The Shetland Way

A memoir and investigation exploring loss, community and the climate crisis in the Shetland Islands by environmental journalist Marianne Brown

An extraordinary look at the global climate emergency through the microcosm of Shetland's historic and present day role in energy production.

How do we balance our needs with the needs of the natural world around us?

How can we have nuanced conversations and debate in a time of extreme activism or extreme denial?

How can we begin to understand the complexities of a subject as enormous as climate change?

And how can we change the way we live to save our lives?

This is one woman's story of how her quest to make peace with her father's death brought her straight to the heart of a challenging debate about how we save the planet.

When Marianne Brown arrived in Voe, Shetland, to attend the funeral of her father, she had packed enough clothes to last a short trip. But this was February 2020, just weeks before the UK’s first lockdown, and she would be unable to leave for another six months.

Shetland is a place bound together by community, history and culture. But when a huge windfarm is greenlit to export energy to mainland Scotland, it creates rifts between neighbours, friends and even families. One side supports the benefit to a planet spiralling into climate disaster; the other challenges the impact on an environment with an already struggling wildlife population.

As an environmental journalist, Marianne is drawn to investigate this story of sustainable energy that is irrevocably tied to her grief. But nothing is ever straightforward, and she soon finds herself on a transformative journey into the heart of a debate that mirrors global concerns about how we save the planet.

About the author

Raised in Edinburgh, Marianne Brown spent many years working as a journalist in Southeast Asia and later in Britain as the editor of an environmental magazine. She now works for a community-owned renewable energy cooperative based in Bristol. She lives in Devon and can often be found running on the moor or gardening with her partner and young daughter.