Book Review - Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet

Title: Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet
Author: Kate Marvel
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Pending...

Description (Audible): A captivating exploration of climate change that uses nine different emotions to better understand the science, history, and future of our evolving planet

Scientist Kate Marvel has seen the world end before, sometimes several times a day. In the computer models she uses to study climate change, it’s easy to simulate rising temperatures, catastrophic outcomes, and bleak futures. But climate change isn’t just happening in those models. It’s happening here, to the only good planet in the universe. It’s happening to us. And she has feelings about that.

Human Nature is a deeply felt inquiry into our rapidly changing Earth. In each chapter, Marvel uses a different emotion to explore the science and stories behind climate change. As expected, there is anger, fear, and grief—but also wonder, hope, and love. With her singular voice, Marvel takes us on a soaring journey, one filled with mythology, physics, witchcraft, bad movies, volcanoes, Roman emperors, sequoia groves, and the many small miracles of nature we usually take for granted.

Hopeful, heartbreaking, and surprisingly funny, Human Nature is a vital, wondrous exploration of how it feels to live in a changing world.

Description (ChatGPT): Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel is a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent exploration of climate change that goes beyond science into the realm of human feeling. Marvel organizes the book around nine emotions—like wonder, anger, and hope—using each as a lens to better understand our relationship with the planet.

What makes this book stand out is its balance: it’s grounded in clear scientific insight, yet deeply personal and reflective. Marvel doesn’t preach or overwhelm; instead, she invites readers to sit with the complexity of climate change without losing sight of possibility.

Concise, humane, and quietly powerful, Human Nature is a refreshing take on a heavy subject—one that leaves you not just informed, but more connected to both the Earth and your own emotional response to it.