Vital reading for anyone who cares about the planet.
The world’s most recognizable climate activist gathers crucial wisdom from prominent scientists and thinkers.
In this galvanizing follow-up to No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference, Thunberg presents an urgent collection of writing by leaders in the fields of science, engineering, history, philosophy, and activism. The brilliant and alarming narrative tells it like it is: Though politicians, fossil fuel stakeholders, and other relevant entities have known for decades that a warming climate will have devastating results for Earth, most have done little about it. “It is my genuine belief,” writes Thunberg, “that the only way we will be able to avoid the worst consequences of this emerging existential crisis is if we create a critical mass of people who demand the changes required.” Throughout the book, the contributors—among other luminaries, Elizabeth Kolbert, Michael Oppenheimer, Naomi Oreskes, Mike Berners-Lee, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Margaret Atwood—clearly explain the tipping points that have already occurred, permanently altering the oceans, forests, fauna, and atmosphere and the fact that a concerted, global effort is required to effect positive change. The contributors also lay bare the fact that irresponsible, even pernicious, action by those who pushed for fossil fuel use but “greenwashed” information about the effects of greenhouse gas emissions has resulted in prolonged inertia, allowing the problem to get much worse. Yet most of the contributors remain optimistic that, with enough public outrage and demands for change, a solution is possible—only if we act immediately. In the last part of this book, Thunberg provides a guide to what needs to be done and how every single person on the planet can play a role. “We have the unfathomably great opportunity to be alive at the most decisive time in the history of humanity….Together, we can do the seemingly impossible. But make no mistake—no one else is going to do it for us.” The book includes numerous illustrative graphs and charts.
Vital reading for anyone who cares about the planet.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780593492307
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An eloquent depiction of how birding engenders a deep love of our ecosystems and a more profound understanding of ourselves.
A delightful ode to birds and a powerful defense of the planet we share with them.
In this moving memoir, filmmaker and novelist Kumar explores encounters with birds as meditations on the natural world. Told in a series of vignettes comprised of notable bird sightings, the narrative offers countless magnificent reminders of the beauty and force of nature as well as warnings of human-caused destruction as bird populations plummet due to such factors as habitat loss, water shortages, and changing temperatures. Kumar didn’t take up birding until her 20s, when a chance encounter on the beach with some avid birders and a flock of curlews transformed her life. This experience became her access point to nature, and she nurtured that connection, whether living in urban settings like Los Angeles or, later, rural New Mexico, where “even the winters are sun-drenched.” Through birds, the author was able to revisit the childhood intimacy with her surroundings that she cherished growing up in the heavily forested mountains of northeastern India. “Birds became a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world,” she writes, and “allowed me once again to relish solitude in the way I had as a child.” This sense of enchantment permeates the book as she brings us along on her adventures, including long odysseys to see bald eagles, bobcat sightings through her living room window, and glimpses of the mango-colored tanager in a city park. The author is clearly concerned about leaving a planet rich with wildlife for her children, but her ancestors are also on her mind. She lost both her parents and brother as a young adult, and she connects to their spirits through birds and nature. Ultimately, this is a book about the interconnectedness of generations and ecosystems, and birds are the conduit between the two. “Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us,” writes Kumar.
An eloquent depiction of how birding engenders a deep love of our ecosystems and a more profound understanding of ourselves.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-57131-399-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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