Living with the Anthropocene: Love, Loss and Hope in the Face of Environmental Crisis

by Cameron Muir (Editor), Kirsten Wehner (Editor), Jenny Newell (Editor)

You’re not alone. Climate change is really happening.

Australia — and the world — is changing. On the Great Barrier Reef corals bleach white, across the inland farmers struggle with declining rainfall, during the 2019-20 summer over 12 million acres have burned. Young and old alike are rightly anxious. Human activity is transforming the places we live in and love. In this extraordinarily powerful and moving book, leading Australian writers come together to reflect on what it is like to be alive during an ecological crisis as the physical world changes all around us. How do we hold onto hope?

These personal stories are more than individual responses. They build a picture of a collective endeavour towards cultures of care, respect, and attention — values and actions that we yearn be reflected in the institutions that have power to act on a scale that matches the complexity and enormity of the challenge Personal and urgent, this is a literary anthology for our age, the age of humans that reflects on how we might resist, protect, grieve, adapt and unite.

Features some of Australia’s best-known writers and thinkers including: Tony Birch, James Bradley, Sophie Cunningham, Delia Falconer, Ashley Hay, Iain McCalman, Ellen van Neerven, Jane Rawson, David Ritter and many more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2020

About the author

Cameron Muir’s essays and reporting have appeared in Griffith Review, Meanjin, Inside Story, Overland, The Guardian, Australian Book Review, Wild Magazine, The Canberra Times, and Best Australian Science Writing, among others. He is co-editor with Kirsten Wehner and Jenny Newell of Living with the Anthropocene: Love, loss and hope in the face of environmental crisis (NewSouth, 2019). His work has been shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards, the Eureka Prize for Science Journalism, and the Bragg Prize for Science Writing.

Reviews

[Briar Lomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, this book changed me.
First of all, I love essay anthologies because I honestly don’t trust anyone enough to read 350 pages of what they think about something so nuanced and delicate as, for example, the Climate crisis.
This book made me feel so seen, so held, so empowered, so ready to fucking go! Been struggling for quite a few months with immobilising dread in the face of everything being awful, so I am forever grateful for this pukapuka. It put it’s hand on my shoulder and said softly, yes, everything is fucked, in many ways we are all fucked, but there will still be love, hope, and community at the end.
1000000/10 recommend

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate a book that is a collection of essays. Some essays were brilliant. They grabbed me, they educated me, they got me thinking. Other essays were pretty drab. Overall I'll only give this book three stars as a median point between them, but I do still recommend it. Talking about climate change, and knowing as much as I can about climate change is really important.

[James Whitmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

For many years, some scientists have been arguing for the designation of a new epoch in Earth’s geological time, the Anthropocene. At the moment we live in an epoch known as the Holocene, a period that followed the ice ages, defined by its stable, agriculture-friendly climate. Should the stratigraphers agree, the Anthropocene will have begun sometime in the mid-20th Century with the detonation of the first nuclear weapons and acceleration of population growth. A final decision is due in 2021.

The idea is that humans have now had such a huge impact on the planet that we will visible in the Earth’s rocks for millions of years to come. It will, at the rate we’re going, be a period defined by ecological crisis: erosion, invasive species, extinction, climate change, pollution of all kinds. Not everyone agrees with this: some say the Anthropocene should begin with farming, others with the widespread use of fire, others say it’s impossible to delineate such grand times when we’re living in them.

Whatever happens in the rarified corridors of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (I feel their offices must be underground), the slippery Anthropocene has already taken hold as “a metaphor for our times”. The writers of this anthology work through the various meanings that this metaphor can take on. Read more on my blog.

[Justine Hyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously biased but I reckon this is great

[Erin Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to review a book that is a collation of short stories as every story has a different flavour. I will say that the flow and organisation of stories into themes are very effective. Many of the stories are a beautiful epitaph to Australia's declining biodiversity.

There is a quote from the book "it is to imagine being on the trains of no returning". It is hard to read - took me almost a year in short reading sessions. I cried multiple times and it sent me into a month long climate grief spiral. Not great bedtime reading or reading at any time of day if you don't want to be reminded of humanity's imminent doom in the face of late stage capitalism.

Would I recommend it? Probably not if you already experience eco grief. But, if you want to be educated gently and exposed to a wide variety of Anthropocene perspectives and stories, go ahead. A good purchase for that climate denialist family member perhaps.

Would the world be a better place if all of the people in power read this book and heeded the messages? Yes. Unfortunately if anything this book convinced me we have very little hope that a vast mind shift of this kind will occur. Instead the only glimmer of hope the many writers seem to end on is humanity's ingenuity and resilience in the face of crisis.

This collection of essays just doesn't seem to convince you that will be enough, a fact which left me with a huge climate change sized hole in my heart.

[Rachel White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong collection of Australian authors, essayists and poets that explore love, loss and hope against the climate crisis and the 2019/2020 bushfire season. It comprises contributions from acclaimed writers (e.g. Tony Birch, Delia Falconer) and prominent environmentalists (e.g. David Ritter). In my view, the collection's strength lies in the diverse stories of everyday encounters with the mysteries and wonders of our natural world. I especially liked Jo Chandler's Weekend in Gondwara, Ashley Hay's Colour Purple, John Charles Ryan's Kelp and Kate Wright's Iwata. It is another - of many - calls to action for serious and urgent efforts to restore biological diversity and the natural balance in our precious climate system.

[Lucinda Bain · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘The Anthropocene is a time of pervasive loss and also of profound loneliness.’ A moving collection of essays, not all hope-less. Favourites: ‘But how are we supposed to have any fun?’ by Jane Rawson, ‘Signs and Wonders of a New Age’ by Delia Falconer, ‘Listening to Birds in a Changing World by Saskia Beudel, ‘Kelp’ by John Charles Ryan.

[Iolanthe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved it! Some essays were a bit boring and full of unnecessary statistics, but others were beautiful.