Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change - Thor Hanson
Published in 2021 by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc., New York, NY
304 pages
LCCN: 2021005928
ISBN: 9781541672420
LCC: QH543 .H36 2021
In the face of a rapidly warming and unpredictable climate, it can be easy to feel a pervasive sense of doom about our planet’s future. At current rates, it has been estimated that roughly 35% of animal and plant species could become extinct in the wild by 2050. Periods of extreme heat have brought drought and other challenges to farmers and ranchers, making our food supply ever more precarious. Existing infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and electrical grids are often not built to withstand the dramatic changes that climate change is bringing, such as high winds, extensive flooding, and long periods of high temperatures.
Considering that nearly 40% of the US population lives in coastal counties, millions of people are at exceptional risk of flooding and erosion. This is especially true in communities close to my heart, such as Brunswick County, NC, where development projects and extreme population growth have dramatically reduced the amount of available wetlands, leading to an increased number of severe flash floods when rainfall exceeds stormwater drainage capacity. Such changes have been kicked into high gear since the 2023 Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court ruling, which removed federal and state jurisdiction of isolated wetlands, loosening regulations and essentially giving the green light for developers to build condos and commercial real estate on top of formerly protected land. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) projects that nearly 2.5 million acres of wetlands have lost protection in North Carolina, which will only exacerbate current issues with water quality, drainage/runoff, and flooding in the area.
As such, when we look at how humans are responding to climate change, we see that short-term thinking and profit-seeking all too often blind us to long-term consequences or learning from history. But while humans debate back and forth on the specifics of climate change and the appropriate response to it, how are plants and animals reacting to their changing environment? In his 2021 book, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change, Thor Hanson offers an engaging exploration of how plants and animals are adapting to the rapidly changing climate. Through a series of vivid case studies, Hanson illustrates the resilience and ingenuity of nature in the face of unprecedented environmental shifts.
Overview:
The central idea of Hanson's work is that climate change is compelling species to respond in three primary ways: move, adapt, or perish. Through a series of compelling case studies, Hanson illustrates how plants and animals are adjusting to rapidly changing environments, highlighting both their resilience and the challenges they face. Hanson delves into the concept of "plasticity," the ability of organisms to adjust their behaviors or characteristics in response to environmental changes, arguing that while specialists struggle to adapt to rapidly changing conditions, generalists are more well-suited to survive.
Hanson emphasizes that nature's responses to climate change are neither uniform nor predictable. While some species, such as Caribbean anole lizards, exhibit remarkable adaptability by developing larger toe pads to cling to trees during hurricanes, others struggle to cope with the shifting conditions. Hanson also examines how behavioral changes help species cope with climate change. For instance, Humboldt squid in the Gulf of California have altered their size, maturation rate, and diet in response to warmer waters, leading fishermen to mistake them for a different species altogether. Additionally, brown pelicans have been observed moving northward in search of cooler habitats, while long-spined sea urchins are migrating southward for similar reasons.
He also discusses how climate change can disrupt the delicate balance of ecosystems. When coral reefs suffer from warming waters, aggressive butterflyfish have been observed exhibiting less combative behavior in order to conserve energy. Examples such as these highlight the interconnectedness of species and the cascading effects of environmental stress. The book underscores the urgency of understanding these biological responses, as they reveal the intricate ways ecosystems are being restructured. Hanson's exploration serves as both a cautionary tale and a testament to the adaptability of life in the face of unprecedented environmental changes.
Commendations:
When it comes to communicating basic biological concepts and climate change awareness, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid presents several commendable contributions. First and foremost, Hanson’s writing is clear, concise, and full of personality and warmth. Throughout each of the chapters, he balances scientific history and insights with personal anecdotes, which makes much of the book immediately relatable and accessible to a wide audience. Hanson’s approachable prose, storytelling flair, and focus on real-world examples make climate biology understandable to a general audience.
As such, for those who are unfamiliar with basic biological concepts or environmental science, Hanson provides an engaging and clear account of these concepts as he continually relates them to real-world examples. Hanson excels at translating biological science into a compelling narrative. This is not trivial. In a political environment where public trust in science is contested, ecological illiteracy is widespread, and corporate media frames climate breakdown in narrow economic terms, Hanson’s accessible storytelling plays a crucial role in demystifying the science for a broader public and mobilizing informed civic engagement.
