Black Climates: Notes on Race, Our Environment, and Visions for Equitable Futures - Hardcover

by Selina Nwulu (Author)

"To want to 'save the planet, ' a person has to first feel they belong to it. What would a saved planet look like for a Black collective?"

"This book is validating and monumental." -- Courttia Newland "Sensitive, powerful, and necessary." -- Joycelyn Longdon

Across the globe, Black communities are among those most affected by the climate crisis--despite contributing very little to it. For too long, the crisis has been portrayed as yet another injustice for Black people to shoulder, on top of the daily burdens of systemic oppression.

In Black Climates, Selina Nwulu reframes the conversation, revealing how the roots of environmental destruction lie in colonialism, exploitation, and racial inequity. She argues that climate change is not only an environmental issue but an inherently racial one--born of the same systems that devalue both people and the planet.

A former Young People's Laureate for London, Nwulu uses her lyrical, insightful voice to speak directly to Black British readers long excluded from mainstream environmental discourse. Through interviews with artists, activists, and campaigners, she explores interconnected issues such as air pollution, prison ecology, disability justice, migration, food, nature, community care, and radical imagination.

Black Climates is an essential and empowering exploration of how Blackness and the climate crisis intersect--and a call to imagine more just, connected, and sustainable futures.

Author Biography

Selina Nwulu is an award-winning writer, poet and social researcher of Nigerian heritage, based in London. She was Young Poet Laureate for London in 2015-16 and her work has appeared in multiple journals and anthologies around the world.

Her debut full-length poetry collection, A Little Resurrection, was published in 2022 and named an Irish Times Book of the Year.

In addition to her literary work, Selina applies her skills as a consultant in the fields of social and environmental justice and climate policy.