Letters to my Children from a Changing Planet

Think Like a Forest

Ben Rawlence is the author of The Treeline, City of Thorns and Radio Congo. Rawlence has written for the Guardian, London Review of Books, New York Times, New York Times Book Review, New Yorker and many other publications. He lives in Wales and is the founder and director of Black Mountains College, an institution dedicated to preparing people for the changes to come.

How to parent in a climate emergency? Through a series of inspiring letters written to his daughters, climate activist and writer Ben Rawlence finds new ways to open conversations and navigate the uncertainty of our changing times together 
 
Writer and activist Ben Rawlence first began writing to his eldest daughter before she was born, expressing his fears at what it would mean to raise children in a rapidly changing world where the very concept of the future was in jeopardy. Twelve years later, dozens of these letters to his two daughters tell the story of one father's attempt to navigate the fundamental contradiction of raising children within an economic system that seems hostile to all life, including us. 
 
Climate change poses a fundamental challenge to parenting. What knowledge should we pass on? What future are we preparing our children for? 
 
By turns dark, hilarious and always bracingly honest, the letters to his daughters offer relatable and inspiring insights about parenting in perilous times. Ultimately Rawlence (and his daughters) show us that learning to see once again through the eyes of a child might hold the answer to how we parent, how we live and even the future of our planet.

Ben Rawlence

This original and readable book takes readers to a part of the world undergoing radical but little-understood change.

An urgent and insightful tour of some of the world's strangest, most bewitching and most endangered environments... This is an important book, and one I will be pressing into other people's hands.

Cal Flyn, author of ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT

[A] sweeping account of the Arctic forest that circles the world in an almost unbroken ring.

[A] lyrical and passionate book... The Treeline is a sobering, powerful account of how trees might just save the world.

[An] urgent investigation into the Arctic treeline... a meticulously researched and compellingly presented read.

Twill rightly provoke fear, but also a sense of wonder ... A beautiful and evocative portrait of the natural world. It is essential reading for those hoping to better understand our changing planet.

Rawlence is a fine ecologist and an excellent writer... The Treeline is timely, salutary and eminently readable. Excellent.

Ben Rawlence... writes with accuracy, beauty and urgency.

[A] moving, thoughtful, deeply reported elegy for our vanishing world and a map of the one to come.

A fascinating book drawing on a brilliant, original line of thinking... A perfect combination of lyrical writing and rigorous reporting. Utterly illuminating.

Sophy Roberts, author of THE LOST PIANOS OF SIBERIA

What an extraordinary book this is! ... This is not just a description of a warming world but an active invitation to live differently, to participate with wisdom and humility in the cacophonous and ever-unfinished abundance of terrestrial life.

Ben Ehrenreich, author of DESERT NOTEBOOKS

The very treeline is on the move: a devastating image. This book is an evocative, wise and unflinching exploration of what it will mean for humanity.

Absolutely fantastic and devastating.

Ben Rawlence circumnavigates the very top of the globe - returning with a warning, in this enthralling and wonderfully written book, that all would do well to heed.

Rawlence evokes the natural world in lyrical, delicate prose... A timely, urgent message delivered in graceful fashion.

Compelling, intriguing, and thoroughly engaging... A title of the utmost importance at a time of tremendous peril, The Treeline is a game-changer.

A lyrical travelogue documenting the decline of the great boreal forests that encircle the north of the globe, and the cultures that depend on them... A grim and thought-provoking read.

A sobering account... The Treeline is a powerful reminder of the far-off impacts of global warming.

The Treeline is wise and considered, offering both klaxon warning about the state of the earth and beautiful hymn to its interdependencies.

[A] riveting, rigorous (and frankly terrifying) book.

The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth

A ground-breaking and beautifully written investigation into the Arctic Treeline with an urgent environmental message. 
 
'Evocative, wise and unflinching' Jay Griffiths, author of Wild 
 
The Arctic treeline is the frontline of climate change, where the trees have been creeping towards the pole for fifty years already. 
 
Scientists are only just beginning to understand the astonishing significance of these northern forests for all life on Earth. At the treeline, Rawlence witnesses the accelerating impact of climate change and the devastating legacies of colonialism and capitalism. But he also finds reasons for hope. Humans are creatures of the forest; we have always evolved with trees and The Treeline asks us where our co-evolution might take us next. 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 
 
'A moving, thoughtful, deeply reported elegy for our vanishing world and a map of the one to come' Nathaniel Rich, author of Losing Earth 
 
'A lyrical and passionate book... The Treeline is a sobering, powerful account of how trees might just save the world, as long as we are sensible enough to let them' Mail on Sunday 
 
'Ben Rawlence circumnavigates the very top of the globe - returning with a warning, in this enthralling and wonderfully written book' Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees

Ben Rawlence

Praise for The Treeline

This original and readable book takes readers to a part of the world undergoing radical but little-understood change.

An urgent and insightful tour of some of the world's strangest, most bewitching and most endangered environments... This is an important book, and one I will be pressing into other people's hands.

[A] sweeping account of the Arctic forest that circles the world in an almost unbroken ring.

This original and readable book takes readers to a part of the world undergoing radical but little-understood change.

An urgent and insightful tour of some of the world's strangest, most bewitching and most endangered environments... This is an important book, and one I will be pressing into other people's hands.

[A] sweeping account of the Arctic forest that circles the world in an almost unbroken ring.

This original and readable book takes readers to a part of the world undergoing radical but little-understood change.

An urgent and insightful tour of some of the world's strangest, most bewitching and most endangered environments... This is an important book, and one I will be pressing into other people's hands.

[A] sweeping account of the Arctic forest that circles the world in an almost unbroken ring.

Books by Ben Rawlence

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