Customer Reviews

Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots

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Having won an international award for environmental journalism, Alanna Mitchell benefited from a study time-off included with the prize. She used her time well. Pursuing research topics close to her heart, she investigated what environmental hotspots can teach us about our past and the future of human evolution. Combining scientific curiosity with enthusiasm for "adventure", her travels have taken her to somewhat remote places - in Jordan, Iceland, Madagascar, the Galapagos and the high Arctic among them. She accompanied numerous specialists in biology, marine ecology, anthropology and other fields, plus local experts, on explorations in their field of study. She meets extraordinary people, confronting delicate and sometimes dangerous situations. She skillfully explains some of the complex climatology and other science for the non-specialist reader. The result is an engaging book, part travelogue, part environmental analysis, within a historical context.

With Darwin's journals of his voyage on the Beagle in hand, she traces his footsteps on the Galapagos. There and elsewhere she maintains an internal dialogue with Darwin wondering what he would have made of the ecological destruction she witnesses. Like the local people in Evatraha, Madagascar, who believe that trees "carry their own magic of regeneration", we are destroying precious resources somehow believing that "there will always be another tree". The evidence, Mitchell warns, attests to the opposite. Today, more species are endangered than ever before and some fragile ecosystems are beyond recovery. Reflecting on the five mass extinctions on our planet, she casts some doubt on our "shelf life" in the grand evolutionary scheme of the planet. Unless, that is, we can learn the lesson that nature's resources are finite and we are not in control of the ecosystems. Mitchell draws comparisons between Darwin's contemporary critics of his new theories of evolution and our own society's inability or unwillingness to "understand evolution as it applies to the future".

In personal encounters with her travel companions Mitchell has a series of questions to pose. The most fundamental one among them is: "Is the human species suicidal? What could help us pull back from the brink? What can we learn from past experiences?" While most of the findings expose the serious threats to our habitat and even question long term survival, Mitchell finds also encouraging trends. There are signs, she eagerly records, that people are learning lessons and are working together to make a difference. The most spectacular of these positive development she finds in Suriname, where large areas of tropical rainforest are being protected as part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. The point is, explains primatologist Russ Mittermeier, for rainforest conservation to be sustainable it has to make economic sense to the local people. "Environmentalists who are innocent of economics have no audience." He's the motor driving this and other conservation projects and an enthusiastic buyer of local artifacts. This particular story, "Where the rainforest goes on forever", alone makes the book worth reading. Still, it is only one of the highly informative while at the same time entertaining chapters. It is, though, the most optimistic.

In the end, as she reflects in the remoteness of the boreal forest in northern Canada on her own lessons learned, Mitchell acknowledges that she has been on a "quest for hope". Share her "world wind" tour, enjoy and follow the call for reflection. [Friederike Knabe, Ottawa Canada]

This book is an entertaining and often sobering look at environmental degradation that is occurring around the world. Author Alanna Mitchell, who was named the best environmental reporter in the world by the World Conservation Union and the Reuters Foundation, writes about several environmental catastrophes that are taking place including the effects global warming is having on the Arctic, the destruction of wetlands in Jordan where species are going extinct "at the rate of about one a year," and deforestation in Madagascar which, according to Mitchell, "is the world's top extinction hotspot."

While some of Mitchell's observations of how our species is destroying the very ecosystems we depend on for life are depressing, other prominent people's views on how destructive our species is are further disturbing.

"Leakey, the eminent Kenyan paleoanthropologist and authority on human evolution, is convinced that humans are poised to become 'the greatest catastrophic agent' the world has ever seen, a highly intelligent, highly lethal species set to destroy billions of years of evolutionary advances."

Much of Mitchell's book looks at how humans have decimated the planet, but she also writes about some environmental success stories including how Suriname's rainforest, thanks to conservationists, is almost entirely intact. Mitchell, in the chapter "Iceland's New Power" reports on how Iceland is "doing away with fossil fuels in favor of harnessing the mythical energy of hydrogen," and how, in the next couple of decades, they will switch their cars and ships to hydrogen and then won't require any oil.

Dancing at the Dead Sea is a fascinating, sometimes disturbing, book, but it is one which needs to be read. If we are to overcome our destructive, short-sighted ways and begin living in harmony with the other species, we need to be fully aware of what we're capable of - both in terms of causing environmental catastrophes and healing the planet. --Glenn Perrett

At first glance, this seems a foolish question. All creatures strive for survival. None have ever been known to vote for extinction. Alanna Mitchell, disturbed by what she has observed around the planet, still poses the question to the researchers she meets. Will we soon go extinct through our own thoughtless activities? Will we continue to denude forests of their trees? Will we allow our auto exhausts to melt the polar ice fields? How many other species will we drive into extinction before we follow? These aren't new questions. Nor does Mitchell pose them in any particularly unique way. However, her personal anguish comes through vividly in this string of powerfully evocative essays. As a "new learner" in observing ecological disaster, her concern is one we should all share.

