Controversial plastic straw bans continue to make headlines. A cultural analysis helps weigh the most recent legislation and asks whether bans on single-use plastics offer a path toward a more sustainable future or a distraction from systemic change.
How does the celebrated author of the new story collection “Florida” write books in a poisoned, warming world? “By being constantly, constantly angry. All day long.”
Many new movies and TV shows have complex things to say about the entanglement of culture, history, and environment. We recommend the best scholarship to help you decode them.
Two geographers, co-editors of the new volume Historical Animal Geographies, discuss how the animals around us shape our histories, our environments, and the stories we tell about the world.
Environmental justice is the future of environmental activism. A new documentary reader edited by Christopher Wells chronicles the birth of the environmental justice movement.
Astronauts love growing plants in space, and it turns out there are benefits for us on Earth. Botanist Simon Gilroy discusses his experiments growing cotton in zero gravity.
Phenology, tracking the comings and goings of species each season, provides insight into the disruptions caused by human-induced climate change.
The Flint water crisis is not over. Anna Clark’s new book tells the history of how we got here and how lead is here to stay.
In ancient Greece and Rome, birds filled more than the skies. Jeremy Mynott’s new book explores birds in ancient imaginations and the science, pastimes, art, and literature they inspired.
A historian implicates the canning industry in the rise of the industrial food system and our current public health crisis. And yet, she says, maligning canned food is not the answer.
