John Walters

Elizabeth Rush is the author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, a study of the effects of global warming and rising sea levels on vulnerable places and communities. In The Quickening she continues her studies of the impact on the environment of a warming world. In 2019, she joined the first scientific expedition to ever visit the massive Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. During a brief window when the area around the glacier was not completely ice-bound, the crew and scientists aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer grappled with inclement weather, dodging icebergs and sometimes having to break through surface ice to reach their destination. Once there, Rush assisted the various teams, conducted interviews, and recorded her experiences. She clarifies that in the past the exploration of Antarctica was very much the realm of affluent white males; there was a distinct lack of women and minorities on early research teams. In the modern era, however, the situation is being somewhat rectified.

The emphasis on exploration, discovery, and scientific achievement with a view to mitigating disasters wrought by climate change is only one of the major threads in this intense, multifaceted book. Early on Rush makes it clear that she deeply desired to have a child, but she was concerned that her yearning for motherhood conflicted with the need to minimize humankind’s global carbon footprint with a view to saving the planet. However, it is not as simple as mathematical calculations. She writes that “having children can be an act of radical faith that life will continue, despite all that assails it.” And: “I can celebrate the idea that to have a child means having faith that the world will change, and more importantly, committing to being a part of the change yourself.” Her longing to be a mother suffuses the narrative and adds a personal dimension to it. Even if we succeed in making radical societal and personal adjustments to combat climate change, it will take time to turn things around. Our children and grandchildren and many generations to come will reap the rewards of our sacrifices, and for their sakes everything we can do to make a difference is worthwhile.

As the story of the voyage continues, Rush alternates accounts of the activities aboard ship amidst snow flurries and icebergs with an account of her life afterwards. She does indeed become pregnant, and as the child grows in her womb, she continues to study literature on personal and societal responsibility for Earth’s changing environment. She discovers, for instance, that it was a major oil company that spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to popularize the concept of the personal carbon footprint. She writes: “The narrative that individuals are responsible for both the climate crisis and slowing its acceleration via different consumer choices was crafted and drilled into us by one of the highest-emitting companies in the world.” She expresses rage “for the time I lost feeling ashamed for wanting to become a mother” and the determination to make “central to one’s position in the world, the possibility of that world’s continuation.”

Late in Rush’s pregnancy COVID-19 forces the world into isolation. Now that things have somewhat opened up again, it’s easy to forget how tense things were back then when the hospitals were filling up with patients and hundreds of thousands and then millions were dying. I remember doing the weekly grocery shopping in the early hours of a weekday morning when fewer people were around, how the supermarket shelves emptied of certain needed items, how most people wore masks in enclosed areas, and how all communal activities were canceled. During the pandemic, Rush is hyper-cautious for the sake of the new life within her as she continues to write about the urgency of valuing our planet enough to safeguard it from disaster.

At the bottom of the copyright page of The Quickening is a statement from the publisher that it “is committed to ecological stewardship” and that the book is printed “on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper.” This is a specific example of a step that environmentally-conscious companies can take to mitigate climate change. The message of this book, then, is both cautionary and hopeful. Yes, climate change is happening and the world is warming; however, instead of despairing we need to commit to doing what we can to make the planet a better place for future generations.