Observers of Western waterways will want to have this on their shelves alongside the likes of Marc Reisner and Charles...
A hard look at a hard problem: finding sufficient water to live in a place without much of it.
Texas, writes journalist McGraw (Betting the Farm on a Drought: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change, 2015, etc.), sits at the same latitude as the Sahara and has much of that desert region’s aridity—so much so that in any given year, “it is more likely that a significant drought will occur somewhere than it is that the average amount of rain will fall.” If that formulation makes your head hurt, imagine how a Texas farmer or rancher feels, especially given the state’s right-of-capture water law, which essentially says you can extract all the water that sits underneath the land you own, even if that action dries up your neighbor’s well. In one instance, a farmer in arid West Texas is growing rice, knowing that it’s a wetlands crop better suited to the Gulf Coast, to make a point that the system of water rights is irrevocably broken. McGraw traveled the length and breadth of the Lone Star State talking with people whose livelihoods are directly contingent on the flow of water, a problem that will soon confront Americans everywhere given the trends of climate change. In that sense, as so often, Texas is a bellwether. Houston, as he observes, has fine drinking water, but that came about because the formerly poorly used Trinity River, which flows a couple of hundred miles from Dallas southward, was heavily regulated under the terms of a water regime that has been in place since the 1950s and reinforced under the terms of the U.S. Clean Water Act. In our current anti-regulatory climate, the water may get dirtier in the coming years. It’s a wait-and-see thing, in other words, but in the meantime, McGraw’s fine book serves as a useful guide.
Observers of Western waterways will want to have this on their shelves alongside the likes of Marc Reisner and Charles Bowden.Pub Date: May 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1031-1
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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