Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing from the PEN America Center,[1][2][3][4] and The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans (2021).

[8] Barnett spent twenty-five years as a reporter, columnist and editor at newspapers and magazines before giving up her full-time job in 2012 to devote her career to the environment and her books.

"[12] For her third book, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, she set out to draw a broader audience with a popular topic, weather, and a lyrical approach to water and climate – "more poetry than pipelines," she says in her public lectures.

Rain was published in 2015 by Crown, a division of Random House, and widely lauded for Barnett's nature writing and ability to translate science for a general audience.

[18] She is a critic of environmental communication targeted exclusively to conservation audiences and encourages students to reach "the Caring Middle."