Heatstroke : nature in an age of global warming /

Given the significant environmental changes that have taken place over the past two decades, there is no shortage of books (ranging from very basic to dense) addressing the likely impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems. An increasing number are being produced by prominent scientists, like Barnosky, who have been compelled to make their research and that of others more accessible to the general population. Barnosky (Univ. of California, Berkeley) is a paleoecologist, who for several decades has been describing and explaining how animals have responded to past environmental changes. He has turned his attention recently, and in this book, to putting current climatic changes into a broader context. In this easily accessible yet thoroughly referenced work, he describes, with many scientific examples, how climate change can cause the demise of species through rapid environmental changes and loss of essential climates. A strength of this book is that Barnosky discusses how current environmental changes (and those projected for the near future) differ from past changes and what this means for the biosphere. This work is laced with fascinating descriptions of colorful people and places that make it enjoyable to read, even if the topic is sobering. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels of academic, professional, and general readers. D. Goldblum Northern Illinois University

Barnosky uses a unique approach to address the problem of global warming. Rather than dwell on human factors, he offers a host of examples from the past to illustrate how animals of previous eras survived or failed to adapt. From the recent discovery of a grizzly/polar bear hybrid (a pizzly) to dead zones in the Pacific Ocean, he chronicles various irrefutable changes to earth's climate. Chapters focusing on long-term studies at Kew Gardens and Yosemite Park make good use of research dating back to John Muir and other early naturalists. More contemporary discoveries involve wolf eradication and the successful reintroduction of this essential species in Yellowstone National Park, and the area's fossil record, which reveals how the Yellowstone ecosystem responded to what was the most significant global warming event, prior to the current one, in the past 3,200 years. Wolves are more than a political topic, Barnosky proves, just as the Canadian pizzly is likely not an isolated phenomenon. In straightforward language, this sensible climate-change book presents solid evidence from earth's deep history.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2009 Booklist

Around the world, climate change is indicated by natural events-especially in shifting migration routes-leading to results familiar (species die-out) and unexpected-like the discovery of a heretofore unprecedented "pizzly," a bear cub with one polar parent and one grizzly. Not all geographical displacement is quite so friendly; as ""ecological niches are shriveling up and disappearing," common and persistent species are dying off at a rate "between 17 percent and 377 percent faster than normal" over the past 400 years. While reviewing the evidence that points to drastic changes resulting from even small global temperature increases, Barnosky also discusses biodiversity's importance, compares rates of evolutionary change with global temperatures, and recounts Earth's four previous mass extinctions. One of her grim assessments is that "many of the species that humans tend to like" will be wiped out by global warming, and spur helpful evolutionary diversification only in "what we normally call pests." For the most part Barnosky is less gloomy than curious, able and straight-forward, flavoring his report with a sense of adventure and possibility; by the end of his discussion on humanity's four-pronged problem-global warming, habitat loss, introduced species and population growth-Barnosky will have readers looking to do more than change lightbulbs. (Mar.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.