In Search of the Canary Tree: The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World

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Lauren E. Oakes

In Search of the Canary Tree

The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World

Lauren E. Oakes

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Hardback

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English

Basic Books
29 January 2019

Forests, rainforests; Conservation of the environment; Global warming; Trees, wildflowers & plants

Where mountains meet ocean in Alaska's Alexander Archipelago, white skeletons of dead yellow cedar trees stand prominently amidst a verdant landscape of old-growth forests. Researchers spent nearly three decades deciphering the cause of the majestic species' death and uncovering climate change as the culprit. Lauren E. Oakes, a young scientist at Stanford University, was one of them. But even as she set to record the demise of a species, she soon found herself immersed in an even bigger, and totally unexpected, story: how the people of Alaska were adapting to the tree's disappearance, and how the tree itself, seemingly doomed, was adapting to a changing world.

In Search of the Canary Tree is the story of six years that Oakes and her team spent in the Alaskan wilds, studying thousands of trees and saplings along the archipelago of southeast Alaska. Far from losing faith in the survival of our woodlands, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again after years of destruction and decomposition. And, through deep encounters with loggers, naturalists, Native weavers, and enthusiasts of the yellow cedar, Oakes discovered how the people of Alaska were determined to develop new relationships with the emerging environment. Where many scientists and commentators have found in climate change an unmitigated disaster, Oakes found beacons of hope even in the disorienting death of a species.

Above all else, Oakes shows us that, although we can respond to climate change with either fear or denial, we can also find in it a new world, and one that doesn't necessarily have to be for the worst. Eloquent, insightful, and deeply heartening, In Search of the Canary Tree shows how human and natural resilience can help preserve ourselves, even in our rapidly changing world.

By: Lauren E. Oakes
Imprint: Basic Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 34mm
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781541697126
ISBN 10: 154169712X
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 29 January 2019
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lauren E. Oakes is a conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and an adjunct professor in Earth System Science at Stanford University. She lives in Portola Valley, California and Bozeman, Montana.

Reviews for In Search of the Canary Tree: The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World

Through the lens of a majestic tree, Oakes tells a powerful, nuanced story of climate change and our response to it. Deftly crossing boundaries from the scientific to the personal and from the measurable to the immeasurable, she takes the reader on an extraordinary adventure from despair to faith. This book is a must-read for anyone looking for optimism about the future of our changing planet. --Juli Berwald, author of Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone We live in a moment of loss, and we are obligated not only to try and stop it, but to find the instances of resilience that can help us cope with that great tragedy. This book rises to the occasion! --Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature In a warming world, we need wisdom as well as knowledge; In Search of the Canary Tree is a rich source of both. Join Lauren Oakes in the fragile yellow-cedar forests of Alaska and discover not only how field ecologists do their work, but why. --Dan Fagin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Toms River