Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews
edited by
Jeffrey Kovac University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
Stratospheric Ozone Depletion by Ann M. Middlebrook and Margaret A. Tolbert University Science Books: Sausalito, CA, 2000. 48 pp. ISBN 1-891389-10-6. $22.00. and
Effects of Changing Climate on Weather and Human Activities by Kevin E. Trenberth, Kathleen Miller, Linda Mearns, and Steven Rhodes University Science Books: Sausalito, CA, 2000. 42 pp. ISBN 1-891389-14-9. $22.00. reviewed by Evan T. Williams
How do we educate our students and ourselves on the challenging, intellectually interesting, vastly significant, and rapidly changing area of climate change? Many books are available but may not be suitable for course supplements. The idea of short supplements on focused environmental science topics is appealing. The two under review here cover important environmental subjects that are dealt with in many college and, increasingly, high school science courses and will be of interest to most college science teachers and science teachers in high schools as well. These two are part of a series of booklets in the Global Change Instruction Program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, with support from the National Science Foundation. Finding these slim volumes useful, I have bought several of the earlier books in this series and so was interested to review these two new modules. What these two books have in common is that the phenomena they cover are global in scope and revolve about the environmental effects of substances emitted into the atmosphere thanks to human activity. Where they differ is in the fact that the story of stratospheric ozone depletion is more or less complete at this point. Cause and effect have been clearly demonstrated and understood and a remedy is at hand with results already observed. It should be mentioned that despite the spectacular success in understanding the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole, the finer details of the situation over the Arctic and especially at midlatitudes, as noted by the authors (Middlebrook is with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Tolbert is a chemist at the University of Colorado; both are in Boulder, CO), are incompletely understood. The science of ozone chemistry, formation, and depletion in the stratosphere and a chapter on remediation policy are clearly presented and concisely written. In contrast, the impact of climate change on weather is anything but understood and nowhere near being demonstrable, and we are far from agreement on a remedy— scientifically, technologically and above all, politically. All this
is properly noted by the authors, all scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. This volume has seven short chapters: Climate, Weather, Climate Change, Observed Weather and Climate Change, Prediction and Modeling of Climate Change, Impacts on Human Activities, and, appropriately, the Need for More Research. Again, the writing is clear and concise. Consequently, the module on stratospheric ozone is likely to be up to date for a number of years, whereas new research results on climate change pour in daily and the useful half-life of that module will likely be shorter. Nevertheless, Effects of Changing Climate on Weather and Human Activities is a useful book and worth reading. It draws a careful distinction between the general—climate change— and the locally specific and much more difficult to predict— weather. Both booklets will serve as useful references and the numerous clear figures will be appreciated by teachers. Both furnish suggestions for further reading and some questions for discussion. I think that the inclusion of some Web sources might have been helpful in the climate change book; only two were provided in the other. The intended audience indicated in an introductory note common to the series is undergraduate college students not majoring in science. Readers of this Journal may be familiar with the well-known chemistry text, Chemistry in Context; the level of sophistication of the volumes under review here is similar, and thus the authors in both volumes have hit the intended level. Nevertheless, I think that this material could also be of interest to students of general chemistry looking to expand their horizons and could also be readily understood by high school science students. Thus, the potential audience is a wide one and I would encourage faculty to consider using these books. The only drawback I can see is that students already burdened by the high costs of textbooks would likely balk at spending more money on supplements, worthy as they are. One solution might be to order one or more copies for the library and place them on reserve. I have found that general chemistry students are amenable to writing a short paper for extra credit (I have used, successfully, an idea of my own involving C&EN in this way [Williams, E. T. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 389]) and one of these booklets could appropriately provide subject material that would be interesting for students looking for a current topic. I should think that many teachers would want copies for their own use and also suggest that faculty recommend purchase of the entire series to their campus librarians. In any case, the series is a useful one and I look forward to the issuance of additional volumes in the future. Evan T. Williams is in the Chemistry Department and is chair of the Environmental Studies major at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219;
[email protected].
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 4 April 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education
433
