FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN GENERAL NONFICTION
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.
In a new afterword for the paperback edition, Rush highlights questions
of storytelling, adaptability, and how to powerfully shift conversation
around ongoing climate change--including the storms of 2017 and 2018:
Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, Irma, Florence, and Michael.
