What is Environmental Writing?

Perspectives

What is Environmental Writing? by Richard Goodman

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et me first establish, like a surveyor, the boundaries of this piece, with some topical fences. I’m going to be discussing environmental writing in the United States. Certainly, there has been, is, and will be, fine environmental writing by writers from all over the world. But we only have so much time and space. Most—but not all—of the books and writers I’ll discuss will be from this, and the previous, century. So, what is environmental writing? I think you would be hard pressed to find a common definition—that is, one that would instantly come to everyone’s mind when you ask the question. Wags would be tempted to reply, “Well, it’s writing about the environment,” and they wouldn’t be wrong. Up to a point. And, in fact, this is what Bill McKibben, the great and tireless

I would say that one of the hallmarks of environmental writing is that often it is activist writing. It seeks not only to inform the reader about, and to impress the reader with, nature’s beauty, but it seeks to rouse the reader. advocate for the well-being of our earth, says. In the introduction to American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, the anthology that he edited, he writes, “As defined broadly by the pieces in this book, it [environmental writing] takes as its subject the collision between people and the rest of the world, and asks searching questions about that collision: Is it necessary? What are its effects? Might there be a better way?” 16  | Solutions |  Spring 2020  | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Then he makes a distinction that I would also like to make. But since he makes it so well, I’ll let him continue talking, “To a considerable degree,” he writes, “environmental writing can be said to overlap with what is often called ‘nature writing’…but it subsumes and moves beyond it, seeking answers as well as consolation, embracing controversy, sometimes sounding an alarm. While it often celebrates nature, it also recognizes, implicitly or explicitly, that nature is no longer innocent or invulnerable.” So, I would say that one of the hallmarks of environmental writing is that often it is activist writing. It seeks not only to inform the reader about, and to impress the reader with, nature’s beauty, but it seeks to rouse the reader. You can look at it this way: it’s hard to imagine an anthology of nature writing including a long essay on Louisiana land loss. But you’d have no problem imaging those pieces, and others like them, in an anthology of environmental writing. Put another way, environmental writing does not hesitate to talk about a sick or wounded earth—even a dying earth—while nature writing most often speaks about a brilliant, beautiful earth at its healthiest, most cheerful and robust. The nature writer often