Just because we are in the mid-winter of dormancy with our pop-up tent into storage, it doesn’t mean that that Destination: Books isn’t preparing for warmer days ahead sans Omicron. During this time, we are bringing in new books to evaluate, which has an optimistic vibe like scouring seed catalogs (like this one from High Mowing Organic Seeds). Thumbing through pictures of tomatoes, peas, and cucumbers is like browsing through book covers— an activity full of color and promise.
One such book is All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (2021) edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K. Wilkinson. A customer at our December 4 popup at the Carter Center Freedom Farmer’s Market recommended it. Published last year, All We Can Save features the work of 60 women writers and poets reflecting a wide range of climate related issues.
Some of essays and arguments will sound familiar but still bear repeating. What sets All We Can Save apart are essays such as:
- “Wakanda Doesn’t Have Suburbs.” Kenda Pierre-Lewis uses the blockbuster movie Black Panther to provide a vision what a metropolis not surrounded by environmentally unfriendly suburban sprawl would look like.
- “Heaven or High Water.” Sarah Miller poses as potential buyer of a luxury condo in Miami Beach so she can ask real estate agents about the rising sea level that will flood the city. One agent reassures her, “The scientists, economists, and environmentalists that are saying this stuff; they don’t realize what a wealthy area this is.” The skeptical Miller comments on the illogic, “There were just too many millionaires and billionaires here for disaster on a great scale to be allowed to take place.”
- “Under the Weather.” Ash Sanders deep dives into the language of global warming. My favorite new word is “eco-pooper,” which is a person who brings a depressing environmental thing every time you talk.
- "The Adaptive Mind." Susanne Moser writes about climate advocacy burnout and what one can do to take care of oneself. Eco-poopers, take note.
Reading All We Can Save can become overwhelming but inspirational as well with stories of how citizens have organized to put up major legal resistance along with new solutions (e.g., regenerative ocean farming) that you may never have heard of. The passion of these writers and poets is infectious, but as we know. hope isn’t necessarily enough.
As the pastor’s wife in Heather McTear Toney essay, “Collards Are Just as Good as Kale” says:
“You can pray and believe all you want but without action ain’t nothing gonna happen. You’re just wasting the Lord’s sweet precious time.”
Another for source for this eco-anthology is All We Can Save Project website.