Timely and readable.
Veteran science writer Ellis (Tuna: A Love Story, 2008, etc.) celebrates the powerful white beast that has become the poster child for global warming.
Listed in 2008 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the polar bear has been transformed in recent years “from killer of seals and attacker of men to cute, furry, beloved icon,” thanks to Coca-Cola advertising and consumers’ preference for all things cuddly. In fact this awesome predator—now in decline and numbering 22,000 worldwide—long ruled the Arctic until men in ships spied their luxurious white pelts. Hunted by whalers and sportsmen, the bears became gifts for royalty and soon decorated floors in front of fireplaces. In this engrossing natural history, Ellis pays homage to the great bears and corrects misperceptions, noting that attacks by these beautiful giants are rare, and, given the sensitivity of their noses (they can smell a decaying whale carcass 20 miles away), they are easily thwarted with pepper spray. The author quotes at length from diaries, reports, articles and other material to describe these curious and individualistic mammals, which weigh up to 1,700 pounds and depend for their survival on the sea ice of several nations (Canada, United States, Denmark, Norway and Russia). Banned elsewhere, sport hunting is still permitted in parts of Canada, home to 15,000 of the world’s polar bears; tourists pay up to $40,000 for guided hunting. Among other aspects of bear lore and history, Ellis describes the Inuits’ fear and worship of the great bear; the lives of hunter-explorer Robert Peary and circus trainer Ursula Bottcher; and how polar bears fare in zoos, where, deprived of their customary surroundings, they sometimes act aberrantly and attack humans. The author includes a lengthy discussion of the “noticeable effect” of climate warming on the bears—from forcing them to swim further in search of ice floes, sometimes dying of exhaustion, to causing the collapse of the little dens that pregnant females dig in the snow, trapping the mother and cubs inside.
Timely and readable.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-307-27059-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
APPRECIATIONS
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
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