Book of the week
Life: Selected Writings by Tim Flannery (Text, $48)
Tim Flannery tells stories. Whether it is examining the failure of the Romans to add any new domesticated animal to the repertoire, the human contribution to the extermination of the Neanderthals, or the possibility of deep-sea kelp-farming to sequester carbon, feed fish, and contribute to ocean health, Flannery provides information in engaging ways.
Flannery is an Australian science writer and environmental thinker. He is a much-awarded ‘‘public scientist’’ who writes accessibly, but he isn’t just a go-to for feature stories and media comments. Flannery also has discovered more than 30 new species of mammals, and his research and insistent warnings about climate change have been issued years in advance of the crisis.
Life: Selected Writings is an assembly of essays written over three decades. It includes long-form magazine articles, introductions to books, and other short pieces. It covers many subjects.
Ground Zero, for example, deals with the asteroid somewhere between 11 and 81km long which struck the earth 70 million years ago. It left the huge undersea Chicxulub crater near Mexico and devastated life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. Interestingly, the kauri and the Tasmanian Huon pine were survivors of the impact and the following dark, dust-filled decades.
Flannery studies the effect of the gun on the ecology of North America, sending the passengerpigeon to extinction and almost taking the American buffalo to the same fate. He suggests these mass deaths were due to particular flocking and herding behaviours. In Sandstone City Flannery examines the history of Sydney in terms of its settlement, fire, Aboriginal inhabitants, and the stone materials that created many of its oldest iconic buildings.
It is a book which carries its learning lightly. Flannery is never ponderous. Many essays have asides which intrigue.
The Tree Whisperers begins by telling of the revival of the extinct Judean date palms from 2000-yearold seeds in a pottery jar, before focusing on contemporary issues of biodiversity. In They’re Taking Over, Flannery assembles scores of little-known facts about jellyfish, some species of which are practically immortal. Floating plastic bags, he suggests, are destroying their predators, permitting jellyfish populations to flourish.
In A Fresh Look at Earth he examines the theory that life itself was responsible for the location of many desirable resources, including deposits of iron, mercury, lead and zinc by plankton. Carbons are withdrawn from the atmosphere and sequestered in trees and plants. What will be the consequences of human disruption?
Life: Selected Writings isa fascinating book written from a contemporary perspective. It is approachable and useful while offering crucial insights into the times. – David Herkt
Flannery’s research and insistent warnings about climate change have been issued years in advance of the crisis.