Mitchell is almost unique in her descriptives prowess as she tours the planet's ecological "hot spots". She has discovered Charles Darwin, followed some of his travels and drunk deeply of the wisdom he imparted. The Pierean spring, cautions the cliche, scorns the shallow questor, and Mitchell has followed that dictum. In some haste, she turns to those on the sites for further information. They don't fail her as she watches attempts to restore trees in Madagascar, where only ten percent of the original stands survive. She learns that ancient cultures aren't easily cast aside - the Malagasy think the trees will go on forever. They spend more time and energy following the shrinking forest without considering the possibility that the trees may not be there someday. A familiar outlook, reflecting the energy use in our own society, she reminds us.

Her study of Darwin leads her to compare his ordeal in bringing natural selection to a skeptical Victorian England to today's outlook about nature's resources. Where the Victorians believed life couldn't change, our society views the Earth's assets as infinite - "it will always be there". Mitchell contests this fallacy with vigour, as she visits sites displaying contrary evidence. Darwin explained how everything undergoes constant change. She uses an ancient example to express her warning. Returning to Canada, paleontologist Phil Currie takes her into the Alberta Badlands to refute the popular notion that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. 'Where are the fossils that should be near the impact time?' is his rhetorical question. His answer is that the dinosaurs, life's most successful lifeform, were lost due to climate change. If they couldn't survive, Mitchell contends, can we?

Further north, she sees the effect of climate change in Canada's Arctic. Climate experts know the warming atmosphere will have earlier and more drastic impact here. Already the effect is showing in mild winters, earlier Spring and diminished hunting. The story is repeated endlessly - humans have soiled their nest with overcutting of trees, pumping too much water from limited acquifers, and emissions of gases choking the atmosphere we must all share. It's a bleak picture, with a label tacked on: "Fix this now!"

Some "fixing" is under way. In South America, a consortium struggles to convert sacred sites into eco-tourist meccas. Remote tribes can entertain visitors, earning income while protecting their homelands from the chainsaw. In Iceland, where the world is splitting open, geothermal power is a major replacement for oil heating. Transportation may replace petrol in vehicles travelling the limited distances of the island with the most common fuel type in the universe - hydrogen. Back in Canada, Mitchell rejoices over a strange alliance. A major logging firm and environmentalists have agreed to terms protecting the boreal forest. Certainly a liasion unthinkable a short time ago, but one giving strong promise of real progress in sustainability.

Of the many works on our environmental crises now available, Mitchell's is one offering the most dramatic examples, while holding out the best promise for the future. Her penetrating observations and personalised style place her in a special relationship with us as readers. While she recounts the larger scientific questions, she's also able to show how environmental issues are daily fare for many. Including you.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This 2005 very interesting review of several environmental problems on our planet in an excellent read for several reasons. Alanna Mitchell travels to several different places on our planet that are in danger due to man's poor decisions and just plain greed. Few people understand when they have "enought". The very wide variety of eco-systems and human belief systems that are revealed is just amazing. You something wonder if they are really on the same planet you call home. The author is very insightful and reveals with much intelligence and even humor the current problems and suggests with hope some ways of correcting them. I especially like how she tells you the smells of the different things she encounters. This is a very courageous lady and courage is a most beautiful thing, where ever your find it.
The only disappointment was her praise of BP's chief executive John Browne in the Epilogue. She is intelligent enough to realize "words are like whispers, actions are like thunder"! My dear friend under age 50 has lost a lung due to BP's actions in the Gulf of Mexico and many thousands of other people were very severely adversly affected in several States.

THERE IS NO DANCING AT THE DEAD SEA without mentioning ISRAEL!
How can you believe this book is credible when the author mentions the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, but neglects to mention valuable research from the Israeli side? For this `researcher' to mention Israeli twice in her book in the context that `bright gun fire ran out on the Israeli side' (page 10) is grossly unprofessional. Israel is recognized as a leader in environmental research and innovations including drip irrigation in the Negev and too many other water conservation initiatives to list here. Why did Amanda Mitchell deliberately omit Israel's role as a leader in environmental research? Why did she neglect to research the tiny country on the opposite side of the Dead Sea, which could have been easily accomplished. She leaves the impression that ones hears only gun fire from Israel! Nothing could be further from the truth! Israel is a thriving nation, the only democracy surrounded by oppressive dictatorships. Miss Mitchell, this is simply not acceptable for an honest researcher.
My only consolation is that I found this book in a discount bin.

This book was a refreshing look at the environmental devastation happening on earth. It is a book that gives hope and I don't believe is meant to speak on a scientific level about these problems. It is one woman's journey and how she has connected global warming, deforestation etc. with the teachings of Darwin and the importance of oral histories and legends.

However, Alanna takes a step back from the subject. The book is written by a journalist - and it feels like it. The book could have been so much more with more soul, feeling, emotion, and conviction dripping from the words. The final chapter makes an attempt at this. I get the feeling that the book was edited so that it would not offend anyone.

It doesn't. But this is a book with a subject that should attempt to make some waves. Perhaps, if the reader already has a connection with Darwin or with some of the locations described in the book, there would be more of an impact.

For me, I think the book only lightly touched the more important journey. From I can gather, the writer was recently divorced and on a journey to heal herself. The title of the book "Dancing at the Dead Sea" described an enchanting inspired moment at the Dead Sea. Later, Alanna dipped into piranha-infested waters to cool down - facing one of her grandest fears and conquering to the melodies of "pings".