“Powerful … Tidwell is an excellent reporter whose hyperlocal focus shines light on how the climate crisis shapes the lives of ordinary individuals. This will stick with readers long after they finish the last page.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An astonishing and urgently necessary book.” — U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8), author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Unthinkable.
"Beautiful." — Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature
A riveting and elegant story of climate change on one city street, full of surprises and true stories of human struggle and dying local trees – all against the national backdrop of 2023's record heat domes and raging wildfires and, simultaneously, rising hopes for clean energy.
In 2023, author and activist Mike Tidwell decided to keep a record for a full year of the growing impacts of climate change on his one urban block right on the border with Washington, DC. A love letter to the magnificent oaks and other trees dying from record heat waves and bizarre rain, Tidwell's story depicts the neighborhood's battle to save the trees and combat climate change: The midwife who builds a geothermal energy system on the block, the Congressman who battles cancer and climate change at the same time, and the Chinese-American climate scientist who wants to bury billions of the world's dying trees to store their carbon and help stabilize the atmosphere.
The story goes beyond ailing trees as Tidwell chronicles people on his block coping with Lyme disease, a church with solar panels on its roof and floodwater in its basement, and young people anguishing over whether to have kids –all in the same neighborhood and all against the backdrop of 2023’s record global temperatures and raging wildfires and hurricanes. Then there’s Tidwell himself who explores the ethical and scientific questions surrounding the idea of “geoengineering” as a last-ditch way to save the world’s trees – and human communities everywhere – by reflecting sunlight away from the planet.
No book has told the story of climate change this way: hyper-local, full of surprises, full of true stories of life and death in one neighborhood. The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue is a harrowing and hopeful proxy for every street in America and every place on Earth.
Praise for The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue
“An astonishing and urgently necessary book. One of our leading national activists, Mike Tidwell in this book makes the climate catastrophe utterly local and personal, analyzing what global warming has meant on his block and in his home. It’s all here: the devastating loss of neighborhood trees, the rising costs of flooding and erosion, the brutal summers and Tidwell’s personal battle with Lyme disease and the terrifying spread of other debilitating tick-borne diseases. A remarkable book that will change the way you think about climate change and remind you that, just as all the problems are fundamentally in your backyard, so are all the solutions.”
— U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8), author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Unthinkable.
"Beautiful. Not only is Mike Tidwell a very fine writer, there's almost no one I know who's earned more of a right to set forward their ideas about how we climb out of the climate mess. For decades he has fought the fossil fuel industry, and done it creatively, effectively, and tirelessly. I'm awfully glad he's taken the time now to reflect."
— Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature
"Mike Tidwell tells the story of how climate change is unfolding in his literal backyard, following the changes he can see in a single neighborhood. He reminds us that the fight for our planet begins at home, revealing how the fate of our planet—and our neighbors—are inextricably linked. As a longtime climate leader, Tidwell has been on the frontlines of protecting our world for decades. An insightful, poignant read."
— Leah Stokes, author, Short Circuiting Policy
“Few American writers render the climate crisis so vividly—not in statistics and headlines, but in the daily elegies sung quietly in the backs of our heads. This is a book about community, human and non-, holding together as the places we live in come apart.”
— Daniel Sherrell, author Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World
"Record rainfall and drought are bad news, but losing the giant oaks in your hometown to climate whiplash can turn angst into a worthy creative endeavor, as it has done for Mike Tidwell. The strength of the story is Tidwell’s use of local resources, from his neighborhood to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, to explore the big issues. Are there reasons for climate optimism, and if so, what are they and do they have a chance? Saving trees and saving humanity, it turns out, have much in common."
— John N. Maclean, author of Home Waters and Fire on the Mountain
