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Jonathan Mingle

Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World: Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World Hardcover – March 24, 2015

by Jonathan Mingle (Author)

4.5 33 ratings

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High in the Himalayan valley of Zanskar in northwest India sits a village as isolated as the legendary Shangri-La. Long fed by runoff from glaciers and lofty snowfields, Kumik―a settlement of thirty nine mud brick homes―has survived and thrived in one of the world's most challenging settings for a thousand years. But now its people confront an existential threat: chronic, crippling drought, which leaves the village canal dry and threatens to end their ancient culture of farming and animal husbandry.

Fire and Ice weaves together the story of Kumik's inspiring response to this calamity with the story of black carbon. Black carbon from inefficient fires - the particulate residue that makes soot dark - is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. It's also a key ingredient of the air pollution that public health experts regard as humanity's greatest environmental health risk worldwide: soot-laden smoke from household hearth fires and outdoor sources combine to kill over seven million people around the world every year.
Jonathan Mingle describes the joys and struggles of daily life in the Zanskar Valley, where villagers are buffeted by powerful environmental and economic forces, while also tracing black carbon's dark fingerprints outward from Kumik and around the world. Mingle investigates its impacts on snow, ice, and water from Mt. Everest to California, and the silent health epidemic it fuels from New York to New Delhi. Combining cultural history, detailed reportage, climate and energy science and dramatic storytelling, Fire and Ice is a profound examination of the global challenges of averting climate chaos and lifting billions out of energy poverty and water scarcity.
Can Kumik's people come together to reinvent fire, harness what remains of their life-sustaining ice, and reinvigorate their traditions of solidarity, in time to save themselves? Can the rest of us rise to the same challenge? Fire and Ice connects these questions with the work of enterprising scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and activists around the world, in a narrative that combines mythology, reason, humor, persistence, and hope in a race against a global clock.

Print length

464 pages
Language

English
Publisher

St. Martin's Press
Publication date

March 24, 2015
Dimensions

6 x 1.19 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1250029503
ISBN-13

978-1250029508
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fire and Ice is top-notch on the ground reporting on one more piece of the global environmental puzzle--a particularly tragic piece, and one that we should work hard to solve for so many profound reasons.” ―Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home

“Fire and Ice wonderfully captures the human face of the impact of traditional cooking fires and fuels on the lives of individuals, made vibrant in this environmental travelogue that encompasses and connects the lives of villagers in a remote Himalayan village, to scientists, political officials and policy makers stretching from New Delhi to startup dot.com companies to the negotiating chambers of the United Nations.” ―Daniel Kammen, Professor of Energy, University of California, Berkeley

“To the unfolding drama of climate change Jonathan Mingle brings something new to worry about -- black carbon, the tiny particles from a billion cooking fires that absorb the sun's heat and are melting the great glaciers in the Himalayas which regulate the water flow in the mighty rivers that feed half of Asia. Mingle's marvelous and original book, Fire and Ice, is no gloomy tale but a story of intellectual, scientific and human adventure among the Zanskaris on the roof of the world, where Mingle unfolds the beautiful simplicity of the problem, and of what to do about it.” ―Thomas Powers, author of The Killing of Crazy Horse and Heisenberg's War

“A searching, sobering, sometimes-scary look at an overlooked carrier of climate change…If you weren't worried about climate change before, this is just the book to kindle your angst. A promising debut.” ―Kirkus

“Fascinating…readers who might not have given much thought about a remote Indian village will understand its contemporary relevance.” ―Publishers Weekly

“An intriguing look at...the portrayal of the impact of carbon pollution on a small village and the worldwide ripples.” ―Booklist

“A compelling case for how we can clear our skies.” ―Mother Jones

“Fire and Ice is a lyrical tale about life in the coldest places at a time when the earth itself is warming. Author Jonathan Mingle takes the reader to a hearth in the high Himalaya, to join one community within one ancient culture as its citizens respond to climate change. The villagers' story, not to mention the soot from their cookstoves, resounds through the mountains and encircles the world.” ―Dava Sobel, author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, and The Planets

About the Author

Jonathan Mingle’s writing on the environment, climate and development has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Boston Globe, and other publications. He is a former Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, a recipient of the American Alpine Club’s Zach Martin Breaking Barriers Award, and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. He lives in Vermont.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press; First Edition (March 24, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250029503
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250029508
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.51 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.19 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,644,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,796 in Climatology
- #9,564 in Environmental Science (Books)
- #9,684 in Environmentalism

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4.5 33 ratings

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Jonathan Mingle is the author of "Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity and Survival on the Roof of the World." His writing on the environment, climate and development has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Boston Globe, and other publications. He is a former Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, a recipient of the American Alpine Club's Zack Martin Breaking Barriers Award, and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group. He lives in Vermont.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

33 global ratings

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4 star		33%
3 star		7%
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Rebecca D. Norman

A fascinating read, and an important book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2016

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I live in the region this book is about, and I can vouch that Jonathan Mingle knows his stuff there. The book would be a fascinating read just as a travelogue or a record of Mingle's years in the Himalayas, but beyond that, it revealed a whole dimension to the melting of the world's ice that I hadn't known about. Pollution from combustion in China and India wafts over the Himalayas, dropping black carbon on the glaciers, and causes them to melt faster.

A great book, whether you are interested in climate change, glaciers, or Himalayan cultures.

One person found this helpful

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Christian Metcalf

Extremely thorough and cohesive account of a problem that is both human and environmental!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 27, 2015

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GREAT book. Mingle mixes an in-depth account of life high up in Zanskar, India, with other anecdotal stories/data from all of the world, to give a full picture of one of the most pressing and solvable issues in the world today. Smog, soot, lung problems, glacial retreat - this story is dark and dismal, but unlike the issue of CO2, it is one that is fixable in a single generation. Literature like this is a start.

HIGHLY recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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SM

Written beautifully, reads effortlessly

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 13, 2015

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This is a book about the dynamic relationship between human beings and the land they live on. If this relationship is something you care or wonder about, then you must read this book. While it is a complete education on the environmental challenges of black carbon, this book is written beautifully and it reads effortlessly. I highly recommend it.

2 people found this helpful

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Michael J

A form of carbon pollution you may not be aware of

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 23, 2015

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

High up in the Himalayas, in Tibet, villages surrounded by glaciers are experiencing water shortages. The climate is growing warmer, the snow melt is decreasing, and the changes cannot be explained by the usual climate models. It turns out there's something else at work here, a pollutant that has all but disappeared from the developed world: Particulate carbon, or more commonly, soot. Soot is the product of incomplete combustion. Then you see smoke rising from a candle, or a wood fire, or an oil lamb, you're looking at soot suspended in a rising column of warm air. When the air cools the soot is deposited on nearby surfaces. In the developed world, we don't burn enough candles to create a significant amount of pollution, but in the developing world, the fuel for heat, cooking, brick making and other tasks is typically generated by the combusting of wood, coal, dunk, kerosene and similar fuels in simple hearths and ovens that never get quite hot enough to ensure complete combustion. The result is a fine layer of soot that covers all the surfaces around the health, indoors and out.

Where it falls outdoors, the soot-coated surfaces absorb more sunlight, and consequently more heat. Over time, the change in heat is significant. Snow melts earlier, and streams bring floods in the winter. Then when they should be carrying large amounts of water in the spring and summer, they dry up, and crops fail. There's an even more insidious effect to all this soot, and it affects the people who tend to, and are warmed by these sooty fires. The soot collects in and damages the soft tissues of the body- the membranes around the eyes, the nose, and the lungs, with consequent damage to those organs. The women who do the cooking indoors, who tend pots over a fire for hours, are particularly ill affected, as are the children who sleep by fires, and use their light to study by. It's not just the burning of organic materials that contribute to this soot. Diesel engines a major power source in the developing world, and the combination of simple diesels and high-sulfur fuel results in large amounts of soot. Countries like China, rapid moving from a largely agricultural economy to a more industrialized one, also produce massive amount of particulate carbon that affects both nearby and distant environments. The United States and Western Europe also went through a period of technological development that produced tons of soot (think of the coal fueled London fogs or the clouds of soot we once saw from every diesel truck), but with a population of nearly 1.4 billion, China is on track to produce an order of magnitude more soot than the west did during the early days of industrialization.

