Emma Marris
Verified
Author of Wild Souls. I write about plants, animals, culture, climate change, & the West.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Emma Marris
Nature’s Helpers
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by bioGraphic. Sierra is republishing it with permission. It’s May and I’m on a boat in the San Juan Islands, an archipelago in the far northwest corner of Washington State. The clouds are low and the waves are olive green. I am heading to a place that sounds like a fairy tale: an island covered in flowers where just one person lives, all alone, tending the land.
A dificuldade de medir nossa relação com a natureza
Como movimento, o ambientalismo tem sido bastante misantrópico. Compreensivelmente, nós, humanos, fizemos algumas coisas destrutivas aos ecossistemas ao nosso redor. No século 21, porém, a conservação dominante está aprendendo que os humanos podem ser uma força para o bem. Os silvicultores estão recorrendo a práticas indígenas de queima para prevenir incêndios florestais.
The quest to measure our relationship with nature
As a movement, environmentalism has been pretty misanthropic. Understandably so—we humans have done some destructive things to the ecosystems around us. In the 21st century, though, mainstream conservation is learning that humans can be a force for good. Foresters are turning to Indigenous burning practices to prevent wildfires. Biologists are realizing that flower-dotted meadows were ancient food-production landscapes that need harvesting or they’ll disappear.
Klamath Chinook Return After 100 Years
The Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) are on a spawning run to historic grounds that were denied to them by dams until now. It is an anadromous fish, the largest species in the salmon family. Chinook salmon range from San Francisco Bay in California to north of the Bering Strait in Alaska, and the waters of Canada and Russia. Photo credit Dan Cook (USFWS). Klamath Chinook Return Henry Clement, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, August 2023.
Opinion | Nature Will Bounce Back if We Just Give It a Chance
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. Nature Will Bounce Back if We Just Give It a Chance Nov. 29, 2025, 7:00 a.m. ET CreditCredit...Paul Wilson Ms. Marris is the author, most recently, of “Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World.” She wrote from Portland, Ore.
Plants digest diesel and polyester, break down pesticides and fabric dyes, and store heavy metals in their bodies. Exploiting nature’s powers to clean up the environment
GLP Policy & Performance Review, 2024 The GLP is committed to full transparency. Download the report. Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker Our interactive GLP global map explains the status of each country’s regulations for human and agricultural gene editing and gene drives. GLP 2021 Annual Report The GLP is committed to full transparency. Download our 2021 Annual Report.
AI Slop Might Finally Cure Our Internet Addiction
Listen1.0x 0:008:37 Listen to more stories on the Noa app. Finding love is hard. For a while, dating apps seemed to make it easier, putting a city’s worth of single people in the palm of your hand. But AI has cast a paranoid pall over what can already be a suboptimal experience. If you get a message that feels a little off, it is hard to know whether you are flirting with a bot—or just someone insecure enough to use ChatGPT as their own Cyrano de Bergerac.
The Debate That American Conservationists Should Be Having
Listen1.0x 0:0010:38 Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (Noa) using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app. The Endangered Species Act always had a hole in it. It was intended to protect ecosystems as well as individual species—it says so right in the original 1973 text—but it has no provisions to do so directly.
Psychology Explains Why Some People Buy So Much Stuff
Sadie has spent years hiding her problem from her family. In her day job, she works as a purchasing agent for a scientific firm, which requires placing large orders for everything from chemical reagents to US$8-million worth of glass vials. But in her personal time, Sadie goes on buying sprees for herself.
Compulsive shopping is surging: what makes people buy loads of stuff
Sadie has spent years hiding her problem from her family. In her day job, she works as a purchasing agent for a scientific firm, which requires placing large orders for everything from chemical reagents to US$8-million worth of glass vials. But in her personal time, Sadie goes on buying sprees for herself.
Finding Food and Solace in the Intertidal | Hakai Magazine
When I was a teenager in the mid-1990s, I had a friend whose family owned an unimproved lot on Dabob Bay, a bay off a fjord nestled deep in the southern Salish Sea, in Washington State. My group of friends, almost all of us the broke, angst-ridden, poorly supervised children of divorce, would camp there on weekends. We swam, sunbathed topless without sunscreen, smoked weed and drank liquor purloined from our parents, and danced around bonfires listening to Portishead.
A Beginner’s Guide to Foraging for Mushrooms in Oregon
Fungi, if you haven’t noticed, are the “it” kingdom of life these days. You can’t go far in the Portland area without running into toadstool-patterned socks or a delicious mycological menu item, from the king oyster mushrooms in the Dtom Som shrimp at Hat Yai to basically everything at West Linn’s new fungi-obsessed Chantrel.
A Beginner’s Guide to Foraging for Mushrooms in Oregon
Fungi, if you haven’t noticed, are the “it” kingdom of life these days. You can’t go far in the Portland area without running into toadstool-patterned socks or a delicious mycological menu item, from the king oyster mushrooms in the Dtom Som shrimp at Hat Yai to basically everything at West Linn’s new fungi-obsessed Chantrel.
Famed lions’ full diet revealed by DNA - and humans were among their prey
Hair found wedged in the broken teeth of famous lions killed in the nineteenth century offers a glimpse of their diet — which included humans1. Few wild lions (Panthera leo) are as well-known as the ‘Man-eaters of Tsavo’, two large maneless males that terrorized workers constructing the Kenya–Uganda Railway until they were shot by a railway administrator, lieutenant-colonel John Henry Patterson, in 1898.
The complex life of the oil industry veteran who proposed the Gaia hypothesis
The Many Lives of James Lovelock: Science, Secrets and Gaia Theory Jonathan Watts Canongate Books (2024) Today, it might seem self-evident that life on Earth shapes, and is shaped by, its environment. We learn in school that the oxygen we breathe is produced by plants, for instance. For those of us aware of the climate crisis, feedback loops between human activity and the global climate system are never far from our minds.
Shade Will Make or Break American Cities
by Emma Marris AB: I grew up with trees around us in the city of Chicago. Mostly giant Ash trees or the soft wood maples. They provided shade to the front and back of the house. Our first home in Wood Dale had a giant Burr Oak next to the garage and a Hickory in the middle of the back yard near the well. In Madison Wisconsin I planted trees and the same holds true in Michigan just north of Ann Arbor.
Shade Will Make or Break American Cities
Listen 0:009:09 Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration. On a 92-degree Saturday afternoon in Portland, Oregon, I went looking for shade in Cully Park, which was built on top of an old landfill and opened in 2018. The city included plenty of trees in the design—I mean, this is Oregon. But those trees are still slender saplings, each throwing enough shade for maybe a chihuahua.
New York Is Wilder Than You Think Original
New York is about to get really wild. Every spring, millions of birds fly from South and Central America along the Atlantic Flyway, heading for northern breeding grounds. Many of them choose to fly through New York City, sometimes stopping to rest in Central Park. You can take the subway to 81st Street, stroll across the way and maybe see a maraschino-cherry-red male scarlet tanager with black wings, fresh from the foothills of the Andes.
The Threat of Invasive Species Has Been Wildly Overgeneralized
Conservationists can be quite conservative. It is right there in the name, after all. They like things the way they used to be, in a better past, real or imagined. Their thinking can be slow to change. One idea that has been very slowly changing in conservation science is the popular notion that “invasive species” are very bad for ecosystems—that they are apt to take over or eat native species into oblivion.
The Threat of Invasive Species Has Been Wildly Overgeneralized
Continue reading More for You Continue reading More for You
The Oldest Fossilized Reptile Skin Ever Found Predates the Dinosaurs Original
A dark shred of fossilized material, just a few millimetres across, “shocked” palaeontologists when they realized what it was. It arrived in a tiny glass vial, sent by fossil collectors in Oklahoma. “We got very excited when we actually saw the texture,” says palaeontologist Robert Reisz at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada. The material in the vial was fossilized skin — skin from millions of years before the rise of the dinosaurs.
This is the oldest fossilized reptile skin ever found - it pre-dates the dinosaurs
A dark shred of fossilized material, just a few millimetres across, “shocked” palaeontologists when they realized what it was. It arrived in a tiny glass vial, sent by fossil collectors in Oklahoma. “We got very excited when we actually saw the texture,” says palaeontologist Robert Reisz at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada. The material in the vial was fossilized skin — skin from millions of years before the rise of the dinosaurs.
Why hidden xenophobia is surging into the open
Anti-immigrant sentiment is playing a major part in current events across Europe and North America. Ireland is reeling from destructive far-right riots in Dublin in November. Also last month, the Dutch Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders — a staunch and unapologetic opponent of Islam and immigration — won 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the nation’s lower house. In the past two years, Sweden, Italy and Finland have elected right-wing governments.
The Sea Eagles That Returned to Mull
The Sea Eagles That Returned to Mull Almost 50 years ago, conservationists reintroduced white-tailed eagles to Scotland. It’s gone well. Some say too well. SHE COMES WINGING IN from behind us, looming into our field of vision, seeming almost too massive to be airborne. She is a white-tailed eagle, one of a species of sea eagles.
Wonder Is Everywhere: Lincoln’s Crooked Bowtie, the Mystery of Pink Diamonds, and More From Around the Web
An extremely rare purple-red diamond came from the Argyle volcano and mine in Western Australia, source of almost all of the world's pink diamonds. Wonder is everywhere. That’s why, every other week, Atlas Obscura drags you down some of the rabbit holes we encounter as we search for our unusual stories. We highlight surprising finds, great writing, and inspiring stories from some of our favorite publications. In many of his most iconic images, President Abraham Lincoln’s bowtie is askew.
The Sea Eagles That Returned to Mull | Hakai Magazine
She comes winging in from behind us, looming into our field of vision, seeming almost too massive to be airborne. She is a white-tailed eagle, one of a species of sea eagles. Haliaeetus albicilla is a close cousin of the North American bald eagle, with its same dour expression, outsized muppety beak, and slightly ramshackle habit of motion, landing like a winter coat falling off a hook. The wingspan of a big female can reach 2.5 meters. These are mythically big animals. Their size makes them bold.
Wildfires Are Becoming Increasingly Devastating in Hawaii Original
Maui is reeling from wildfires that devastated the Hawaiian island last week. They have taken at least 99 lives and caused more than US$5.52 billion dollars of damage. But did the fires take scientists by surprise and how can Hawaii guard against such disasters in future? Wildfires are not new to Hawaii.
Hawaii wildfires: did scientists expect Maui to burn?
Maui is reeling from wildfires that devastated the Hawaiian island last week. They have taken at least 96 lives and caused more than US$5.52 billion dollars of damage. But did the fires take scientists by surprise and how can Hawaii guard against such disasters in future? Wildfires are not new to Hawaii.
Could this ancient whale be the heaviest animal ever?
It is a big news day for palaeontologists, as well as for kids who memorize science facts. The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is no longer indisputably the heaviest animal to have ever lived. A newly described fossilized whale named Perucetus colossus, dating to roughly 38 million years ago, might have been heavier than a blue whale, even if it was not as long. Blue whales, which are endangered, weigh about 100 to 150 tonnes, although some might be as heavy as 200 tonnes1.
Does Barbie Affect Body Image? What the Science Shows Original
Barbie the movie is a pretty pink phenomenon, raking in US$337 million around the world on its opening weekend this month — a record for a film helmed by a woman. Director Greta Gerwig’s film explores the legacy of the iconic doll, which has been put forward as a feminist icon but has also been criticized for being a passive sex object. For decades, Barbie has upheld thinness as a social norm for women — so much so that the doll has long been blamed for eroding the self-esteem of girls and women.
Episode #77: Calyx Liddick of Northern Appalachia School on the historical connection between ecological conservation and eugenics
photo credit: Whitney Jamgochian (TW: trigger warning, this episode may contain content that could be triggering to some as we address the history of racially motivated genocide as it is connected to scientific racism and the eugenics movement) What are the deeper layers behind how we interact with plants?
Climate Brief Green Issues: "Tech CEOs want us to believe that generative AI will benefit humanity"
Can AI wipe out humanity? Advanced artificial intelligence could pose a catastrophic risk to humanity and wipe out entire civilisations, a new study warns.4 days ago . Is AI a danger to humanity? Existential risk from artificial general intelligence is the hypothesis thatsubstantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could result in human extinction or some other unrecoverable global catastrophe.
The Trouble With Algorithmic Ethics
First, the good news: The much-maligned tech bros want to be ethical. But, being tech bros, they want a shiny, new ethic—one that’s iconoclastic, counter-intuitive, and algorithmic. Their ideal system is one that allows them to keep making lots of money as long as they give some of it away. The latest philosophical trend, called effective altruism, hits the spot nicely. Effective altruism is an ethical approach based on figuring out the best way to reduce suffering in the present and future.
The Trouble With Algorithmic Ethics
Effective altruism, the latest intellectual craze, has no room for wolves or mountain climbing First, the good news: The much-maligned tech bros want to be ethical. But, being tech bros, they want a shiny, new ethic—one that’s iconoclastic, counter-intuitive, and algorithmic. Their ideal system is one that allows them to keep making lots of money as long as they give some of it away. The latest philosophical trend, called effective altruism, hits the spot nicely.
Conservation Tends to Ignore the Most Common Type of Life
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’ s newsletter about living through climate change, here. Conservationists pride themselves on protecting all of Earth’s life, not just the flashy panda bears and tigers. The field has focused on obscure desert pupfish, insects, and modest little herbaceous plants. But conservationists seldom put bacteria on a tote bag, even though most life is microscopic.
Le piante stressate "piangono", e alcuni animali probabilmente le sentono
Le piante non soffrono in silenzio. Al contrario, quando sono assetate o stressate, le piante emettono nell'aria dei suoni, secondo uno studio pubblicato su “Cell”. Le piante che hanno bisogno di acqua o che hanno subito da poco un taglio allo stelo producono fino a circa 35 emissioni sonore all'ora, scrivono gli autori. Ma le piante ben idratate e non tagliate sono molto più silenziose, producendo solo circa un suono all'ora.
America Is Missing Out on the Biggest EV Boom of All
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. Across Asia, many daily trips are made on three wheels. The auto rickshaw is more or less a motorcycle in the front and a party in the back in the form of benches, seats, or cargo space. Rickshaws—derived from hand-pulled carts via a bicycle-based version—come in a range of styles, from fully enclosed boxes to more open options topped with a simple shade canopy.
America Is Missing Out on the Biggest EV Boom of All
3 days ago The couple traveled halfway around the world to attend the opening of a cultural center that showcases Indian art. Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas spent the weekend enjoying a sweet “date night” halfway around the world. The pair traveled to Mumbai, India, to attend special ceremonies for the …
Le piante sottoposte a stress “piangono” e la loro voce si ascolta con gli ultrasuoni
Dal Dottor Giovanni Ghirga riceviamo e pubblichiamo: “Rispetto per ogni forma di vita. Le piante sottoposte a stress “piangono” e la loro voce si ascolta con gli ultrasuoni. Le piante assetate o sottoposte a stress producono clic ultrasonici che, se elaborati per renderli udibili agli esseri umani, suonano come “popcorn”.
Stressed Plants ‘Cry’—and Some Animals Can Probably Hear Them
Plants do not suffer in silence. Instead, when thirsty or stressed, plants make “airborne sounds,” according to a study published today in Cell. Plants that need water or have recently had their stems cut produce up to roughly 35 sounds per hour, the authors found. But well-hydrated and uncut plants are much quieter, making only about one sound per hour. The reason you have probably never heard a thirsty plant make noise is that the sounds are ultrasonic — about 20–100 kilohertz.
Rich countries agreed to pay climate ‘reparations.’ That was the easy part.
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. Last year, Pakistan was hit with floods so devastating that they were hard to comprehend. In some areas, 15 inches of rain fell in a single day. And the rain went on for months, inundating one-third of the country, spreading disease, and displacing nearly 8 million people. Six months later, Pakistan is still in crisis—nearly 2 million people are living near stagnant floodwater.
Crypto Is Mostly Over. Its Carbon Emissions Are Not.
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. At this point, for most of us, cryptocurrency seems like nothing more than a fad. After the FTX bankruptcy and broader crypto crash last year, basically all of the celebrities who were promoting crypto have gone silent. “MiamiCoin,” hyped by Miami Mayor Francis Suarez as a new source of income for the city, is now worthless. The Wild West days of the industry may be over.
The Willow oil project in Alaska won’t bridge the energy gap
If the world turned off the tap of fossil fuels tomorrow, all hell would break loose. Something like 30 percent of global electricity and 9 percent of transport would still be running; billions of people would be stuck at home in the dark. That’s why, even though world leaders now talk constantly about transitioning away from fossil fuels, they also fret about ensuring a supply of oil and gas for next week, next month, and next year.
People Feed Birds. Why Not Frogs? Original
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. For most people, discovering a frog living in your fence post would make you feel either kind of creeped out or kind of charmed. For one guy in Australia, it was a challenge: He decided to make it the sweetest pad possible. In a now-viral two-minute TikTok video, he designs and 3-D-prints his frog an elaborate home.
‘Greenwashing’ Refuses to Die
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. Let’s say you want to buy a T-shirt and you want your investment to be as environmentally sustainable as possible—after all, clothing production generates 8 to 10 percent of global carbon emissions. How should you research your purchase? I don’t know. But I know how you shouldn’t research it: by listening to what the companies themselves say about their sustainability.
Are We Trying to Save Animals in the Wrong Places?
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. Sperm whales live in the remote open ocean. Or at least, that’s what scientists have long thought. The U.S. government’s 2010 recovery plan for sperm whales characterizes their range as “generally offshore.” A 2016 study of their Australian range describes the whales as foraging in “deep offshore areas of the world’s oceans.” This understanding goes way back.
Bring on the Boring EVs
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. If you tune in to Queer Eye next season, you may find the “Fab Five” talking about the transformative power of a carefully curated refresh from the interior of a zero-emissions Hummer pickup truck.
Europe Has Green-Energy FOMO
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. It is a good time to be in the decarbonization business in the United States. The Inflation Reduction Act—with its $374 billion cornucopia of green incentives, subsidies, and grants—was designed to entice private companies to invest in the transition away from fossil fuels. Initial reports already suggest that the IRA may be working.
The Most Famous Climate Goal Is Woefully Misunderstood
Sign up for The Weekly Planet, The Atlantic’s newsletter about living through climate change, here. How hot is too hot for planet Earth? For years, there’s been a consensus in the climate movement: no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Prince Harry’s Memoir Won’t Hurt the Monarchy
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Much has been said about the salacious revelations in Prince Harry’s new memoir, Spare.But as London-based Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis writes, the book also makes a powerful—if perhaps futile—case against the monarchy. I emailed Helen to learn more.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Emma
Contact Emma, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack