In 2020, wildfires raged through Australia and the American West, hurricanes battered Central America and the Gulf Coast, dark clouds of locusts descended on the Horn of Africa, and a new, deadly disease jumped from its wild animal host to humans, upending life as we knew it.

With end-of-world motifs dominating headlines, you wouldn’t be blamed for feeling like the natural world had turned a little hostile—even as scientists continued to warn of the dangerous harm we’re doing to it. Biodiversity is still in freefall, deforestation in the Amazon is on the rise, and a new report says plans to cut carbon emissions aren’t anywhere close to what they need to be to meet the