It is a kind of myth that a book is the product of one individual’s imagination and labor. In truth, it is a manifestation of the generosity and creativity of many. So many people have contributed to the research and writing of At Home on an Unruly Planet.
I could not have put this book together without the support and faith of my agents, Stuart Krichevsky and Laura Usselman: from the beginning, they understood that a deep conversation about home in an era of tumult was powerful and necessary and that the stories herein needed to be told. My editor, Conor Mintzer, worked tirelessly and diligently to help me bring this book into being. I am also grateful to my previous editor, Barbara Jones, for her early support of this project.
The extensive research that formed the bones of these stories would not have been possible without support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation books program and a project grant from Artist Trust. I also wrote an early outline of the book during a retreat at the Mesa Refuge that was funded by a Jonathan Rowe Memorial Fellowship. With the help and sponsorship of poet and professor Glen Phillips, Edith Cowan University funded my research trip to Australia as a visiting scholar several years ago, a trip that influenced several pieces of this book, most obviously the chapter on homesickness. (Glen also taught me years before, when I was an undergraduate exchange student in Perth, about the importance of creative persistence.)
The Fund for Investigative Journalism supported two projects that ultimately helped bolster the reporting for this book: an investigation into cap and trade policies and the impacts on frontline communities in California, and a report on black carbon pollution in Alaska, which led to my explorations of arctic climate change impacts. I’m also grateful to my editors at Hakai, Sierra, Audubon, The Nation, and Undark and my former colleagues at YES! magazine for letting me take on projects that helped fuel the research of this book.
Numerous other friends, colleagues, and fellow travelers and journalists contributed in ways large and small. Robert McLaughlin read early drafts of the manuscript—which gave me an extra dose of courage to push ahead with the writing and revision—and also contributed financially to the book. (Early in my adult life, when I was a student in his literature classes at Illinois State University, Bob M. also led me to understand better how words can be revolutionary.) My friends, Robert and Teri Stephens, also made a financial gift to support the book’s research expenses. Ebonye Gussine Wilkins and Alice Rearden, my sensitivity readers, helped me identify important cultural nuances in the draft and bring greater authenticity to descriptions of communities on the front lines of climate change. Doug Pibel, Heather Purser, Lizzie Wade, Valerie Schloredt, Mark Kramer, Jessica Bruder, Deborah Blum, Annalee Newitz, Jen Marlowe, Erica Howard, and Jackie Varriano read early pieces of either the proposal or the manuscript and offered astute feedback. Sarah Neilson and Palmer Stroup lent their time and energy as research assistants. Austin Price, James Steinbauer, and James Gaines helped me rigorously fact-check the manuscript.
Researching this book required extensive travel, the vast majority done in the years before the pandemic. Kit and Phyllis Barnett, Rebekah Chapman, and Brittany Retherford offered me a roof to sleep under during travels in Alaska (when I was initially just a stranger to them). Kyle Hopkins and Rebecca Palsha also loaned me a bed (and once a car) during trips through Anchorage. Ash Adams quite literally allowed me to cry on her shoulder. Though I focused my Alaskan narratives on Newtok, many others in communities like Utqiagvik and Wainwright invited me into their homes and shared stories and wisdom. Linda and Ransom Agnasagga especially offered their time, insight, and kindness and fed me delicious Iñupiaq food.
In addition to painting the beautiful forest-house that graces the cover, Sarah Gilman put me up during a trip through the Methow Valley and read an early draft of the full manuscript with keen eyes, offering much valuable feedback. Mark Fritzel gave me a place to stay in Oakland numerous times and let me borrow his car to drive around Richmond. Rebecca Kim loaned me a set of wheels to take myself to a writing retreat in a remote part of Washington State, where I could concentrate deeply and write multiple chapter drafts.
My coterie (or perhaps coven) of brilliant and wise women science writers, the League of Extraordinary Writing Dames, provided ongoing moral support through some rocky moments in both the writing process and in my personal life. Antonia Juhasz, Alexandra Witze, and Julia Rosen were my writing and goal-setting partners at various moments.
This book also exists because of the generosity of hundreds of people who were willing to share their expertise, ideas, and personal histories, and I’m profoundly grateful to all the people who made time for both formal and informal conversations and interviews. One of my deepest sources of hope comes from knowing so many individuals who have dedicated themselves to protecting both our planetary home and our particular communities and beloved places. From them I have learned that optimism is not a passive feeling but an active fighting stance necessary for survival.
Finally, thank you to the people who have shaped my career. Especially to my mom, who made sure my childhood room was full of beautiful books, who read me not just bedtime stories but chapters and sections of novels and fanciful tales, and who taught me to love poetry and music. To my late grandfather, Harvey Clure Barnes, who instilled in me a love of nature and who knew how to get lost in the woods, to sit in stillness, and to attend to the landscape and the plants and animals.
To my stepdad, who pushed me, early in adulthood, to balance out the artistic and analytical parts of my brain by taking classes in organic chemistry and calculus, so that later I would better understand the scientific process and the forces that are changing the atmosphere.
To my dad, who taught me how to use a computer when I was about five years old, and has, in my adulthood, helped equip me with the technological tools every good journalist needs.
To my brother and my sister-in-law, who have trod some of these bumpy roads with me and have offered their unqualified enthusiasm for this project.
To my husband for sharing with me a life of exploration, adventure, and wonder, and for his unwavering faith in me.
To my husband’s family, who inspire me with their passion for sustainability and for building a better future.
To Seattle, a city full of activists and rabble-rousers, politicians, literati, artists, backyard gardeners, scientists, hikers, adventurers, and so many people who are passionate about nature, thank you for the ongoing inspiration and for everything you do to protect this place and the magnificence and beauty of the Puget Sound.
And my deep gratitude to the Coast Salish peoples—including the Duwamish, Suquamish, Muckleshoot, and Tulalip communities—whose traditional land I live upon and who, for many generations, have nourished what is now my home place.