Living with the Anthropocene Love, Loss and Hope in the Face of Environmental Crisis

Australia—and the world—is changing. On the Great Barrier Reef corals bleach white; across the inland farmers struggle with declining rainfall; birds and insects disappear from our gardens and plastic waste chokes our shores. The 2019–20 summer saw bushfires ravage the country like never before and young and old alike are rightly anxious. Human activity is transforming the places we live in and love. In this extraordinarily powerful and moving book, some of Australia's best-known writers and thinkers—as well as ecologists, walkers, farmers, historians, ornithologists, artists, and community activists—come together to reflect on what it is like to be alive during an ecological crisis. They build a picture of a collective endeavour towards a culture of care, respect, and attention as the physical world changes around us. How do we hold onto hope? Personal and urgent, this is a literary anthology for our age, the age of humans. Contributors include: Michael Adams, Nadia Bailey, Saskia Beudel, Tony Birch, James Bradley, Jo Chandler, Adrienne Corradini, Sophie Cunningham, John Dargavel, Penny Dunstan, Delia Falconer, Laura Fisher, Suzy Freeman-Greene, and Andrea Gayn.

Jenny Newell is manager of Climate Change Projects, Australian Museum, Sydney. Working in the environmental humanities and formerly with Pacific communities and collections at the British Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, she now focuses on fostering engagement in the climate crisis. Her books include Trading Nature and the coedited volume Curating the Future. She convenes the Museums & Climate Change Network. Cameron Muir is a writer, editor, and researcher. His writing has appeared in Griffith Review, Meanjin, Overland, the Guardian, Australian Book Review, and Best Australian Science Writing, among other publications. Cameron’s work has been shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s History Awards, the Eureka Prize for Science Journalism, and the Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing. Kirsten Wehner is a curator/designer who creates experiences that foster people’s connections with each other and the more-than human world. Now director of PhotoAccess, she was formerly a head curator at the National Museum of Australia. Around the edges, Kirsten publishes in the environmental humanities and develops multi-species urban spaces. She coedited Curating the Future: Museums, Communities and Climate Change and coauthored Landmarks: A History of Australia in 33 Places.