Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction Summary: “The Password: Jacob’s Point, Rhode Island”

Rush opens Rising by describing a line of dead black tupelos along Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. She notes “some have tapering trunks and branches that fork and split. Bark peels from their bodies in thick husks” (1). The origin of the word tupelo is Creek, a Muskogean-speaking Native American group, deriving from the words ito (tree) and opilwa (swamp). These two words combined mean “swamp tree.” The tupelo loves soaking in water, a fact built into its name. These trees were once signs of a healthy wetland.

In the past, tupelos would move to higher elevations as sea levels rose and move back down when the sea receded. Cameron McCormick, the groundskeeper at Jacob’s Point, Rhode Island, explains to Rush that tupelos are no longer able to move in sync with the ocean. He notes that there are two reasons for this. The first is that the rate of sea level rise is happening faster than it has in centuries, meaning “the ocean and the tidal marsh are falling out of sequence” (10). The second is that humans have built communities in wetlands, further preventing this migratory dance. As a result, the tupelos began to suck up more saltwater, which poisoned them and resulted in their deaths.

Tupelos are just one of many species that are dying out in the United States. Over 700 endangered or threatened species are wetland dependent, with most predicted to become extinct over the next century. Rush points out that we are possibly in the middle of a sixth extinction. The one thing that distinguishes this extinction from the past five die-offs—known as the Big Five—when the overwhelming majority of living species died on Earth is that this one is human driven.

Introduction Analysis

The introductory chapter of Rising sets the structure and tone of the book. Rush’s storytelling method blends reporting and first-person accounts of individuals living in communities along the American shore. While facts and figures about climate change are scattered throughout her book, they are not strictly the focus. Instead, Rush sees her role as giving a microphone to those individuals and communities directly impacted by rising sea levels. Rush’s tone is also not overly hopeful. She documents not just other people’s anxieties and uncertainties about the future, but also her own. For example, she discusses dreams she has in which storms are so large that they leave her home lightless and full of water. She wonders if she has crossed the line between immersing herself in her research and drowning in it.

Rush’s focus on language emerges in these opening pages. In one of her trips to Jacob’s Point, she encounters a man with binoculars. To determine if he, too, can see that the balance between fresh- and saltwater has been upset in the tidal wetlands, Rush asks him whether he knows why all the tupelos are dead. He answers no. Rush admits that she was once like the man. Before coming to Jacob’s Point, she did not know the difference between various plant and tree species. She began to learn their names when she “realized the ways in which their letters on my lips might point toward (or away from) incredible loss” (5).

For Rush, language symbolizes awakening and justice. By saying the names of the living beings impacted by climate change, such as tupelos, we recognize that the being itself and its particular niche are being destroyed by human-induced changes to the environment. It is the start of humanity’s awakening to the reality that our environment is radically changing around us. Moreover, saying words, like tupelo, gives justice to those beings most impacted by our actions. Saying their names prevents us from forgetting their existence by preserving them in our collective memory.

Rush also introduces another key symbol: rampike, or a tree that has died due to saline inundation. Reflecting on the Random House Dictionary’s definition of rampike, Rush notes: “Bare indeed—how exposed and plain, the gesture these trees make alongside our transforming shore” (5). To her, rampikes symbolize incredible loss.