Like many scientists who began their research careers in the 1990s, biologist and author Thor Hanson has watched climate change grow from a background concern to a forefront issue. Humanity, he says, is late to the game, because “while people may have spent the past thirty years struggling to even think about a response, every other species on the planet has simply been getting on with it.”
Plant and animal species have undergone enormous changes in the twenty-first century, including mass migrations, unusual adaptations, and cascading extinctions on a scale not seen since the end of the last ice age — around ten thousand years ago. In his latest book, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change, Hanson offers dozens of examples of these changes, many of which have profound implications for how humanity can live on a planet that’s transforming before our eyes.
