| EARLY SPRING An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World Amy Seidl Bill McKibben (Fwd.) Boston: Beacon Press, 2009 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-8070-8584-4 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-8070-8584-7 | 173pp. | HC | $24.95 | |
| Page 5: | "The volcanic dust from Mount Tambora circulated the globe and significantly reduced the amount of sunlight that the earth received." |
| Word choice: S/B "circled" or "circulated around". |
| Page 7: | "At its edge is a sugar bush, a stand of sugar maples, from which the hollow farmers made a spring cash crop." |
| Word choice: S/B "the farmers of the hollow". (Although the way things are going, those New Englanders who depend on maple sugar for their livelihoods may be made hollow.) |
| Page 17: | "In fruit flies, a ubiquitous model organism, scientists have found an increase in the number of individuals who can withstand heat tolerance." |
| Word choice: S/B "withstand heat". |
| Page 37: | "I buy Vermont apples most of year, from late August until the following May..." |
| Missing word: S/B "most of the year". |
| Page 38: | "And so when Reliance peaches appeared on the table of a friend's house last August, [...] I immediately and greedily investigate growing peaches." |
| Verb tense: S/B "investigated". |
| Page 50: | "After boiling the sap in a shallow pan, the excess water evaporates..." |
| Dangling participle: S/B "After the sap is boiled in a shallow pan". |
| Page 64: | "...I feel as though I am living in a ship and crossing a precarious straight..." |
| Spelling: S/B "strait". |
| Page 67: | "Now both lay derelict, tractor and farmhouse, artifacts an agricultural place and time that had been resettled by beech trees." |
| Verb tense: S/B "lie derelict". There is no indication that past tense was intended. |
| Page 94: | "...it wasn't until 1960 that a rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was detected." |
| Date: S/B "1956". |
| Page 94: | "...a book that begins with a phenological treatise to the farm he knew and loved so well." |
| Grammar: S/B "on the farm". (Alternatively, "phenological tribute to the farm". But this seems less likely.) |
| Page 103: | "...and the windows are cracked to let in the blue light..." |
| Poetic license? One thing's sure; she's not making a reference to the old TV show starring Robert Goulet. |
| Page 106: | "Indeed, upstate New York, Vermont, and Maine host more bird species than almost any other place on the continent." |
| What of the states in between? |
| Pages 136-7: | "This biological activity provides a natural storage mechanism for carbon that can remain inactive for decades or centuries..." |
| Usage: S/B "that can keep it inactive". |
| Page 137: | "Yet some people are hopeful that agricultural soils, especially grasslands, may have an untapped sink capacity. Indeed, grassland soils may have the potential to sequester all of the excess carbon dioxide that has been emitted since the industrialization of the world." |
| This is a bold claim. It does have a source: a November 2007 document from the EIA. |
| Page 148: | "...and their physiology is neither limited by ambient levels nor accelerated by elevated ones." |
| Syntax: S/B "limited by current levels". ("Ambient" is wrong because of its technical meaning: whatever conditions exist at a given time. An ecologist should know this. |
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