Adventures in the Anthropocene

Starred review from September 8, 2014
Science journalist Vince has produced a book, simultaneously deeply depressing and thoroughly uplifting, that is all but impossible to put down. Organizing her stories by ecosystem, Vince chronicles the planetary changes humans have wrought during the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch. In superb prose she summarizes the actions of people whose lives have been irrevocably affected by climate change, urbanization, industrialization, and rampant greed. These same people, some of the poorest on the planet, are taking active steps to transform their lives and communities. Vince writes in the first chapter about Mahabir Pun, a Nepalese teacher who brought free WiFi connections to remote Himalayan villages, enabling students to attend school online and village nurses and midwives to work in a telemedicine and dentistry clinic linked via webcam. She also describes the remarkable efforts of an Indian civil engineer, Chewang Norphel, to construct temporary glaciers to provide water for remote, high-elevation villages whose natural glacial aquifers have disappeared as temperatures rise. Vince travelled for two years, interviewing and observing, to compile this amazing view of both the present and the future, and she concludes that it is not yet too late to create a rich and sustainable “shared future.” Illus.

Starred review from October 1, 2014
Science journalist Vince chronicles a two-year journey around the globe to evaluate warnings that we face an ecological tipping point."Deserts are spreading...forests are dying and being logged....Wildlife is being hunted and dying because of habitat loss," writes the author, who also notes that we currently use 30 percent more natural resources per year "than the planet can replenish." Geologists are calling this the Anthropocene epoch due to "the changes humans are making to the biosphere." As the author acknowledges, we are the first species "to knowingly reshape the living Earth's biology and chemistry. We have become the masters of our planet and integral to the destiny of life on Earth." Despite this dim picture, the author found grounds for optimism on her travels. Vince takes the hopeful view that we will act in a timely fashion to "preserve nature or master its tricks artificially." In China and India, she chronicles government efforts to address atmospheric pollution and looming water shortages. Her main interest, however, is the inventiveness of people at the local level dealing with these problems. Vince believes that they are ushering in "an extraordinary new human age...creating artificial glaciers to irrigate their crops, building artificial coral reefs to shore up islands, and artificial trees to clean the air." The author was most impressed by the cumulative effect of small changes in heretofore-inaccessible mountain regions that now generate electricity using microhydropower; these areas have also gained access to the Internet and improved sanitation. She discusses the work of "[h]ydrologists in Peru [who are] building tunnels to drain an Andean glacial lake" as a way to control disastrous flooding. On a smaller scale in the Indian village of Ladakh, a local engineer is leading a project to convert mountain wastewater into a series of man-made miniglaciers connected to irrigation canals. Everywhere she traveled, Vince continued to see great promise in human creativity. A well-documented, upbeat alternative to doom-and-gloom prognostications.

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Starred review from September 15, 2014
Science journalist Vince has an exceptionally fluent understanding of Earth's geophysics and the gift for conveying this knowledge with lucidity and zest. She is also an intrepid traveler with a mission. Given humanity's dominant role in shaping the biosphere, scientists have named our epoch the Anthropocene or the Human Age. Curious about what this means in the real world, Vince went on an ambitious, often risky global journey to see how people are adapting to changes on our warming planet. Her environmental travelogue is arranged according to habitatmountains, rivers, farmlands, deserts, oceans, and cities. And she addresses a plethora of challenges, from drought to deforestation, ocean acidification, and mass extinction. But she also introduces us to extraordinary people who have developed brilliantly innovative solutions. Vince climbs in the Himalayas, where is it now warm enough to grow oranges while glaciers melt, causing severe water shortages and inspiring geoengineer Chewang Norphel to create artificial glaciers. Vince talks with Ugandan farmer Winifred Omoding and the president of the sinking Maldives in the Indian Ocean. She journeys on the Mekong River and, with courageous rain forest champion Rosa Maria Ruiz, the Amazon. There is no avoiding the complexity and severity of the situations Vince delineates, but she aims for positivity as she celebrates the wonders of nature and reminds us that we are a superbly adaptive species.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)