The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024

For this volume, environmentalist McKibben (The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon) selected 23 pieces of the best science and nature essays from 2023, many of them encompassing climate change. There are many highlights. For example, “City of Glass” by Ben Goldfarb explains the issue of migrating birds colliding with windows in Chicago buildings. Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Talk to Me” shares how scientists are trying to decode whale communication. “The Lonely Battle To Save Species on a Tiny Speck in the Pacific” by Joe Spring relates the trials of working in remote locations that can be devastated by a rogue storm. Emma Marris’s “The Sea Eagles That Returned to Mull” examines sheep farmers’ feelings about the growing population of the eagles they believe kill their lambs. Carolyn Kormann explores the 2023 catastrophic Lahaina wildfire and the events leading up to it in “Why Maui Burned,” while Douglas Fox’s “Journey Under the Ice” describes the lakes and streams located under the ice in Antarctica. The book concludes with a listing of additional notable titles.