Will I love Rising?

I recommended this book to a nature writer friend as a master class in nonfiction. Yes, our coastline is going under water, and, yes, it is our own damn fault, but Rush takes us readers beyond science and down to the nitty gritty humanity of it all. We meet down-and-out folks along the Louisiana coast, hard scrabble Staten Islanders, gettin’ soggy Floridians, to name but a few—and all are preparing for Noah’s flood in one way another. We also get a glimpse into different coping strategies. Good luck, some sort of Revelation is on the way.

I enjoyed the way Elizabeth Rush ventured out into some diverse and remote places where sea level rise has had a profound impact on long-term residents.

She writes eloquently about people and their lives and homes and avoids the climate change politics and debates. This is not a future problem—it’s real, it’s now, and it’s everywhere, as her conversations so clearly and soberly illustrate.

This book was a significant inspiration for my own book, and remains one of the best and deepest accounts of how climate change is affecting the United States, in any medium.

Moving from the wetlands of the Eastern Seaboard to an eroding village in coastal Louisiana to a Pensacola neighborhood burdened by high flood insurance costs, Rush shows in intimate detail how sea-level rise alters individual lives and transforms small communities, displaying a patience and compassion that too few journalists have.

Rigorously reported and beautifully written, Rising takes readers to some of the places in the United States where sea level rise has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and people living in these periled places, the options are limited: migrate elsewhere, or perish. Rush gives voice to the people in such heavily impacted communities; she weaves firsthand accounts from those experiencing such rapid change in their shoreline communities and profiles biologists, activities, and other members of vulnerable communities.

She exposes the many inequitable… show more.