One of the book’s greatest strengths lies in its vivid, engaging portraits of how organisms—from lizards to squid and butterflies—respond to shifting climates. Hanson offers accessible insights into the concepts of plasticity, flexibility, and rapid evolution, affirming the creativity and tenacity of life under stress. These wide-ranging case studies brilliantly highlight the often-underappreciated adaptive capacities of organisms facing a rapidly warming world. His narrative on anole lizards adapting to hurricanes or squid altering their developmental cycles provides a ray of optimism and hope. This does not deny climate change’s severity but rather recognizes an incredible facet of evolutionary dynamism. This framing is valuable because it counters the paralyzing despair that often accompanies climate discourse.
Additionally, since I am approaching the book from an ecosocialist perspective, I found this aspect of the book particularly valuable. Radical ecology affirms that the natural world is not static, but dynamic and capable of self-organizing complexity. In contrast to the anthropocentric techno-fixes of green capitalism, Hanson reminds us that the living world has agency and intelligence of its own, even if constrained by human-imposed ecological disruption.
By showing how climate impacts ripple through ecosystems, affecting everything from squid to sea urchins, Hanson implicitly affirms an ecocentric worldview. He shows that nonhuman organisms are not helpless victims but responsive agents in climate history, challenging the Enlightenment view of nature as passive raw material. This resonates with ecosocialist environmental ethics that challenge anthropocentric dominance and stress the value of all life forms.
Critique:
On the other hand, the book possesses many key weaknesses that prevent it from having a deeper impact on the current discourses around climate change and biological adaptation. First of all, while Hanson provides a dizzying scope of examples and case studies to buttress his ideas, none of them are explored in depth. Hanson often tosses wave after wave of examples of a species adapting to the environment, often dedicating a page or two to them, before moving on to the next example. The “plastic squid” within the title not only refers to the biological plasticity of the Humboldt squid in adapting to warmer waters, but Hanson spends less than a single page on this example, never to be mentioned again. Thus, while the reader will likely gain little bits of interesting trivia, there’s little more that the average reader will take away from this slight volume.
Additionally, Hanson’s central insights (namely, that species will simply move, adapt, or die, and that evolutionary specialists have a more difficult time adapting to rapid changes than generalists) are not particularly novel or groundbreaking. Many of the ideas presented throughout this work will be familiar to anyone who has a background in biology or environmental science. While it is accessible to a wide general audience, this work of pop science overall feels cobbled together and rushed, which is likely a result of being produced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, while the book is an eloquently written, often charming tour of the natural world’s adaptive responses to the escalating climate crisis, the most glaring limitation is Hanson’s near-total silence on the political economy of climate change. Nowhere in the book is there a serious engagement with the root causes of the crisis: fossil capitalism, colonial land regimes, imperial supply chains, or the role of transnational capital in ecological destabilization. While the biological adaptations Hanson features are remarkable, the book often skirts a deeper critique of the structural forces that are driving climate change, namely capitalism and fossil fuel dependency.
To Hanson’s credit, his storytelling is rich, often moving, and driven by a sincere love of nature. He brings a sense of intimacy and wonder to ecological science that is crucial for building public engagement. But stories, too, are political acts. The choice of which organisms to spotlight, which examples to uplift, and which contexts to ignore shapes the reader’s understanding of the crisis. In telling a story of nature adapting, Hanson omits the story of nature exploited, commodified, and destroyed in the service of imperial capital.
For radical ecologists, this is an unacceptable omission. To focus on biological symptoms while ignoring the systemic drivers of environmental collapse risks fostering complacency. Celebrating nature’s resilience without indicting the systems causing ecological harm risks normalizing inaction. There's a danger in focusing too heavily on how species can adapt. It can inadvertently feed into a neoliberal logic that emphasizes resilience over prevention, placing the burden on organisms to survive rather than challenging the status quo that endangers them. For activists, this narrative can undercut calls for urgent systemic transformation. It reinforces liberal environmentalism that fetishizes adaptation while leaving the destructive order intact.
Furthermore, one of the more subtle dangers of Hanson’s book is its potential to be co-opted by green capitalist narratives that promote resilience and adaptation as substitutes for mitigation and transformation. His framing of biological adaptation may, intentionally or not, reinforce the idea that technological or evolutionary “fixes” can outpace systemic collapse. In the hands of policymakers or corporations eager to justify delaying action in order to sustain profit growth, Hanson’s examples of rapid adaptation could be read as evidence that nature can continue as usual, adjusting incrementally rather than radically transforming. This bolsters the neoliberal logic that people and ecosystems alike should bear the burden of the crisis while elites continue business as usual.
To his credit, Hanson briefly addresses the systemic cause of climate change in his conclusion. When discussing how he was amazed by the power of electric lawnmowers, he tempers his observation by writing,
To be clear, buying electric lawnmowers will not be enough to stop climate change. Even if everyone converted to battery power for their yard work and daily driving, fossil fuels would still be deeply embedded in the global economy, from agriculture and air travel to shipping, construction, and manufacturing (including the production of electric mowers and cars). Nor does a tweak in power use by those people lucky enough to have backyards and vehicles address the complex social and political implications of the crisis, with its gross inequities in cause and consequence. (211).
Yet, Hanson believes that there is great strength in individual action, and he lightly scolds those who believe that individual actions are trivial compared to the immense scale of the problem. He believes that addressing the larger facets of climate change will demand a change in culture, and, following the examples of the biological adaptations that are highlighted throughout the book, that it is up to us to change our behavior to do all we can to adapt and mitigate climate change in the meantime.
While I understand that this book is focused more on the impact of climate change on localized ecosystems rather than interrogating the causes or offering solutions to these shifts, Hanson’s optimistic call toward individual responsibility fell flat as the final coda of the book. This is likely Hanson’s attempt to keep the narrative light and optimistic while avoiding what could be perceived as moralizing. I can completely sympathize with wanting to give people hope that their individual choices can make an impact, gently mobilizing them toward gradual change.
Yet, in his attempt to give the reader at least some modicum of control, he risks encouraging a false sense of complacency, as if recycling more or converting to electric power over fossil fuel will put a dent in climate change. We must also be attentive to how our participation in polluting industries, such as fast-fashion, next-day delivery services, and our increasing use of water-depleting generative AI models also exacerbate the environmental crisis.
Since Hanson wanted to educate a general audience on the impacts of climate change, I was hoping that he would at least offer more than a handful of sentences toward effective climate justice initiatives or legislation that would have a much larger impact in mitigating the worst effects of the climate crisis. Instead of attemping to mobilize individuals to change their daily habits in an political economy that actively discourages these “green” behaviors, we should instead be mobilizing as a collective against the corporations and elite that have profitted so much from the extraction and exploitation of our land and labor. His refusal to engage with this dimension beyond a superficial passing reference is a missed opportunity.
Conclusion:
Overall, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is a scientifically rich and narratively engaging book that offers meaningful insight into how life responds to crises. Hanson is, above all, a gifted communicator of natural science. His book successfully demystifies the complex mechanisms of evolutionary change and phenotypic plasticity, making them accessible without oversimplification. He rightly celebrates the “fraught and fascinating” responses of species to anthropogenic change, offering a counter-narrative to the apocalyptic tone that dominates mainstream climate discourse. It affirms that life can respond to disturbance in remarkable ways.
However, its lack of political engagement with the root causes and consequences of climate change represents a missed opportunity. While Hanson succeeds in illuminating the science of adaptation, a more radical ecological lens would demand not only that we marvel at nature’s resilience, but also that we fight for the structural change necessary to protect it. As activists, scholars, and citizens, we must celebrate the resilience of the living world while demanding the revolutionary changes required to ensure it has a future.
This is not to say that Hanson’s work has no merit. Much to the contrary, it is essential to affirm the value of Hanson’s message. Hope is a radical act in an era of ecological collapse. The notion that life persists, that organisms improvise, evolve, and push back against environmental stressors, should not be dismissed. Hanson’s emphasis on this resilience underscores a core ecosocialist belief: that nature is not merely a passive victim but an active participant in the drama of planetary change.
Hanson offers a hopeful perspective on the natural world's capacity to adapt to climate change, but such hope should also be informed and ballasted by the recognition of the systemic roots driving the climate crisis. As such, the book serves as both an informative resource and a source of inspiration for those interested in the intersection of natural history and climate science, though it should ideally be supplemented with more politically oriented works that address the underlying cause of climate change and how we can affect global change on a systemic level.