Polar Regions: Human Impacts

No places are more remote than the Arctic and the Antarctic, but their remoteness has not kept them isolated from the environmental issues that trouble other parts of the world. Pollutants released in developed lands travel on air and water currents into the polar regions. As a result, scientists have found that polar bears are contaminated with poisons, the ozone hole has widened over Antarctica, and global warming is causing its greatest damage in the world's iciest locales. As they have increased their understanding of how human activities are changing the polar regions, researchers have come to appreciate the polar regions' importance in global climate, biological productivity, and biodiversity. Many scientists see the Arctic and Antarctic as the "canaries in the coal mine" that offer a forewarning of the changes that will come to the entire planet if society continues on its current trajectory.

Children's Literature

This book is from the eight-volume "Our Fragile Plant" set. While we review only this volume here, if the other volumes in this series are at least equal to this volume, then the whole set is a stellar series more than worthy of purchase. Polar Regions is uniformly well-done from the text to the charts, graphs, and sidebars to the drawings and photographs. Information was very current and well written. We especially liked the use of bolding new words/concepts for easy identification for the student reader. All the bolded terms appear in a glossary even though the content words are nicely defined in the text. The general organization of each volume, too, was student-friendly. The author started with the big picture/overview of the topic and the problems we as a species have caused and therefore must deal with—even discussing seldom mentioned topics, like the introduction of invasive species into an environment. The general organization of the volume, too, was student-friendly. The author started with the big picture/overview of the topic and the problems we as a species have caused and therefore must deal with. The author does a singularly fantastic job of approaching concepts and topics in a way that is honest and simple for things that are technical, e.g. specific heat or ocean currents. This book is unusual for this series in that the focus of this volume is on a geographical area rather than on a topic. Because of that, the book goes into topics that are seldom discussed elsewhere. For example, there are two chapters on pollution. One is on arctic pollution and the second is on the effects of chemicals on arctic wildlife. There is a thorough and succinct introduction,which manages to present a foreign and exotic ecosystem in detail and with depth despite the brevity of the chapters involved. The author shows human impact in an area of our world whose very remoteness might allow us to ignore it. We were pleased to note the focus on organic pollutants specifically of the persistent organic pollutants. Clear matter of fact delivery of information is particularly pleasing in that the author treats the audience with a level of respect that is rare in books aimed at this audience. Kudos, too, for discussion of climate change tipping points, particularly permafrost melting and feed forward effects of melting sea ice. The book, as a whole, is a very informative discussion of biochemistry that most books aimed at this audience would not even touch. This book contains information and material that the author has chosen to present very factually. This is contrary to the usual means of presentation that is frequently presented to this audience in an emotionally enhanced manner, laced with hyperbole. We are impressed that, in addition to this informative and respectful manner of presentation, the author is eminently readable, never veering into the dry and boring or the patronizing. This allows the author to discuss things that are usually avoided because they are considered "too heavy." The illustrations, charts and graphs are uniformly excellent—each topic that could benefit from one has a highly pertinent and useful visual aid—nothing is for mere aesthetic padding. Additionally, the pictures do an excellent job of showing flow, structure, and correlation. All of this allows the student to first learn about the background and theory, which provides the cause in order for the student to understand the effects. The subject matter, while thorough, explains rather than being alarmist or forcibly overwhelming. It was necessarily harsh when appropriate. The list of references and websites was top notch and the index was thorough. The publisher cites these volumes as being appropriate for the sixth to twelfth grader, but we feel that those between the ages of nine and eleven would find much to absorb in this set. The information is not "dumbed down," so a younger audience would use these books on a topic basis rather than in their entirety. Although a textbook, this is the kind of nature book that many students (even the not-very-interested variety) would find fascinating to look through—pausing where interested—which is a wonderful way to pique interest in a subject. We gladly give each of this book, and the entire set, a cookie. Reviewer: Mary Ashcliffe and Thad Ashcliffe