I spent a chunk of Earth Day exploring compelling new books on the climate challenge by two friends and co-travelers on the sustainability beat, Elizabeth Kolbert at the New Yorker and Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent. Suitably, as we began talking about the power and limits of narrative, we were interrupted when my Maine neighborhood’s ospreys flew back to their nest (I was tracking the nest cam.)
I noted how happy we were that the ospreys had returned because a bald eagle had killed last year’s nestlings. I also mused on the clashing narratives there, given how the same environmental movement that inspired the creation of Earth Day took away the DDT that had nearly extinguished America’s national bird.
Here are my thumbnail reviews:
