Everything That Rises:
A Climate Change Memoir
Authentic and inspiring, Everything That Rises personalizes climate change by paralleling our relationship to the planet with the ways we interact at home.
Nineteen-year-old Brianna Craft is having a panic attack. A professor’s matter-of-fact explanation of the phenomenon known as “climate change” has her white-knuckling the table in her first environmental studies lecture. Out of her father’s house, she was supposed to be safe.
This moment changed everything for Brianna. For her first internship, she jumped at the chance to assist the Least Developed Countries Group at the United Nations’ negotiations meant to produce a new climate treaty. While working for those most ignored yet most impacted by the climate crisis, she grappled with the negligent indifference of those who hold the most power. This dynamic painfully reminded her of growing up in a house where the loudest voice always won and violence silenced those in need.
Four years later, Brianna witnessed the adoption of the first universal climate treaty, the Paris Agreement. In this memoir that blends the political with the personal, Brianna dives into what it means to advocate for the future, and for the people and places you love, all while ensuring your own voice doesn’t get lost in the process.
It will take all of us to protect our home.
Praise
“The most unusual and authentic book you will ever read on climate change. The international climate change negotiations may appear as an institutionalized impersonal political process. Craft shows how it is actually deeply personal, mysteriously exhilarating and profoundly moving.”
—Christiana Figueres, author of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to the Climate Crisis and former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
“This is a tour de force—an instant classic and a crucial addition to the literature of the environment. It tells many stories, but the through-line is the best account yet from inside the global climate negotiations. It’s told from the most important and least acknowledged of viewpoints—the negotiating team for the poorest and most vulnerable nations—and it’s told with love, power, brio, insight, passion and compassion. Do not miss it for any reason.”
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“Within her irresistible memoir, Craft powerfully embodies advocacy for all communities affected by environmental disaster. In a story that is alternately harrowing and enchanting, Craft’s honesty and passion inspire her readers to heed her clarion call to defend the environments of marginalized countries—and neighborhoods, because in protecting our neighborhoods we are protecting Earth, our common home. Thanks to Craft’s exquisitely recounted dual journey, readers not only comprehend, but also feel, that all ‘global’ climate change is local.”
—Harriet A. Washington, author of A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and the Assault on the American Mind
“Whether she’s writing about her traumatic personal history or the shared uncertainty of our climate affected future, Craft’s words radiate warmth, power, vulnerability, and strength. At once urgent and hopeful, her book is simultaneously a passionate reminder of the ways in which our connections transcend history and geography and a searing critique of the consequences of forgetting that interdependence is our only chance for survival. A promising debut.”
—Mathangi Subramanian, EdD, author of A People’s History of Heaven
One of Ms. Magazine’s Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2023. “We need all the books about climate change right now, written by all the people with the knowledge and expertise to show and tell us how to save the planet. Brianna Craft is one of those people and this is one of those books.”
—Ms. Magazine
“A fascinating, engaging, and impressively presented life story.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Everything That Rises is an essential book because of its insights into the workings of the United Nations’ climate change negotiations and because of its emphasis on the plights and needs of the least developed countries. It is powerful because, by
opening her heart, Brianna Craft creates a bond that tugs her readers into the two parts of her story and makes us care. Highly recommended!”
—New York Journal of Books.
“This is a brave memoir by a courageous leader in her own right. Craft worked side by side with people representing the most climate vulnerable countries on the planet, to be heard, to be taken seriously and in pursuit of justice. She brings the geopolitics of the climate negotiations to life through the people and friendships that make the process what it is. Craft’s vulnerability, honesty and humor make this a wonderful read.”
—Dr Tara Shine, author of How To Save Your Planet One Object at a Time
“An amazing story worth reading by anyone who wants to know how the negotiators from the most vulnerable developing countries manage to hold their own.”
—Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development
Acknowledgements
Life is a culmination of stories. I remain grateful to everyone who has contributed to mine.
Thank you to those who thought this story worth telling. To my editor, Alicia Sparrow, and her team at Chicago Review Press, your energy and enthusiasm took this tale from draft to vision. Thank you to the team at Fuse Literary, especially my literary agents: the indomitable Veronica Park Anderson, who was the first in the business to gamble on my potential and represent me with such enthusiasm, and Gordon Warnock, whose steadfast commitment saw me through.
My gratitude to the memoir’s early readers, both those in the book business and those who are not: Maya Millett, whose generous and thoughtful notes paved the way. Damian McNicholl and Leo Barasi, who gifted me their time, energy, and opinions. Marika Weinhardt, Janna Tenzing, Erina Aoyama, Michelle Christopher, Chalayn Nagunst, Kay Craft, and Max Lampson—you believed in this story even when I did not. Without your support this memoir would not be.
Thank you to the International Institute for Environment and Development, which remains my research home. To the dedicated professors at the University of Washington and Brown University who educate studies about the climate crisis. And to everyone protesting inaction.
My special thanks to the delegates of the Least Developed Countries Group, who work for climate justice every day.
And thank you for reading.