Green Rising
By Lauren James
“It was impossible not to care for the plants around her when she could feel their drowsy, contented vibrations as they soaked up the sunlight and fresh rainwater. In a best-case scenario, Dad would understand when she explained that she needed to take responsibility for their pollution.” (193)
Hester Daleport’s father reacts badly when she accidentally reveals she is one of thousands of ‘Greenfingers’ teenagers with the new, unpredictable power to grow plants from their skin—until she convinces him that Greenfingers-grown biofuels could provide extra revenue for their oil-driven energy company and seal a deal to provide energy to the first Mars colony. As Hester works with Theo and other teens to develop their powers, however, she faces up to the environmental damage her family’s company has done and the urgency of decarbonizing. Helped by Gabrielle, a teen eco-activist using social media to build a network of young resistors, Hester and Theo must find a way to regrow plants across the world.
Green Rising is a responsibility-taking, solution-inspiring planetarianist YA novel that imagines plant regrowth. It showcases an inspiring multitude of possible plants-based (and fungi-supported) strategies for climate adaptation and mitigation and clearly explains the relationships between greenhouse gases, global warming, ocean acidification, deforestation, soil erosion, fertilizer pollution, floods and wildfires (222)—offering plants as an inspiring, magical-but-real solution to local and global crises, through both agroforestry and rewilding / regrowth.
The book’s exciting plot turns on the possibilities and problems of geoengineering, but it also raises environmental justice issues related to under-researched experimentation and the rich fleeing to Mars while others cope with pollution and climate change on Earth. Hester’s situation as an oil tycoon’s daughter allows for an intriguing exploration of how individuals whose wealth comes from fossil fuels can justify their extractivism to themselves and others. Hester claims fossil fuels are necessary to power homes and hospitals, demonstrating the emotive rhetoric of producerism that allows oil companies to ignore the planet’s carbon budget. Her company touts the possibility of capturing greenhouse gases but doesn’t develop that technology, and sows climate disinformation through oil-funded scientific studies. Yet this planetarianist novel insists “there’s no end point where it’s suddenly too late to fix the planet” (223) and that the solution lies in collective climate action combined with the one percent changing their behavior. Hester, Theo, and Gabrielle model different paths that young people might take to engage in youth climate activism.
©2024 ClimateLit (Catherine Olver)
The author’s website links teaching resources for year 7, a book club discussion guide, a ‘what plant are you?’ quiz, a climate scavenger hunt, and author interviews: https://laurenejames.co.uk/green-rising/
Publisher: Walker Books, 2021
Pages: 370
ISBN: 9781406384673
Audience: Ages 14+
Format: Novels
Topics: Agroforestry, Big Oil, Climate Adaptation, Climate Change, Climate Disinformation, Collective Climate Action, Deforestation, Environmental Justice, Erosion, Extractivism, Flood, Fossil Fuels, Fungi, Geoengineering, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases, Mitigation, Ocean Acidification, One Percent, Planetarianism, Plants, Pollution, Producerism, Regrowth, Rewilding, Wildfires, Youth Climate Activism
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