Polar Opposites

Finished August 10

Polar Opposites by Barbara Kellyn

This novella is one I picked up to meet a reading challenge and because it has a Canadian setting, Churchill, Manitoba. American magazine journalist Zora Dunn has been struggling with life in general and with writing since the death of her father a couple of months earlier. Her editor sends her to Churchill to do a story on polar bears, the disappearing sea ice, and how the community is adjusting to climate change. Zora has done a lot of research, but her intention is to see the situation for herself and to talk to locals about how they see things and how their lives are impacted.

She has been paired with a Canadian freelance photographer, Luke MacNeil. He has a great reputation as a photographer, but has an abrasive attitude and seems to enjoy getting under Zora's skin. For example, when she introduces herself to him, she says that her friends call her Zee, but he responds by calling her Zed, a reference to how Canadians say the alphabet, but also disrespectful. 

Luke is also facing a health issue that will impact his ability to do his job, and is dreading this loss. The job has brought them together, but how they react to each other and treat the people they interact with will impact the article overall.

I enjoyed the witty banter, but found that the novella format limited the character depth. There were a lot of local characters that seemed interesting that I would have wanted to learn more about. I also wanted more information on the issue that Zora was writing about included. 

We Loved It All

Finished February 23

We Loved It All: A Memory of Life by Lydia Millet

This is the first nonfiction book by the author and is very hard to classify as it includes so many different things. While Millet has written several works of fiction, she has also had a long career at the Center for Biological Diversity, advocating for wildlife and climate change preparedness. 

This book mixes her personal memories with scientific facts, vignettes of animal and plant interactions with humans, and thoughts about life in general. 

The book is split into three sections, and she works to show our connections to others' experiences, and to life beyond the human. You can feel her emotions around many of these elements. Paragraphs within sections jump from the personal to the other elements, and sometimes feel like an expression of a stream of consciousness, with one thought leading to another. 

There are many things here that reminded me of my own memories of interactions with nature, and that revived knowledge I forgot that I had. There are also times where she taught me something new. This is a book that is hard to rush through, that one needs to sit with, and take time to examine one's reactions and thoughts. 

The End of October

Finished December 2

The End of October by Lawrence Wright

I started reading this novel in March 2020, but it felt too close to what was happening in the world at that time, so I put it down and moved on to another book. I decided to tackle it again, and it still felt eerily real to me, with so many aspects of the pandemic within its pages relatable to the real-life pandemic. But this time I kept reading, because I truly wanted to know what would happen to Dr. Henry Parsons, his wife Jill and their children Helen and Teddy. 

Henry is a microbiologist working at the CDC and for the WHO. When an outbreak occurs in Indonesia, he travels there on behalf of WHO to investigate. 

The book takes us through scary moments, when Henry first realizes the virulence of the outbreak and then when he realizes that he has lost the moment to contain it. Henry is a dedicated scientist, using his skills to help figure out what he can. Like our pandemic, things are constantly happening that change the situation, and adjustments are constantly being made. 

Also, like our pandemic, authorities don't always give all the information they have, and aren't always clear to the public of the risks and the real numbers affected. 

The side of the book with Henry's family personalizes it more. Jill is a school teacher, worried about her kids in the classroom, but also about her kids at home. With limited access to be able to communicate with Henry, she is forced to make decisions with limited information. She second guesses herself. 

I found the character of Helen the most interesting as she developed. She is in her teens, and is forced to deal with very adult situations. She is scared and very brave. I really liked her.

There are many loose ends here, as there are in real life. We don't know what happens to the Saudi prince that Henry worked so closely with, and the end of the book doesn't tie everything up. But this feels real, and so many of the issues that arise are real: foreign diplomacy, threats of war, suspicion that the virus is manmade, climate change, countries taking advantage of weaknesses to attack other countries, and interruptions to communications and trade. This was still a difficult read, as so many of the issues are real for us now, but it is one that will keep you gripped to the book.  

Fire and Ice

Finished December 14

Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World by Jonathan Mingle

This book uses a small village in the Himalayas as a focal point for environmental concerns in a way that makes it even more relevant and personal. Mingle first met the people of the village of Kumik in the Zanskar valley of the Himalayan mountains of north west India in 2012 when he was asked for advice on how to build homes to take advantage of passive solar energy, something he has experience in. The village of Kumik is one of the oldest villages in this part of the world, and depends on water from the glacier above for both its daily life and its sustaining agriculture. But the water has been providing less and less over the years, with the glacier shrinking and most of the remaining meltoff going down the other side of the mountain to other villages. 

