Book Review
Human Nature
by Kate Marvel
Even before I started reading Kate Marvel’s Human Nature, I knew it was going to be an important book – how could it not be, tackling, as it does, one of the largest, most universal problems of this century? What I wasn’t prepared for was how gripping it would be to read.
Across nine chapters, Marvel draws you into an unapologetic and unflinching account of our climate: what has already happened, where we are now, and what sobering futures await us. From her wonder at our world and the climate models that she uses to study it, to the thick miasma of anger, fear and grief that hangs over any discussion of climate change, and then to the hope and love that she cultivates nonetheless, this is a book steeped in emotion; a book that defiantly refuses to take an impartial, clinical view. Marvel wants us to feel.
If Marvel’s passionate, personal voice is what makes Human Nature such a powerful read, it’s her skill as a storyteller that makes it a wildly compelling one. Alongside a guiding emotion, each chapter is often shaped by a wider theme that brings a playful variety to the information presented, whether through lyrical allusions to Greek myth, tongue-in-cheek homages to bad movies, or topical comparisons to 16th-century witch hunts. However, where Human Nature is at its best is when those themes drill even deeper into the personal and, in sharing stories from her life, Marvel reminds us that the fight against climate change is as much about protecting the small, fragile corners of Earth that we love as it is about averting catastrophic collapse.
As a young person in these troubled times, I’m grateful that we have Kate Marvel: a brilliant writer who just so happens to also be a world-class scientist. I can’t imagine a better voice to listen to about our collective future.
