Solving THAT conundrum is another book entirely, but perhaps an octogenarian's frustrated nostalgia will make a difference after all. In the book, Proulx reveals the extensive harm that civilization has inflicted upon wetlands, but also highlights those who are taking action to mitigate the damage. While pragmatic about the severity of the situation, as she explained to Esquire, Proulx also finds reasons for hope and even joy in the wide-ranging efforts to adapt in the face of an increasingly inhospitable climate. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Fen, Bog & Swamp is an excellent text that should be read by all those who still think, hubristically, that everything on earth is a resource for humans to consume and destroy. However, it also shows us that there is hope, that the earth has the potential to heal, if we are prepared to change the way we act and think. During the pandemic, Annie Proulx studied, researched and wrote essays on the destruction of the peatlands and what it means for the health of the environment and ultimately the future of all life on earth. These essays, often quite personal in nature, have been expanded into this short book.

Hunter S Thompson once said that to get at the truth, especially about something terrible, you had to “get subjective”. He was talking about his sworn enemy Richard Nixon, but it applies just the same to the appalling damage we’re doing to our planet. Newspaper articles, charity reports and activist speeches abound – all earnest and arguably objective, but they somehow fail to capture the true meaning of what’s being lost in the natural world.

Instead, Proulx makes a more difficult and unsettling argument: that we are all, in our own way, complicit in the environmental despoliation happening around us. She doesn’t blame Donald Trump or Joe Biden – her beef is with the Judeo-Christian belief that creation is made for humans, meaning we can use the world as we wish: “The attitude of looking at nature solely as something to be exploited – without cooperative thanks or appeasing sacrifices – is ingrained in western cultures.” It’s this instrumentalist view of nature that means wetlands are happily drained to make land for farming, releasing monumental amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. (Proulx revels in the irony that destroying our historic wetlands may be precipitating global warming, which in turn is causing waters to rise, so creating more wetlands.) She does go off in some interesting tangents which I was happy to read about. I also was glad to be informed about the impacts of draining the wetlands and restoration projects. Among the evidence given for climate change was the measured certainty that CO2 was warming the earth, and that one of our protections was the earth’s absorbent sponge of wetlands, especially the peat-making wetlands. I started to read and learn something about those wetlands. My first effort was an essay, “Discursive Thoughts on Wetlands,” which I showed to my agent. She suggested enlarging the essay into a book. By then I understood that the peat-making wetlands were successional and that each stage had a distinct character. I settled on the related fens, bogs, and swamps as an interesting subject. Because I am not a scientist, my examination was historical and anecdotal. The little book that came from my digging around is only a bare sketch of humanity’s relations with the wetlands of earth. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, wetlands carried that connotation. Draining was good. But swampland and peat holds more carbon than a rain forest, not to mention, methane, 80 times worse than carbon in its climate effect.ESQ: What do you see as the standout climate change catastrophes of the past century? What about the standout achievements in regard to fighting it?