For days I have been immersed in this fascinating new book on the environmental impact of human activities. Marvel is a climate scientist with a PhD in theoretical physics who works with computerized climate models to study climate change. At first glance this may all sound dry and distant from everyday life as we know it, but in fact the opposite is true. She has the academic credentials to give clout to her research, but she does not approach climate science from some lofty perch but rather from a visceral level. She is concerned about the impact of climate change on all of us.

She is not only insightful, but also clear in her explanations of what causes climate change – so clear, in fact, that it is impossible for me not to picture climate change deniers as those three monkeys in a row covering their eyes, ears, and mouths. You know: “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” In other words, turn a blind eye to uncomfortable truths.

And Marvel takes her explanations beyond mere fact-finding. She acknowledges the impact on humans of climate change by dividing her book into nine chapters conforming to nine possible emotional reactions to its ramifications: wonder, anger, guilt, fear, grief, surprise, pride, hope, and love. In her introduction she states: “Isn’t this unscientific? Aren’t researchers supposed to be perfectly objective, unemotional, and neutral about the world we study? I can’t be.” And: “Pretending we feel nothing about our changing world doesn’t make us objective. It makes us liars.” She goes on to explain that she wrote the book to “share some of the science behind climate change,” but also to “explain a little about how it feels to do this science in a rapidly changing world.” Her speculations about the uncertainty of a future she is sending her children into cannot help but elicit deep feelings.

Throughout her analyses of what climate change is and does, she enriches her explanations with examples from history and mythology. For instance, she says that “there is an obvious comparison between the mythical Cassandra and modern-day climate scientists like me.” Why? Because according to Greek mythology, Cassandra was a priestess who could make accurate predictions about the future, but no one believed her – just as there is no doubt that human-caused climate change is happening, but many people, especially in positions of power, scoff at the predictions of climate scientists because they do not fit into their selfish predetermined world view. As she expresses in her chapter on anger: “Yes, it’s real. Yes, it’s us. Yes, it’s bad. Yes, we’re sure.” As she goes on to say: “There has been an incredibly long history of this nonsense: scientists finding things out, others pretending we didn’t.” Fossil fuel companies know the truth, because they have done studies that corroborate it, but for fiscal reasons they deliberate obfuscate these findings. Our rampant fuel consumption produces greenhouse gases, and “all of the warming trend we’ve experienced in recent decades is due to greenhouse gases.” Anyone who follows the news encounters daily evidence of the results of global warming: catastrophic weather events, plagues, and rising sea levels, to mention some of the most obvious.

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Acknowledging that there is a problem is not the same as finding a way to put everything right again. Marvel discusses several possible solutions, but they are all complex, and at this stage it is impossible to fully assess their efficacy. Meanwhile, the Earth continues to warm; what has been set in motion cannot be wholly undone, at least not easily or quickly. It involves weaning ourselves completely off fossil fuels, but even that is only one step of many. Still, we must do what we can. After all, we cannot afford to think only of ourselves; we have to consider our children and grandchildren and generations beyond. Long after we are gone, they will continue to inhabit the world we have built for them. Maybe it will never be the same as it used to be, but we can do what we can to leave it in the best shape we can. It’s true that each of us is only one among billions, and it’s easy to use the excuse that what we do won’t make a difference, but that’s how the human race is set up: we all have to make our own decisions to do what is right or not. If we all paid more attention to books such as Human Nature, we could at least find the right path, though it may be a long and difficult one, to reclaiming our planet and its wondrous natural treasures.