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| The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change | 
| Author: Charles Wohlforth
Publisher: North Point Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $2.41
You Save: $11.59 (83%)
New (26) Collectible (1) from $5.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 473608
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5
ISBN: 0865477140
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.89712
EAN: 9780865477148
ASIN: 0865477140
Publication Date: May 4, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Very good softcover, inside is clean, tight, solid and unmarked. The cover has minor shelf wear . Question please email
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 | | NEXT » |
I am reading parts of this book aloud to my children December 13, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
who are 11 and 13. They wanted me to read the whole chapter about the snow-sampling expedition. They are thrilled and disturbed by the whale hunts and the vivid descriptions of the ice, and they are more interested in the science than I expected -- but as another reviewer noted, the author is a parent, too, and while the science isn't oversimplified, it is set out in plain language.
My kids want to go to Alaska as soon as possible, "before it's all melted and gone forever" as my daughter says. And my son wanted to know -- "Mom, if I can figure out cold fusion, will you be proud of me?"
All the accolades by other reviewers here are well deserved. This is a wonderful read; the science is woven into the story so seamlessly that you don't realize just how much you're learning. But I think the most important message of this story is that the earth has an intrinsic value and beauty that we do not have the right to destroy.
So, get this book. Read it. Donate a copy to your local library. Maybe our children really can save the planet. This book could be the inspiration.
The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change May 1, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I flew a Jet Ranger helicopter for ERA Helicopters in the spring of 1969, shortly after oil was definitely discovered at Prudhoe Bay. I was the farthest west contract at that time, living with and working for a seismic crew. As a result I had to learn a lot about surviving in the white-out, memorizing the shapes of all the tundra ponds, various willows and other Arctic shrubs, snowy owls and ptarmigan, and so forth. Reading this book brought me back to all those adventuresome skills and a time just before we were all so skeptical of our society and its outcome. Working in extreme outdoor jobs then was a lot like the life described in this book. Certain abilities to pick up on local lore of the Natives, as well as the most advanced technical thinking was expected of you, and comforting. I have enjoyed seeing anything about the Arctic's North Slope of Alaska ever since, and hope we can move forward into our complicated future without confiscating that amazing habitat up there. And good luck to the Arctic Ocean's inhabitants and their ecology; they are going to need it for what we have done to the atmosphere. This writer is a fine journalist for conveying what we have learned so far.
Global warming given a personal perspective July 11, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book tells many stories centered on the theme of climate change as seen in Northern Alaska. The Inupiat people have lived around what is today Barrow, Alaska for over a thousand years. As with many indigenous peoples, they have a keen awareness of their natural surroundings. For the Inupiat, knowledge of weather, ice and whale behavior is a matter of life and death, both moment to moment in a climate so harsh the cold can kill quickly and in the larger life of their villages, where successful whale hunts are needed to feed the people.
Barrow has also been the site of scientific Arctic climate studies since the 1800s. A parallel culture of scientists has developed in the several research stations in the area. For many years, the Inupiat and scientific communities have coexisted in varying states of tension. Both recognize strengths in the other but their ways of approaching life and understanding the world are very different and often not possible to reconcile. While the scientists have frequently consulted with and tried to learn from the Inupiat, the scientists have typically found this a frustrating exercise and the Inupiat have had enough bad experiences with researchers on short projects not really understanding the people or the place that they do not easily trust outsiders.
Charles Wohlforth has lived in Alaska and did a remarkable job of coaxing stories out of the Inupiat. They are storytellers - telling stories has long been deeply ingrained in their culture and way of life. We hear some of their stories as well as those of the scientists. Perhaps most remarkably, we meet a scientist who returned to Alaska to adopt the Inupiat way of life as a whaling captain instead of pursuing his scientific career and Inupiat who have made their way as scientists even as they live next to the people they grew up with.
But most important, while we see the effects of global warming and climate change as seen by the scientists doing research and the Inupiat whalers trying to cope with the impact of bad ice and warmer weather on all aspects of whaling, the author reminds us that these local effects are just a snapshot in one place of changes that will affect us all. Reading this book compels an appreciation for the depth and breadth of knowledge of an indigenous people surviving the changes in the modern world while preserving their native ways and traditions.
What do you know? May 6, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
We know why this book was honored with the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Award for science/technical writing. Wohlforth cheerfully tackles the deep fog of climate science (even some of the career scientists he interviews seem hopelessly befuddled by the complexity of it). But he approaches it both as a journalist who makes his living by storytelling, and as a father used to gently encouraging his four bright, curious children to understand their world. He can distill a century of mind-numbing bench science into a metaphor that his 10-year old can understand and that readers of all ages will appreciate.
To get the story he drops into whaling expeditions and arctic research explorations with equal aplomb by chipping in and becoming one of the team. (The comparison is not unlike the cinematographers who capture on film the drama of a Mt. Everest ascent: the only way to get the picture is to strap on the gear and make the climb themselves, right alongside the adventurers they're filming.)
Getting and telling the story is what Wohlforth knows how to do. In his book, he captivates us by telling us what his "characters" know how to do. From the fox who knows how to skitter across a thin sheet of newly-forming ice without falling through, to the native who knows how to take compass readings by studying the shadows on snow drifts, to our generation's academic elites who know how to wrap their minds around the infinitely complex equations that underlie the mysteries of climate change. In the end, it's really not so mysterious: the signs of climate change are obvious and all around us.
Read this book and prepare to be moved and enlightened, just as you will be charmed by the people whose lives, livelihoods, and ways of knowing are as diverse as the environment itself.
Global Warming from Two Cultures. June 30, 2004
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
To most of us Global Warming is a distant and sketchy thing. We don't really know what to believe (although in recent years we haven't had nearly as much snow as before). In Alaska steady warming 'everybody knows is a fact.'The title comes from the interplay between the whale hunting Inupiaq Eskimos and the visiting scientists trying to get a better understanding of what's happening to the climate of the world. Indeed the strength of the book is in Mr. Wohlforth's understanding of both cultures and with his gift in writing so that he is able to explain the world view of both cultures.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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