I have been impressed with Fred Pearce’s new book, With Speed and Violence: Why scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change,[1] from the first few pages I read when it arrived by mail on December 19, 2007. Although I could hardly drop it for a few days, all kinds of things intervened, including the lingering holidays, and so I finished it only today. As witnessed by the last line of my praise scribbled on the last page, I have remained enthusiastic throughout: “Long live journalists like Pearce!” He has been most careful to “translate” what the scientists have been saying about climate change for some twenty years, but he has stuck to translating all the way through. This is what the best among journalists are actually for. To put everything they can gather on a particular theme into plain English. No more. And no less. Scientists themselves very much appreciate good translators, it goes without saying. Chemists, physicists, and biologists, among others, all speak slightly different languages. In this case, the jargon of so many disciplines involved in the study of climate change cannot but get in the way of the whole endeavor. Indeed, long live journalists like Fred Pearce.

Footnote

1. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.