Endangered Oceans

April 1, 2015

Gr 4-6-Readers who aren't anxious about the environment will be after reading these alarmist screeds. Each volume surveys a natural resource that has been threatened by human use or overuse with consequences that range from species extinctions and public health hazards to globe-spanning climate change. Each ends with vague guidelines for more responsible behavior, such as turning off electric lights and using less plastic. Photos of dead fish, oil-soaked sea life, and fields of brightly colored industrial slime reinforce the message. Along with misleading generalizations, such as a claim in Endangered Energy that 300 million years ago Earth "was mostly covered by swamps," the authors make some terrifying but debatable assertions: for instance, over the past 150 years we have changed our planet's oceans "forever" and that even that today "all living beings are at risk" from misuse of fossil fuels. The copyediting isn't topflight either. VERDICT Despite the flaws, these issues are important, and even if these introductions are stronger on general concepts than specific facts, they should stimulate enough concern to fuel further inquiry.

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