The village people have been looking at their options as the fields they plant each year decrease and men work at other jobs, away from the village more and more. They have decided to move the village to a new location, where they can arrange irrigation from a nearby river. They will be building a new village from scratch, and want to do it in a way that takes advantage of things like solar energy as much as they can.

Through Mingle, we see the intricacies of village life, how they depend on each other, and the long history of the social contract "chu len me len chaden" which has neighbours supporting each other with fire and water. Violators of the social system are cut off from both these necessities, putting them in the position of not being able to survive. 

We see his work and his interactions with the villages over a couple of years as they gradually build their new village, have many meetings and make many decisions, and work together for their future.

Mingle looks at why glaciers are shrinking and the role not only of carbon dioxide, but also of black carbon. Black carbon, often appearing as soot has many effects. Not only does it pollute existing glaciers and cause them to heat more and thus shrink more quickly, it also has huge effects on human health (and indeed the health of all living things). Thousands of people die every year due to its effects, all around the world. Black carbon's health effects are seen locally, while its environmental effects are global. Many of the world's poorer countries use cooking and heating fuel that contributes to the production of black carbon, not only through the type of fuel, but also through the way that it is burned, leaving unburned particulates in the nearby atmosphere, both in homes and in the air around communities. It is also an output from the use of diesel fuel, often used for generators in  remote communities, but also transportation around the world. Even in the more developed world, the use of wood burning stoves and heaters contributes to this pollutant. 

I learned that the colour of the flame is a strong indicator of the presence of black carbon as an output.The bluer the flame, the cleaner burning it is. That orange glow we admire is not a healthy sign. 

In many instances this is something that can be tackled even more easily than the issue of carbon dioxide (although that can't be ignored). Development and distribution of cleaner burning stoves and heaters needs investment and government support worldwide. The infrastructure and training to support maintenance of these new units is key as well. The use of local solar generators can be another tool for reducing black carbon. In the developed world, replacing wood stoves with pellet stoves can help this effort. 

I learned a lot from this book, and it gave me hope that we can work together to improve the lot of people, from this small village of hardworking people in the Himalayas to our own communities in cities and suburbs. This recent case of the role of this kind of pollution in the death of a young girl in London spoke to its impact in cities. 

Highly recommended.

The Flooded Earth

Finished August 10
The Flooded Earth by Mardi McConnochie

This middle grade novel falls into the dystopian subset of climate fiction, fiction, known as clifi, that takes place after the world's climate has caused catastrophic changes. The main characters in the novel are Will and Annalie, twins, and the children of a man, Spinner, who had previously worked for the government trying to find solutions for problems facing the world's inhabitants.
As the book opens, it is forty years after a devastating flood that flooded entire countries, devastated coastal communities and had a huge economic effect. Many countries redefined themselves, opting not to repopulate some areas even after flood waters receded. Refugees found themselves in horrific camps, or living in the abandoned areas of the world.
Annalie was encouraged by her father to apply to the prestigious government boarding school in their country, Dux, and was accepted, but she feels like an outsider. She and Will were raised by their father in one of the abandoned areas and lived off the grid until now. During the flood the military took charge of the government and is still in charge. They are known as The Admiralty. When the authorities come unexpectedly for Spinner, he sends Will to a friend's place and goes for an escape. He doesn't make it to his boat, which The Admiralty has taken custody of, but he does disappear. And the authorities now come to Annalie, asking her questions about her father and making her feel unnerved. After talking to Will, she decides to leave school and go home to join Will and try to find their father. Her only school friend, Essie, daughter of a senior government official who has fallen to scandal, decides to come with her.
As the twins and Essie set off on a sea voyage after Skinner, along with Skinner's enhanced talking parrot, Graham, they are in for a big adventure. The must dodge the government officials that are trying to find them, avoid the pirate ships that prey on boats where they can, and try to decide who to trust as they follow their instincts and carefully choose ports to stop in for supplies. This is obviously the first in a series of books following the children, and I am dying to find out the next adventures for them. The author is well-known for both children's and adult fiction in Australia, and I am pleased to discover her.