Living with the Anthropocene

Australia — and the world — is changing. On the Great Barrier Reef corals bleach white, across the inland farmers struggle with declining rainfall, birds and insects disappear from our gardens and plastic waste chokes our shores. The 2019–20 summer saw bushfires ravage the country like never before and young and old alike are rightly anxious. Human activity is transforming the places we live in and love.

In this extraordinarily powerful and moving book, some of Australia’s best-known writers and thinkers — as well as ecologists, walkers, farmers, historians, ornithologists, artists and community activists — come together to reflect on what it is like to be alive during an ecological crisis. They build a picture of a collective endeavour towards a culture of care, respect, and attention as the physical world changes around us. How do we hold onto hope?

Personal and urgent, this is a literary anthology for our age, the age of humans.

About the Authors

Cameron Muir's features and essays have appeared in the Griffith Review, The Guardian, Inside Story, Overland, Australian Book Review and The Canberra Times. His book, The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress (Routledge 2014) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's History Awards and he helped complete and edit Tony McMichael's posthumous book Climate Change and the Health of Nations (OUP 2017).

Jenny Newell is manager of Pacific and International Collections at the Australian Museum, Sydney and she has previously held curatorial roles at the Museum of Natural History, New York and the British Museum, London.

Kirsten Wehner is a curator and writer who is currently director of PhotoAccess: Centre for Contemporary Photography in Canberra and is a former curator at the National Museum of Australia.