Episode Details

Can trees ‘hear’? Can flowers ‘see’? Are shrubs ‘intelligent’?

A decade ago, these questions might have seemed absurd. But an emerging scientific consensus posits that plants are much more like animals than previously thought. 

On this episode, managing editor Isa Simon speaks with Zoë Schlanger, a staff writer and science reporter at The Atlantic and author of The Light Eaters.

Schlanger shows how the study of plants—and the wonder their behaviors inspire—can offer a welcome alternative to the despair induced by climate change.  

For further reading: 

• Vincent Miller on plant ‘communities’ in old growth forests
• David Pinault on environmental activism in Cambodia
• Isa Simon on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass