New Books in Environmental Studies

Animals speak. Plants do too. Seas and mountains are not a mute background to human actions, but have interests and agency. Many more-than-human beings are political actors. All of us are part of a web of relations in which we affect others and are affected by them. To counter the current ecological destruction and find more just ways to co-exist, humans need new ways of doing politics with other earth beings. In Multispecies Assemblies (Vine Press, 2025), Dutch philosopher Eva Meijer develops such a new political model: the multispecies assembly. Multispecies assemblies are a form of direct democracy in which some beings speak for themselves and others are represented. Living differently as humans is possible, but we must begin to listen to others, and learn from them. Eva Meijer is a philosopher, visual artist, writer and singer-songwriter. They write novels, philosophical essays, academic texts, poems and columns, and their work has been translated into over twenty languages. Recurring themes are language including silence, madness, nonhuman animals, and politics. Meijer also works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, writes essays and columns for Dutch newspapers, and is a member of the Multispecies Collective. Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2021), Deborah Gordon shows that no two oils or gases are environmentally alike. Each has a distinct, quantifiable climate impact. While all oils and gases pollute, some are much worse for the climate than others. In clear, accessible language, Gordon explains the results of the Oil Climate Index Plus Gas (OCI+), an innovative, open-source model that estimates global oil and gas emissions. Gordon identifies the oils and gases from every region of the globe–– along with the specific production, processing, and refining activities–– that are the most harmful to the planet, and proposes innovative solutions to reduce their climate footprints. Global climate stabilization cannot afford to wait for oil and gas to run out. No Standard Oil shows how we can take immediate, practical steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the crucial oil and gas sector while making sustainable progress in transitioning to a carbon-free energy future. Deborah Gordon is a senior principal in the Climate Intelligence Program at RMI where she leads the Oil and Gas Solutions Initiative. Gordon also serves as a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and the principal investigator for the Oil Climate Project. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Animals are staging a revolution—they’re just not telling us. From radioactive boar invading towns to jellyfish disarming battleships, Animal Revolution (U Minnesota Press, 2022) threads together news accounts and more in a powerful and timely work of creative, speculative nonfiction that imagines a revolution stirring and asks how humans can be a part of it. If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we should pay attention to how we bump up against animal worlds and how animals will push back. Animal Revolution is a passionate, provocative, cogent call for us to do so. Ron Broglio reveals how fur and claw and feather and fin are jamming the gears of our social machine. We can try to frame such disruptions as environmental intervention or through the lens of philosophy or biopolitics, but regardless the animals persist beyond our comprehension in reminding us that we too are part of an animal world. Animals see our technologies and machines as invasive beings and, in a nonlinguistic but nonetheless intensive mode of communicating with us, resist our attempts to control them and diminish their habitats. In doing so, they expose the environmental injustices and vulnerabilities in our systems. A witty, informative, and captivating work—at the juncture of posthumanism, animal studies, phenomenology, and environmental studies—Broglio reminds us of our inadequacy as humans, not our exceptionalism. Ron Broglio is professor of English, director of Desert Humanities, and associate director of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University. He is author or editor of several books, including Beasts of Burden: Biopolitics, Labor, and Animal Life and Surface Encounters: Thinking with Animals and Art. Callie Smith is a poet and a PhD candidate in English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

A former journalist and environmental campaigner named Pan Yue rose through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, championing the concept of “ecological civilization.” This green dream combines elements of traditional Chinese culture with eco-Marxism, suggesting a radical reorientation of humanity’s relationship to the natural world. Is the idea a serious alternative to sustainable development, as the CCP claims? Or is it just a cynical cover for eco-authoritarianism? We speak with Beijing-based journalist and environmentalist Ma Tianjie, author of In Search of Green China (2025) This is the fourth episode of Cited Podcast’s new season, Green Dreams. Green Dreams tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their dreams for our green future. Should we make those dreams reality, or are they actually nightmares? For the rest of the episodes, visit the series page, and subscribe today (Apple, Spotify, RSS). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Dr. Lily Hseuh is trained as an economist and public policy scholar, and is an associate professor in Economics and Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs, at Arizona State University. Her research bridges the fields of economics, public policy, and management to investigate how the environment and the global commons are managed and the ways in which behaviors of firms and organizations are shaped by multiple forces from markets to government policies. During her tenure at ASU, she has been a two-time recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as receiving the Professor of Impact award Her work been featured in major news outlets, including the Financial Times, Fortune, and PBS News Hour, and recently, she was awarded an American Fellowship by the American Association of University Women. She earned her PhD in Public Policy and Management from the University of Washington, and before her just published book, she has been asked to contribute a chapter to a number of other publications and has over 20 peer-reviewed articles in such areas as:  Private And Public Interactions And Global Climate Change, Rights-Based Management And Ocean And Marine Resources, Sustainability And State And Local Governments, Participatory Governance And Social Equity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Most economists believe that growth is the surest path to better lives. This has proven to be one of humanity’s most powerful and dangerous ideas. It shapes policy across the globe, but it fatally undermines the natural ecosystems necessary to sustain human life. How did we get here and what might be next?In The Invention of Infinite Growth: How Economists Forgot About the Natural World (Simon and Schuster, 2025), environmental historian Christopher F. Jones takes us through two hundred and fifty years of economic thinking to examine the ideal of growth, its powerful influence, and the crippling burdens many decisions made in its name have placed on us all. Jones argues that the pursuit of growth has never reflected its costs, because economists downplay environmental degradation. What’s worse, skyrocketing inequality and diminishing improvements in most people’s well-being mean growth too often delivers too little for too many. Jones urges economists to engage more broadly with other ways of thinking, as well as with citizens and governments to recognize and slow infinite growth’s impact on the real world. Both accessible and eye-opening, The Invention of Infinite Growth offers hope for the future. Humans have not always believed that economic growth could or should continue, and so it is possible for us to change course. We can still create new ideas about how to promote environmental sustainability, human welfare, and even responsible growth, without killing the planet and ourselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves in the United States. Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, Kumar discovered a wild apple tree—and the seeds of an odyssey were planted. Could the taste of a feral apple offer a doorway to the wild? In The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit, Kumar takes us on a dazzling and transformative journey to rediscover apples, unearthing a rich and complex history while illuminating how we can reimagine our relationship with nature.Apples are popular, but in our everyday lives we rarely encounter more than a handful of varieties: of the sixteen thousand apple varieties once celebrated in America, scarcely a fifth remain accessible. Kumar reveals the richness of a hidden world, bringing readers to the vibrant forests and orchards where historic trees still survive. These mature and wild orchards offer more than just fruit: they are havens for creatures from hummingbirds to bears and a living connection to generations past. She brilliantly weaves together science and childhood memories with the apple’s storied history, from its roots in Kazakhstan to Spanish orchards in the Southwest and Thomas Jefferson’s beloved Monticello fruitery. Kumar shows how—if we follow untamed paths—the tang and texture of an apple can lead us back to the wild. Our guest is: Priyanka Kumar, who is the author of Conversations with Birds, and The Light Between Apple Trees. Her essays appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion, and Sierra magazine. She holds an MFA, and has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California. Her feature documentary, The Song of the Little Road, is in the permanent collection of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and her awards include an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, an International Center for Jefferson Studies Fellowship, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and freelance editor. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the show's newsletter. Playlist for listeners: Big Box USA In The Garden Behind the Moon Disabled Ecologies Endless Forms The Well-Gardened Mind Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

A vital account of the state of the Arctic today--emphasising the twin dangers of climate change and geopolitical competition Nowhere is the dual threat of climate change and geopolitical contest felt more strongly than in the Arctic. Sea ice is declining rapidly, wildfires are burning, and permafrost is thawing. All the while, global interest is gathering apace as the region transforms from being a frozen desert into an international waterway. Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds examine the state of the Arctic today, showing how the region is becoming a space of experimentation for everything from Indigenous governance to subsea technologies. Growing geopolitical competition is accompanying environmental disruption. Countries including Russia, China, and the United States are investing in the Arctic and consolidating their interests in strategic access, resource exploitation, and alliance-building. The consequences of this emerging Arctic Anthropocene are truly global--from rising sea levels due to melting glaciers to tensions between great powers determined to protect their territory and resources, and the well-being of Indigenous Peoples who have fought for centuries for rights and recognition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

How did India’s landmark Forest Rights Act come into being? And what difference has it made to the lives of historically marginalized forest-dwelling communities? These questions are at the heart of Anand Vaidya’s new monograph Future of the forest: Struggles over land and law in India that we discuss in this episode. Future of the forest offers a compelling account of the making, implementation, and partial unravelling of the Forest Rights Act, and traces the complex ways in which collective action and mobilization have shaped the use and impact of this potentially revolutionary legislation. Anand P. Vaidya is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Kenneth Bo Nielsen is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo where he also heads the Centre for South Asian Democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Prof Mukul Sharma is a professor of Environmental Studies at Ashoka University. His formal training is in Political Science and has worked as a special correspondent with a leading news outlet in India and received 12 national and international awards for his environmental, rural and human rights journalism. additionally he has also been the Director Amnesty International and South Asia of Climate Parliament. His scholarly has focused on environmental politics and discourses in India and explored crucial intersections of ecology, caste, political ideology and the development rhetoric.  Abhilasha Jain is an anthropologist with an MSc in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an MPhil in Gender Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is currently working as an independent researcher focusing on climate justice, digital infrastructure and digital rights for children/youth.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies