In her remarkable book At Home on an Unruly Planet, science writer Madeline Ostrander explores what “home” means in a time of increasing and dramatic climate change. The excellent Prologue clearly lays out the visits to come in the following chapters of four places affected by climate change. Wildfires in the Northwest, collapsing permafrost in Alaska, floods in Florida, and a refinery accident in California. From page one, the writer sets the framework – this is not intended as a book about doom but is a book about home and what that means to each of us. It does not shy away from hard and uncomfortable facts and projections. And we will meet memorable “climate migrants” and others who faced distinct calamities or know encroaching ones are ahead from climate change.

Each chapter starts with a dictionary entry about “home,” a guidepost to remind us of the cornerstone we return to again and again. Home. What does “home” mean, and what happens when it is under threat or destroyed? The writer explores home with a wide lens, including emotional, familial, cultural, anthropological, spiritual, geographic, mythical, and health views. Home is as broad as this one planet housing billions of creatures to as small as a scent or memory that stirs up a sense of home. Home means safety.

The first part of the book visits in depth each of these four affected sites with vivid images and details of the calamity, the people, the suffering and stress. The fires rage, and we read and breathe fire-air and scorching smoke. We shudder at the megafires’ destruction. The next fire is right around the corner. The floods steal lowlands and drench what is home to millions. It won’t stop. The thaw of permafrost and coastline collapse create the urgent need to migrate. Ash and toxicity permeate neighborhoods after a refinery explosion. The safety of home has been torn down. Lives are never the same.

The second part is covered less often about climate change – what happens afterwards and how to create a future with climate change. Communal “polycentric” solutions are explored that counter giving up but embrace building a future for generations to come. Here there is hope, and we revisit the four sites and some amazing, determined people and what they are doing. Major changes are crucial, and the writer is not a Pollyanna and firmly lays some clear culpability of climate change on oil companies and others (political and corporate).

At some point everyone will be affected by climate change or live through one of these calamities. In June 2002, we lived through the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, the worst forest fire in Arizona until the Wallow Fire a decade later. One does not forget. Home as safety is fragile.

Madeline Ostrander’s debut book is hopeful, impressive, beautifully written, and should be seminal in climate change collections.

My opinion is all my own. I am grateful to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Co., and Madeline Ostrander for allowing me access to this fine book.

“We are all building these walls and roofs and lives together, on this one messy and unruly blue planet.”

Home is so many things in Madeline Ostrander’s AT HOME ON AN UNRULY PLANET. It’s more than just a traditional, individual structure we deem our own. Nor is it just a place or a sense of safety. Home, to Ostrander, is the world around us — a world that is increasingly imperiled by climate change.

By using personal stories, featuring intimate characters and providing a straightforward, thorough walk-through of her reporting, Ostrander takes on a layered topic with poise and simplicity. She drops readers off in Alaska, California and Florida, sending them on an exhilarating journey she’s crafted. In each place, the reader meets a handful of people across the country who are working to protect and preserve their homes.

AT HOME ON AN UNRULY PLANET is a call to immediate climate action — one that inspires hope in the face of the world’s most pressing modern emergency. The book does a wonderful job of also evoking a sense of agency among readers, while still demanding nothing short of urgency. Everything about it is gorgeous — from the writing to the cover to the title — and I couldn’t have read it at a better time. AT HOME ON AN UNRULY PLANET is what my weary, worried heart didn’t know it needed.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

An interesting look at climate change and its actual effects on people. I liked the balance of information/background d with anecdotal stories of people living through tragedy and trauma caused by climate change. Perhaps this will help convince some naysayers that our actions need to reflect the future we want.

First, thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

And honestly, I enjoyed it. It's hard to make a book about a serious topic like climate change both enjoyable and effective, but Ostrander achieved that here. Her writing style and approach to climate change was easy to follow and captivating. Not once did I find myself bored or wishing things would progress a little quicker. While climate change and climate crises really gets my anxiety going (living in a state whose coastline is disappearing year by year), reading this didn't induce a giant palm-sweating, nausea-ball anxiety. Just a little one.

5/5

This book is a wonderful cautionary tale. I will probably read it again with my daughter when she is old enough to discuss it. Real courage, real heroism comes when you love others and you serve others. Real courage has nothing selfish in it. Fathers and husbands who remain with their families and provide for them, even though they would rather have a mid-life crisis and leave it all, they are courageous and heroic. They remain, they work, they don't father or husband perfectly, but they remain in difficult relationships. It courageous to stay in the hard parts of life, and try. Mothers and wives who sacrifice and serve again and again and again without books being written about them, without thanks, but who continue to love and give of themselves to others. That is courageous. It is hard to stay in messy relationships. It is easy to leave. It is courageous to stay and do hard things. It is easy to leave and do what you want.

This is a well-written book of reporting on how our climate is changing. Readers will likely be compelled to think more deeply about their future and the planet's as they read this. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

At Home on an Unruly Planet by Madeline Ostrander discusses the effects of climate change on our sense of home, community, tradition, and history. As it is often difficult to follow all the dominoes that have been set off by a warming planet, Ostrander looks at a few places specifically to illustrate the larger picture.

Many of us have recognized, if even in a vague way, that there will be more climate refugees as people lose homes and/or an economic base to the changing climate . In some regions, especially in coastal regions, the movement away from the encroaching sea and more frequent and powerful storms has been recognized for years.


The damage to the coastal areas of our country and to the livelihoods of people who, for generations, have depended on the sea (and who have lost homes and possessions many times)--for these people, the recurring losses can create a sense of homelessness that is beyond housing. It is the loss of a way of life that includes family history, community, culture and hope for the next generation.

By looking at a few places in greater detail, Ostrander lets readers extrapolate that information to apply in varying degrees to all disaster prone areas. The country and the world is confronting climate disasters, experiencing higher tides, more frequent and severe flooding, drought, and wildfires. These catastrophes result in the loss of local histories, traditions, culture, historic buildings, and communities as well as individual homes. Ostrander examines instances in which communities struggle to prepare for more change, but there are also places where continuing the fight is no longer feasible; where individuals and entire areas have accepted that they have to let go.

Ostrander looks at an Inuit village in Alaska lost to the sea and thawing tundra that must relocate an entire village (there are more since Ostrander visited and researched Newtok); the fires in the Pacific North West that burn hotter, faster, and more frequently; the effect of pollution on the local population from a refinery in Richmond, CA; and the loss of historic buildings in St. Augustine, FL. Her writing is personal and reflects on predictions of how and when the warming climate will make changes in our lives, what is being done to prepare for the changes, and what must yet be done to ease the transitions that are required.

Individuals can and should plan and prepare (as those in wildfire areas and in areas threatened by flooding know--having a go bag with important papers, water, food, flashlights, etc. can make a huge difference in case of a disaster). Communities are often more effective working together as a unit, harnessing the talents and knowledge of its citizens when an emergency occurs. Individuals and even communities, however, cannot prevent or mediate climate change emergencies on their own. It is imperative that local, state, and national government be involved in planning for the changes to come.

Highly Recommended.

NetGalley/Henry Holt & Co
Nonfiction/Climate Preparedness. Aug. 2, 2022. Print length: 352 pages.

A science journalist explores how our relationship to home is shifting in an era of planetary upheaval, offering stories of resilient communities on the front lines of climate change and reflecting on how to reimagine our lives.

As someone who is really struggling with anxiety and depression related to climate change, this book was largely helpful and reframing the crisis and gaining a new perspective.