I
won this book as a part of the Goodreads Giveaway and was very excited
to receive it. Reading “Tipping Point for Planet Earth” was like
watching a lioness take down a gazelle, the miraculous beauty, grace and
proficiency of the story stand toe to toe with the calculated,
merciless gore and horror of the message and I could not look away.
Anthony
Barnosky & Elizabeth Hadly interweave professional acumen and
personal experiences to tell a tale that both educates and fascinates.
Reminiscent of 19th
century adventure novels that packed practical science teaching between
the slats of exciting experiences (“20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea”
listed genus and species of hundreds of fish and “Journey to the Center
of the Earth” was practically a geology textbook) this book recounts the
author's’ adventures and uses them to illustrate their scientific
conclusions, but unlike M. Verne’s missives, the adventures were real!
Very much in the vein of Elizabeth Kolberts “The 6th
Extinction”, this style adds interest, readability and accessibility to
the work, albeit not quite as successfully as Ms Kolbert’s wonderfully
compelling book did. Still a relatively low strain read, “Tipping Point”
is packed with supporting statistics; there will be no claims of cherry
picking data as it was harvested with the breadth of a combine. As a
casual reader with a strong interest in the subject matter and science
in general, perfection would have been less statistics with more of the
anecdotal prose instead. It read more like a scholarly paper, whereas
Kolbert’s read like a book.
This
book could join “Silent Spring” in importance and be looked back upon
by future generations as the clarion call that saved us all, or the
harbinger raven on the mantle, whose warnings went unheeded until our
downfall. I loved reading “Tipping Point” and will recommend it to all
whose hands I can pry from their ears, eyes and mouths…
Chuck Hinton 5/6/16
