Worthy of shelving alongside the best of modern firefighting books—and of the broadest audience, especially in territories...
How we have mismanaged fire over the last century—and the costs we’re paying.
Around the world, writes award-winning journalist and photographer Kodas (Environmental Journalism/Univ. of Colorado; High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed, 2008, etc.), “megafires” are billowing each fire season, thanks to a perfect storm of related causes: climate change is making forests drier, beetles and other pests are making kindling of vast stretches of woodland, and “booming development…[has] filled forests with human-produced sparks and heat,” to name just a few. Those vast fires flourish because of a miscalculated fire regimen—first trying to “extinguish every wildfire in the country,” thereby allowing a vast inventory of flammable materials to build up, then introducing controlled burns that too often get out of control. In this country, the result is the projected annual burning, by midcentury, of an area the size of Maine. Trained as a forest firefighter, Kodas notes that he “didn’t anticipate that schooling would be as much in economics and politics as it was in fuels and fire weather,” since both politics and economics dominate decisions about fires and their aftermath. A case in point that he covers in depth is the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, in which 19 Arizona firefighters died; that story has been well-treated elsewhere, but Kodas brings new insight to the events and especially the legal wrangles that followed the blaze. More are likely to die, civilians and firefighters alike. The costs, as the author chronicles, are not just in terms of human lives, but also billions of dollars in property damage and economic loss—to say nothing of the costs states and municipalities must now shoulder as the federal government backs away from paying for firefighting. As Kodas dourly notes, Congress continues to block more funding even as the death count climbs.
Worthy of shelving alongside the best of modern firefighting books—and of the broadest audience, especially in territories where fires are likely to rage.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-547-79208-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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