Why Are the Ice Caps Melting?: The Dangers of Global Warming (review)

If it's difficult to make the perils of a few degree rise in overall climatic temperature an immediate issue for adults, consider how less concerned primary-schoolers faced with tee-ball practice and forgotten lunchboxes are likely to be. Rockwell does an acceptable job, however, of describing the way everyday activities such as car driving, aerosol spraying, and long stretches of TV and computer use are linked to such global threats as regional flooding, desert expansion, and animal endangerment. After a lucid explanation of "greenhouse effect" and factors that exacerbate it, she explains how even a slight ensuing rise in temperature can lead to profound results. Finally, discussion centers on what we collectively do wrong, and how we can individually do much better. There's a brief acknowledgement that not all scientists believe human environmental abuse is the main cause of the problem (there have, after all, been naturally occurring climate fluctuations), but there's a definite call here to take this matter seriously. Not all terms are adequately defined—"radiated heat," "ice shelf," and "industrialized nations," to cite a few—and the term "ice caps" never arises after its title introduction. Likewise, Meisel's perky line-and-watercolor pictures occasionally confound more than they clarify: a pair of children playing around a pier note the rise in water level, with no indication that myriad factors could be responsible for such a localized phenomenon, and a trio of scientists at work look more like a farmer checking his crop, a mom checking her email, and an Inuit raiding an outdoor refrigerator. It's probable that this title will see heavy use in a classroom setting, though, and with some knowledgeable adult intervention it could be a successful introduction or reinforcement of a complex topic.