There’s a template for a certain kind of environmental book. The writer – fiercely bright, impassioned, youthful – finds a new approach to the climate crisis. They tour environmental disaster areas around the world. They speak to scientists, campaigners and local people. They strive to communicate the horror and urgency of the situation. They start sentences with “We must . . .” And, always, inevitably, they conclude with a vision of a different world, usually involving activists and indigenous peoples working together in joyful anticapitalist harmony.
This is Jay Owens’s first book, and it exemplifies the globetrotting, converted-preaching micro-genre. With one big difference: it is brilliant. This is partly because dust turns out to be utterly fascinating in itself. And partly because, as a subject,
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