Jonathan Mingle documents both the problem of soot, and the emerging solutions, in great detail. There are initiatives, funded by the developed world, to supply households with low cost, high efficiency stoves that burn more cleanly and use less fuel. In some areas solar and wind power, batteries, and LEDs are promoted as a cleaner source of indoor light. Taller chimneys are suggested for the brick makers. Governments are lobbied and petitioned. But there's another force at work, and that is the promise of a better, easier, life that increased use of energy can bring. A diesel generator in the village means electricity for lights and appliances, charging cell phones, and more improvements. And some people don't like the idea of changing traditional practices, like cooking with dung. Still, Mingle is optimistic. He notes that great progress is being made- Indonesia switched the bulk of its population from cooking with kerosene to natural gas in only a few years. More high combustion efficiency stoves are being distributed. And as China's citizens get a greater voice in society, they're starting to complain about pollution, and the government just might be listening.

This is a fascinating book with an ambitious scope- perhaps a bit too ambitious. As Mingle strives to cover every last detail, whether it be global concerns about carbon or yet another village debate about fuel, the reader occasionally glazes over. I suspect this would be a significantly better book with about 25% less text. Still, it's a highly informative read, and I think an important addition to the literature of energy, pollution, and the developing world.

One person found this helpful

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rps

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

Excellent, well written, worth knowing.

Helpful

S. McGee

"The most dangerous pollutant you've never heard of"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 25, 2015

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

That very, very dubious honor belongs to black carbon. And if, in a world where other gases and substances contributing to climate change like methane have become common currency among the general public who are concerned about environmental issues, while black carbon continues to fly beneath the radar except within specific circles, well that's precisely the author's point. And that's what he sets out to change in this book, which details the science of black carbon -- better known as the soot that we produce whenever we light any kind of fire using firewood, dung, or other carbon-based substances to cook or keep warm, and send tiny particles of fuel carbon that aren't turned into carbon dioxide, whirling into the atmosphere.

Jonathan Mingle bases a large part of his tale about what may be the world's oldest atmospheric pollutant on one of its oldest continually inhabited traditional communities, high in the Himalayan foothills. Already, lower down, haze envelops once-pristine air thanks to the impact of billions of cooking fires and the impact of burning coal to generate electricity. Now, however, the inhabitants of Kumik must abandon the homes and fields they have cultivated for perhaps a millenium, because the glacier on which they once relied for irrigation has steadily and inexorably retreated. The growing season has shortened; they can't cultivate enough barley to feed themselves and their stock so they have sold their animals. Either they must move lower down to where they can access water where it still exists, or... Well, there is no "or". And that's just the tip of the glacier. What will happen to us -- as we already run short of rainfall in California, and glacier-fed water dries up, too -- if glaciers vanish even from Mt. Everest, as now seems not impossible?

Mingle's book -- as diagnosis and prescription -- is a powerful work of advocacy by an author who has worked in the field to provide alternatives to biomass-fueled cooking and heating for the billions of inhabitants of Southeast Asia. He chronicles here the all-too-familiar argument made by governments in the region that asking them to abandon carbon-based fuels is asking them to relinquish much-needed economic growth -- essentially, condemning them to a new form of colonial oppression. He addresses not only the climate risk, but the more micro health risks to individuals of inhaling the kind of air that lead 17th century English diarist John Evelyn to embark on a tirade against the evils of soot in a plea to Charles II to do something to contain the problem. Here we are, 350 years later, still struggling to do so.

This isn't a perfect book to read. It's poorly organized, jumping back and forth between science and Mingle's encounters with the people of the Himalayan plateau. He does an adroit job of making the science understandable, but is too often repetitive: too many times I felt as if I was reading "black carbon is bad", written in essentially the same way. His message is clear from the outside; his thesis and plan of actual emerges only very slowly and only after the reader has been taken back and forth several times between all the ways that black carbon is bad, and more anecdotes from Kumik. A better organized and shorter book would have delivered the same message in a far more eloquent and forceful manner. Clearly, those already aware of the kinds of problems associated with black carbon -- environmentalists and activists -- will flock to this, and rightly so. But the importance of its subject deserves a wider audience, and my sole concern is that the wandering, rambling narrative may make that tough for the author to find among a general reader who knows he or she should be concerned about this stuff, but might bog down halfway. My recommendation is to buy it, read it, and keep going through the times when you wish it were 100 pages shorter. You're right -- but that doesn't mean you shouldn't read it.

One person found this helpful

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