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Contact: Aine Duffy
(917) 351-7106
aine.duffy@taylorandfranci.com Publication Date: April 2004 FEELING THE HEAT Reports From
the Frontlines of Climate Change Edited by Jim Motavalli FEELING THE HEAT: Reports From the Frontlines of Climate Change (Routledge; ISBN Pb: 0-415-94656-5: $17.95 [$26.95 Canada]), edited by Jim Motavalli, editor of E/The Environmental Magazine, is the missing link in global warming literature; a reporter's book written not from the UN floor or the scientists' lab, but from the world's "hot spots" where this dangerous shift has already started. Instead of conjecture, it documents with vivid, on-the-spot prose the dramatic impact of rising tides, melting glaciers, disappearing beaches and intensifying storms on people's lives today. It's the kind of book you may wish you didn't have to read, but no issue is more important in the 21st century. For an increasing number of people, global warming is not an academic and scientific debate, but a matter of survival. From the frozen Arctic to the tropical islands at the earth's Equator, people are being affected by dramatic changes in long-established climatic patterns and the very geography of the places they call home. As the planet warms at a rate of four degrees Fahrenheit per century, violent storms are increasing in frequency, icebergs are melting, sea level is rising, species are losing their habitats, and temperature records are being broken. FEELING THE HEAT is not a dry discussion, dotted with computer models and scientific back-and-forth; it's a travelogue to actual world hot spots, where people are already coping day-to-day with the consequences of climactic disruption. From
China to New York, minor changes in what were fairly established weather
patterns have already produced profound and permanent effects on local
ecosystems. Fish species are disappearing, with ripples throughout the food
chain. Birds and butterflies are moving, turning up in places they have never
been seen before. Some plants are dying, others thrive. In France alone 10,000
people die from a prolonged heat wave that hit Europe in the summer of 2003. A
mere few months later, the Eastern Seaboard experiences a cold front that sets
records tumbling. Global warming is no longer a matter for serious debate it
is real and it is here.
***The book is richly
illustrated by images from award-winning nature*** photographer Gary
Braasch, whose personal project "World View of Global Warming," which has been
widely exhibited, is attempting to document the onset of climate change.
Braasch's work has illustrated stories for Discover,
Natural History, Smithsonian, Audubon and Life. About the Contributors The
book's contributors are some of the most distinguished environmental journalists
in the U.S. Jim Motavalli edits E/The Environmental Magazine, the
nation's leading independent "green" publication, and is the author of Forward Drive: The Race to Build "Clean"
Cars for the Future and Breaking
Gridlock: Moving Toward Transportation That Works (both Sierra Club Books).
Sally Deneen is a prolific
Seattle-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review and U.S. News and World Report. The Florida
Magazine Association named her "Writer of the Year" in 1998. Ross Gelbspan is a veteran of The Philadelphia Bulletin, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, and author of The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the
Cover-up, the Prescription (Perseus Books, 1998). He maintains
www.heatisonline.org. David Helvarg
is an investigative journalist and author of the 2001 book Blue Frontier: The Fight to Save America's Living Seas (W.H.
Freeman) and The War Against the Greens (Johnson
Books). Helvarg is also president of the Blue Frontier Campaign, and a
commentator for Marketplace Radio. Mark Hertsgaard is the author of The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates
and Infuriates the World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Earth Odyssey: Around the World In Search of
Our Environmental Future (Broadway Books). He is an environmental columnist
for The Nation, a reporter for
Worldlink TV, and a commentator for National Public Radio. Orna Izakson is a freelance environmental journalist based in
Portland, Oregon. A former staff writer at newspapers on both U.S. coasts,
including the Bangor Daily News, Eugene Weekly and others, her writing
has appeared in magazines and newspapers around the country. She is a regular
contributor to E/The Environmental
Magazine. Kieran Mulvaney lives
in Anchorage, Alaska and is the author of The
Whaling Season: An Inside Account of the Struggle to Stop Commercial Whaling and
At the Ends of the Earth (both Island
Press). Dick Russell is the author
of three books, including Eye of the
Whale (Simon & Schuster), named a best book of 2001 by three major
newspapers. Colin Woodard is a self-employed writer and journalist and author of Ocean's
End: Travels Through Endangered Seas (Basic
Books), a narrative non-fiction account of the deterioration of the
world's oceans. His second book, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten
Frontier (Viking Press), is being published this
spring. If you would like to schedule an
interview or an event with Jim Motavalli, please contact Aine Duffy at
917-351-7106 or aine.duffy@taylorandfranci.com Feeling the Heat Edited by Jim
Motavalli Routledge March: 6 x
9: 176 pp 12 halftones; 8pp
plate section Hb: 0 415 94655 7:
$80.00 Pb: 0 415 94656 5: $17.95 [Can. Hb $120.00; Pb $26.95] |