April 2023 MBR The Environmental Studies Shelf

The Environmental Studies Shelf

Humanity's Moment
Joelle Gergis
Island Press
2000 M St NW Suite 650, Washington, DC 20036
www.islandpress.org
9781642832846, $30.00, HC, 336pp

https://www.amazon.com/Humanitys-Moment-Climate-Scientists-Case/dp/1642832847

Synopsis: When climate scientist Joelle Gergis set to work on the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world's top environmental scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realized that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.

With the publication of "Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope ", Dr. Gergis takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.

Dr. Gergis shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist -- we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world. Basically, "Humanity's Moment" is a climate scientist's guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other, and our planet.

Critique: A timely and relevant study as our human community on planet Earth continues with activities that accelerate climate change with disastrous consequences world wide, "Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope" offers a justified optimism that we can succeed in mitigating the consequences and impact of our all-to-rapidly changing climate. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope" is a sorely needed and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, corporate, governmental, and academic library Environmental Studies collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, environmental activists, government policy makers, corporate executives, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $22.49)

Editorial Note: Dr. Joelle Gergis (https://www.joellegergis.com) is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of "Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia".

Toxic Timescapes
Simone M. Muller, editor
Mary-Brith Ohman Nielsen, editor
Ohio University Press
215 Columbus Road, Suite 101, Athens, OH 45701
www.ohioswallow.com
9780821425039, $64.00, HC, 388pp

https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Toxic+Timescapes

Synopsis: While toxicity and pollution are ever present in modern daily life, politicians, juridical systems, media outlets, scholars, and the public alike show great difficulty in detecting, defining, monitoring, or generally coming to terms with them. Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Simone M. Muller and Mary-Brith Ohman Nielsen, the contributors to "Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity across Time and Space" argue that the source of this difficulty lies in the struggle to make sense of the intersecting temporal and spatial scales working on the human and more-than-human body, while continuing to acknowledge race, class, and gender in terms of global environmental justice and social inequality.

The term 'toxic timescapes' refers to this intricate intersectionality of time, space, and bodies in relation to toxic exposure. As a tool of analysis, it unpacks linear understandings of time and explores how harmful substances permeate temporal and physical space as both event and process. It equips scholars with new ways of creating data and conceptualizing the past, present, and future presence and possible effects of harmful substances and provides a theoretical framework for new environmental narratives. To think in terms of toxic timescapes is to radically shift our understanding of toxicants in the complex web of life.

Toxicity, pollution, and modes of exposure are never static; therefore, dose, timing, velocity, mixture, frequency, and chronology matter as much as the geographic location and societal position of those exposed. Together, these factors create a specific toxic timescape that lies at the heart of each contributor's narrative. With the publication of "Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity across Time and Space", erudite contributors from the disciplines of history, human geography, science and technology studies, philosophy, and political ecology come together to demonstrate the complex reality of a toxic existence. Their case studies span the globe as they observe the intersection of multiple times and spaces at such diverse locations as former battlefields in Vietnam, aging nuclear-weapon storage facilities in Greenland, waste deposits in southern Italy, chemical facilities along the Gulf of Mexico, and coral-breeding laboratories across the world.

Critique: Informatively enhanced for the reader with a six page listing of the contributors and their credentials, as well as a seven page Index, "Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity across Time and Space" is a seminal and unreservedly recommend addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Environmental Studies collections and supplemental curriculum Historical/Human Geography studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, environmental activists, governmental policy makers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity across Time and Space" is also available in a paperback edition (9780821425046, $36.95) and in a digital book format ($0.99).

Editorial Note #1: Simone M. M ler is Heisenberg Professor for Global Environmental History and Environmental Humanities at the University of Augsburg Germany. As a historian and environmental humanities scholar, she works at the intersection of globalization processes, discards, and environmental justice. She has a Rachel Carsen Center website at: https://www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/staff_fellows/programs-and-projects/mueller_simone1/index.html

Editorial Note #2: May-Brith Ohman Nielsen (https://www.uia.no/kk/profil/mayon) is a professor of history and history didactics at the University of Agder and project leader of the research group "Deadly Dreams: The Cultural History of Poison, 1850 - 2020." Her work in environmental history and environmental humanities focuses on pesticides in social, generational, and historical contexts. Her other research areas include the history of epidemics, everyday life, and ideologies.

The Devil's Element
Dan Egan
W.W. Norton
500 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10110
www.wwnorton.com
9781324002666, $30.00

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Element-Phosphorus-World-Balance/dp/1324002662

The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance is an unusual science and social history of phosphorous, one of the planet's most important and dangerous natural resources. It was first refined from human urine in a 18th-century lab, and The Devil's Element follows its development and importance to human life. Today phosphorous is at the center of a threat to environmental freshwater sources, but this is a story too often understated in popular news, which doesn't reach the non-science reader's attention. That's why the history and science in The Devil's Element is so important to include not just in libraries devoted to books about ecology, environment, or science; but in those reaching general-interest audiences. Its colorful argument about the impact of human phosphorous use and its damage simply should not be missed.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.

The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com

Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129

To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review