What a fantastic collection of stories. In books of essays or short stories, I typically mark the pieces that stood out as outstanding in the table of contents, but for this book, each piece resonated so much that I had trouble distinguishing them. Even Bill McKibben’s End of Nature, which I’ve read several times, read just as good on a reread.

Divided into three sections — how we got here, where we are, and what we can do now — this book offers fantastic examinations of the climate emergency: its origins, its consequences, and the possibilities of mitigation and adaptation; or, in other words, its past, present, and future. Notably, the book brings to light the need for and importance of climate writing: “climate change isn’t an ‘issue’ to be considered among a list of others. Rather, it concerns the very preconditions for all species to go on living on this planet… [this book] contributes to a shared sense of urgency — and to a shared sense of change.”

Like I mentioned, every essay in this collection is worth reading, but here are some that stand out: “Writes in the Storm,” where Kathryn Schulz explains the history of weather as both an empirical model and a symbolic one, with the science of meteorology slowly replacing the literary impact of its majesty; “The Inferno,” where Christine Keneally describes Black Saturday, a tale of fighting one of Australia’s worst fires in history and the now-complicated implications of the country’s “stay or go” policy.

We also get a fantastic piece by Jonathan Franzen, “The End of the End of the World,” where the novelist goes to Antarctica to see a pristine landscape and a remote species, all within the frame of celebrating a relative’s memory and exploring the meaning of love within a dying world. And we get David Owen’s “Green Manhattan,” which dives into the eco-friendly lifestyle of urban spaces and made me rethink the preconceived notions of places like NYC as antitheses to environmental lifestyles and further enraged me on suburban sprawl and the modern American dream of mini-Monticellos, all made possible by the car and the infrastructure created to cater to it.

My hope for this book was to get a beginner's course in climate change - both what has been reported over the past several decades but also the on the ground work that might not be widely known. In this respect, The Fragile Earth certainly delivered. As one would guess, it's hard, if not completely illogical, to be optimistic after reading this, but there were many worthwhile stories (some of which didn't even have climate change as the main focus necessarily). This is a collection I feel like I will draw from for some time.

Took me a little while to get through, but it contains some average, some good, and some very good essays. Some I read before in grad school, but most were new pieces to me.

One random tidbit of new info I learned:
An increase in deforestation means an increase in termites...and termites excrete crazy amounts of methane. So cows are not the only organism that should take the blame for methane emissions.

I really enjoyed most of these essays! This is a really fantastic and thoughtful collection.

3.5 stars

This was a really interesting book filled with over 20 articles from The New Yorker about climate change and related issues. I have worked for a climate change charity and keep up with news surrounding this area so I was interested to see how much I would find new and interesting.

This is a long book! At 560 pages, I found that the 20+ articles were a few too many and that there was a decent amount of repetition. Infelt some articles could have been left out and that it would have been a better book.
The Fragile Earth covers many different areas relatednto climate change including the science and history of climate change, effects on oceanic creatures, acidification of oceans and coral reefs, melting of ice caps, mass extinctions, carbon neutral power and carbon footprints and meat eating and the horrendous effects of the meat industry. There are a lot of case studies and each article has it's own focus.
I really enjoyed reading about half of the articles and some I found rather monotonous and not needed. I personally didn't learn a great deal but still found the content to be interesting and useful to know.
Some articles were written in a more approachable manner than others which makes a huge difference especially when many readers may not be that knowledgeable about climate change.
I am unsure who the target market is for this book as I don't think those that know nothing about climate change should read this book as there are much better and more succinct books out there. For those that are already knowledgeable, there wasn't a huge amount of new information as all of the articles are written at least a decade ago.

Overall, it was a decent read but too long and I wouldn't recommend this book as there are mich better climate change books to read.

Please note that I was gifted this ebook in exchange for an honest review.