The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

Zoë Schlanger is a science journalist and staff writer for The Atlantic. Her work centers on climate change and the environment. In The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, Schlanger explains how her climate change reporting impacted her outlook. The negativity and hopelessness she experienced while working in investigative journalism caused her to compartmentalize her emotions. To push back against this internal change, Schlanger turned to what had long been a source of comfort: plants. Her research into botany became an obsession that helped transform her perspective on life and the planet.

Schlanger’s casual interest soon grew into a new way of viewing the world. While reporting about the first fern genome, she found herself rediscovering the wonder of discovery and curiosity that had driven her early career. Plants offered an exciting and ever-evolving field that stood in contrast to the climate change stories Schlanger told as a reporter, which seemed to focus on a singular path of destruction.

By engaging with botanists and other researchers, Schlanger began to recognize the many ways human perception colors how people pursue research. Schlanger highlights how Western science often limits scientific understanding because it examines the world through a limited lens.