Customer Reviews

Life Counts: Cataloguing Life on Earth

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This book is an attractive introduction to its subject, and features some excellent articles. I especially liked the sections describing how working with the environment (including the local people) can be more profitable than destructive methods now in use. (For example, big game hunting parks versus poaching.)

However, there are a large number of obvious errors, and who knows how many non-obvious ones. In my initial reading, I was struck by several: 1) the cost of remote sensing satellites is not $50 billion and up, as even the US wouldn't build them at that cost; $50 million makes sense [this translation was published in NY, not London]; 2) Gen. Philip Sheridan was not a Confederate general; right war, but he was Union; 3) the solar influx is not 1.35 KW/minute/square meter; the units are clearly wrong, it is ~1.35KW/square meter (measured outside the atmosphere, normal to the radiation). A ten or fifteen minute scan in review prior to returning this book revealed several other questionable to ridiculous numbers.

The compilers of this book are 3 journalists and a graphics specialist, not specialists in the subject. However, between the compilers, the original Deutsch editors, and the editors of the ENglish translation, it would be nice if at least one competent fact checker was employed.