this region for thousands of years, and they are well-known for their honey harvesting. Making up
roughly 15% of their ...
Speciesism (02/23)
In Between Light and Storm, Esther Woolfson critiques the idea that humans have a unique moral status that grants us the right to exploit animals for our own purposes without regard to their interests and welfare. This belief system, founded on the notion of human exceptionalism, is often referred to as 'speciesism,' a term coined by ...
Mapping the Ocean Floor (12/22)
In Charmaine Wilkerson's novel
Black Cake, one of the main characters has made a career as an oceanographer, concentrating on mapping the ocean floor.
Water covers about 70% of the Earth's surface. And yet surprisingly little is known about what lies beneath it; just a little over 20% of the seabed had been mapped as of 2021. It's ...
