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BOOK REVIEW By CURT STAGER The main premise of this 106-page book is that many scientists do not believe that human-driven global warming is real because the evidence for it is deeply flawed. In reality, it is this book that is deeply flawed. The primary audience is not scientists but policy-makers, and its release last November was timed to coincide with…
The flow of history Book review by Michael Virtanen Jeff Dickinson’s history of running the whitewater of the Hudson River is weighty with research: it has 111 pages of footnotes and bibliography. Those follow his 237-page narrative that launches with descriptions of the landscape and Colonial explorers, flows on through decades of log drivers and…
Saving God’s creation Book Review by Philip Terrie In 1967, Science published an article destined to be one of the most controversial and most frequently cited ever to appear in that distinguished journal: “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” The author, Lynn White Jr., was a medieval historian, a professor at UCLA. He argued…
The pope’s green message The old conceit that the president has a “bully pulpit” needs updating; it’s clear that the pulpit at St. Peter’s Basilica is now the bulliest of all. Pope Francis may lack legions, but he has 6.3 million followers on Twitter, and for days before its official release, the world followed…
On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation creating Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first effort to set aside a large undeveloped tract, protect it solely for its scenic and natural appeal, and make it available to the public. Exactly what Grant and the Congress had in mind for Yellowstone was unclear, as…
Few incidents in nineteenth-century Adirondack history have been more often recounted than the famous Philosophers’ Camp at Follensby Pond. The story of how Ralph Waldo Emerson and an assortment of VIPs from the Concord-Cambridge axis camped for several weeks in 1858 on the shores of a virtually untouched lake deep in the wilderness has become…
Did you know that wood frogs have natural antifreeze in their cells? Pigeons are descendants of escapee rock doves. You can estimate the temperature outside by counting cricket chirps. Ants will actually farm aphids so they can steal the sweet syrup that they produce. Nature is full of fascinating tales. As a science teacher, I’m constantly looking for new, engaging resources to share…
Lives of crime Backcountry fastnesses—mountains, forests, canyons—have always been havens for those who take proper behavior with a (sometimes very large) grain of salt. Think the Wild Bunch (also known to moviegoers as the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang) or the Hatfields and McCoys. Closer to home, we have the likes of French Louie and Noah Rondeau, individualists who operated on the fringes of society and…
Pages of skiing’s past When we think of Adirondack ski areas, it’s usually the charismatic ones that come to mind: Whiteface, Gore Mountain, and McCauley Mountain for downhillers, Lapland Lake and Mount Van Hoevenberg if your tastes run to Nordic. These and a handful of others can be counted on from year to year, either…
Bird book gets better On one of our semi-annual trips to Cape May, New Jersey, in May of 1998, we saw a report on the Internet of a red phalarope at the municipal gravel dump, which featured a two-acre puddle after three days of hard rain. So on the way to the storied Cape May…