Nowhere Left to Go

June 13, 2022
Journalist von Brackel examines in his vivid debut how climate change has “set the animals and plants of the world in motion.” Early chapters take readers to the Arctic, where once “stoic communities” are being driven “to the verge of desperation” as thousands of lakes in the Alaskan tundra are created by beavers who fell trees, “dam rivers, and flood whole stretches of land.” The animals are “the latest in a long line of newcomers” to the area, von Brackel explains, and as they and other boreal creatures travel farther north, they wind up harming such “long-established species” as musk oxen, caribou, and the arctic fox, whose habitats are increasingly “restricted.” Mackerel, meanwhile, ended up near the coast of Iceland in a move that left marine biologists puzzled and poses “serious challenge” for the fishing industry, southern pine beetles are crawling northward, and pine and maple trees are shifting toward more suitable habitats. Von Brackel concludes with reasonable solutions to better meet “the needs of animals and plants,” which includes a call to conserve land that can serve as refuges for biodiversity. The result is a solid, memorable portrait of nature on the move.