Quarmby, Lynne (Author)
McGill-Queen's University Press
Physical Details: 184
Language: English
Concern about the climate crisis is widespread as humans struggle to navigate life in uncertain times. From the vantage of a schooner full of artists on an adventure in the high Arctic, biologist Lynne Quarmby explains the science that convinced her of an urgent need to act on climate change and recounts how this knowledge - and the fear and panic it elicited - plunged her into unsustainable action, ending in arrests, lawsuits, and a failed electoral campaign on behalf of the Green Party of Canada. Watermelon Snow weaves memoir, microbiology, and artistic antics together with descriptions of a sublime Arctic landscape. At the top of the warming world, Quarmby struggles with burnout and grief while an aerial artist twirls high in the ship's rigging, bearded seals sing mournfully, polar bears prowl, and glaciers crumble into the sea. In a compelling narrative, sorrow and fear are balanced by beauty and wonder. The author's journey back from a life out of balance includes excursions into evolutionary history where her discoveries reveal the heart of human existence. The climate realities are as dark as the Arctic winter, yet this is a book of lightness and generosity. Quarmby's voice, intimate and original, illuminates the science while offering a reminder that much about the human experience is beyond reason. Inspiring and deeply personal, Watermelon Snow is the story of one scientist's rediscovery of what it means to live a good life at a time of increasing desperation about the future.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
David Fopp;
Isabelle Axelsson;
Loukina Tille;
(2024)
The Youth Climate Uprising: From the School Strike Movement to an Ecophilosophy of Democracy
Book
Stephen Ross;
Lydia Hopper;
(2022)
Chimpanzee Memoirs: Stories of Studying and Saving Our Closest Living Relatives
Book
Paul R. Ehrlich;
(2023)
Life: A Journey through Science and Politics
Book
Thomas W. Pearson;
(2023)
Ordinary Future: Margaret Mead, the Problem of Disability, and a Child Born Different
Book
Samir Shaheen-Hussain;
Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel;
Cindy Blackstock;
(2020)
Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism against Indigenous Children in Canada
Book
Finis Dunaway;
(2021)
Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice
Book
Shelley Wright;
(2014)
Our Ice Is Vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change
Book
Rafico Ruiz;
Paula Schönach;
Rob Shields;
Emma Kowal;
Joanna Radin;
(2025)
After Ice: Cold Humanities for a Warming Planet
Book
Vivien Gornitz;
(2019)
Vanishing Ice: Glaciers, Ice Sheets, and Rising Seas
Book
Sverker Sörlin;
(2023)
Resource Extraction and Arctic Communities: The New Extractivist Paradigm
Article
Mi Rosie Jahng;
Namyeon Lee;
(February 2018)
When Scientists Tweet for Social Changes: Dialogic Communication and Collective Mobilization Strategies by Flint Water Study Scientists on Twitter
Article
Shana Lee Hirsch;
Jerrold Long;
(March 2021)
Adaptive Epistemologies: Conceptualizing Adaptation to Climate Change in Environmental Science
Article
Susan Carol Losh;
(2015)
Agreement Among Environmental Scientists: Higher Than Previously Thought
Article
James Powell;
(2017)
Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming
Article
Robert M. Wilson;
(January 2017)
Faces of the Climate Movement
Article
Kimberly J. Wooten;
(2023)
The Shape of Things: Archaeology, Environmentalism, and Plastic
Book
Alice Mah;
(2023)
Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation
Article
Lauren Feldman;
P. Sol Hart;
(February 2016)
Using Political Efficacy Messages to Increase Climate Activism: The Mediating Role of Emotions
Article
Mark Groulx;
Marie Claire Brisbois;
Christopher J. Lemieux;
Amanda Winegardner;
LeeAnn Fishback;
(February 2017)
A Role for Nature-Based Citizen Science in Promoting Individual and Collective Climate Change Action? A Systematic Review of Learning Outcomes
Book
Adrienne Russell;
(2023)
The Mediated Climate: How Journalists, Big Tech, and Activists Are Vying for Our Future
Be the first to comment!