Barnaby Potter, Maine Coast Book Shop, Damariscotta, Maine
A World Without Ice (Avery, Oct.) should be read by every responsible citizen of this planet. Though grounded in strong science, Henry N. Pollack's critically important work is written with all of us in mind. The message: there is no longer any excuse for putting our heads in the sand. Water in every form is crucial to our existence, but the water that is held in cold storage toward the poles, in the high mountains and in such limbos as the permafrost, is all we have left in reserve to be metered out and re-stored by what we have always thought of as normal climate patterns. Well, those patterns are “normal” no longer. Great changes in climate and in seasonal weather variation are afoot, says Pollack: we are unquestionably responsible for the accelerated melting of Earth's ice that now threatens everything we have ever known as “normal.” We must apply our collective intellect toward preserving what's left of it—and fast.
