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The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Travel & Outdoors (2011)An exhilarating journey of natural renewal through a year with MacArthur fellow Carl Safina Beginning in his kayak in his home waters of eastern Long Island, Carl Safina's The View from Lazy Point takes us through the four seasons to the four points of the compass, from the high Arctic south to Antarctica, across the warm belly of the tropics from the Caribbean to the west Pacific, then home again. We meet Eskimos whose way of life is melting away, explore a secret global seed vault hidden above the Arctic Circle, investigate dilemmas facing foraging bears and breeding penguins, and sail to formerly devastated reefs that are resurrecting as fish graze the corals algae-free. "Each time science tightens a coil in the slack of our understanding," Safina writes, "it elaborates its fundamental connection." He shows how problems of the environment drive very real matters of human justice, well-being, and our prospects for peace. In Safina's hands, nature's continuous renewal points toward our future. His lively stories grant new insights into how our world is changing, and what our response ought to be.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 4, 2011
61 people are currently reading
1288 people want to read
About the author
Carl Safina
45 books579 followersCarl Safina’s work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit organization, The Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, Audubon, Orion, and other periodicals and on the Web at National Geographic News and Views, Huffington Post, and CNN.com.
He lives on Long Island, New York with his wife Patricia, the two best beach-running dogs in the world, some chickens, a couple of parrots, and Frankie the kingsnake.
He lives on Long Island, New York with his wife Patricia, the two best beach-running dogs in the world, some chickens, a couple of parrots, and Frankie the kingsnake.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
April 16, 2013
This two-star rant has been revised and can now be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
Really. Someone this August A Personage can afford a ghostwriter.
Really. Someone this August A Personage can afford a ghostwriter.
February 10, 2015
An outstanding read with a good balance of the author's own lyrical, personal experience with the interconnectedness and beauty of nature and of thoughtful arguments of how humankind must act soon to change the course of its poor stewardship of planet Earth. The book covers one year in which he alternates between sojourns in the environs of his residence near the tip of Long Island and trips to distant sites where human-caused ecological changes are most profound. The latter include coral reefs in the Pacific and Caribbean, remote sites in the Arctic and Antactica, the rain forests of southwestern Alaska. We are in good hands for these tours because this poetic soul is a conservation biologist and winner of the MacArthur Prize.
December 7, 2018
Heart-wrenching, eye-opening and exquisitely written. Safina has been compared to many of the giants in the natural history world, but he's a better writer than the lot of 'em. In this latest book, he waxes a bit more philosophical than he's done before. His philosophy fits my belief system like a glove, and his conclusions are breathtaking. One trembles to think that we are on the razor's edge, that our window to ameliorate our planet's distress is closing rapidly- and that if we don't do it, it will be done for us with a heartless finality that will brook no arguments. As we say where I live, "The mountain don't care if you live or die."
I love this passage:
"So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, though I'm a secular person and a scientist, I believe that our relationship with the living world must be mainly religious. But I don't mean theological. I mean religious in the sense of reverent, revolutionary, spiritual, and inspired. Reverent because the world is unique, thus holy. Revolutionary in making a break with the drift and downdraft of outdated, maladaptive modes of thought. Spiritual in seeking attainment of a higher realm of human being. Inspired in the aspiration to connect crucial truths with wider communities. Religious in precisely this way: connection: with a sense of purpose."
And this, which is purely brilliant:
"If there is a God, then all things natural are miraculous. If there's no God, then all things natural are miraculous. That's quite a coincidence, and ought to give people holding different beliefs a lot to talk about. People who see the world as God's and people who sense an accident of cosmic chemistry can both perceive the sacred. Let's not be afraid to say, to explain- and, if necessary, to rage- that we hold the uniqueness of this Earth sacred, that the whole living enterprise is sacred. And that what depletes the living enterprise always proves to be, even in purely practical terms, a mistake."
I'm still reeling from Safina's descriptions of hunters who still (still!) kill ducks and toss them into the bushes because they are there for the sport (sport!) of duck hunting and have no interest in duck eating. I'm still encouraged by his reports of some of the species that have come back, once we humans gave them a little space and time. And I'm very, very frightened about what my grandchildren will have and hold.
I can't buy everyone a copy of this book, as much as I want to. But I can encourage you, in the strongest possible terms, to read it. And soon. As Safina says in his closing passage, "Time runs short at an accelerating pace."
I love this passage:
"So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, though I'm a secular person and a scientist, I believe that our relationship with the living world must be mainly religious. But I don't mean theological. I mean religious in the sense of reverent, revolutionary, spiritual, and inspired. Reverent because the world is unique, thus holy. Revolutionary in making a break with the drift and downdraft of outdated, maladaptive modes of thought. Spiritual in seeking attainment of a higher realm of human being. Inspired in the aspiration to connect crucial truths with wider communities. Religious in precisely this way: connection: with a sense of purpose."
And this, which is purely brilliant:
"If there is a God, then all things natural are miraculous. If there's no God, then all things natural are miraculous. That's quite a coincidence, and ought to give people holding different beliefs a lot to talk about. People who see the world as God's and people who sense an accident of cosmic chemistry can both perceive the sacred. Let's not be afraid to say, to explain- and, if necessary, to rage- that we hold the uniqueness of this Earth sacred, that the whole living enterprise is sacred. And that what depletes the living enterprise always proves to be, even in purely practical terms, a mistake."
I'm still reeling from Safina's descriptions of hunters who still (still!) kill ducks and toss them into the bushes because they are there for the sport (sport!) of duck hunting and have no interest in duck eating. I'm still encouraged by his reports of some of the species that have come back, once we humans gave them a little space and time. And I'm very, very frightened about what my grandchildren will have and hold.
I can't buy everyone a copy of this book, as much as I want to. But I can encourage you, in the strongest possible terms, to read it. And soon. As Safina says in his closing passage, "Time runs short at an accelerating pace."
September 21, 2012
I loved, loved, loved this book so much. I can't remember the last time something shook me so deeply and left me thinking about how I live and what I consume- all the choices I make, and their costs.
Can't underline a library book so keeping a running tab of quotes here:
"The compass of compassion asks not "What is good for me?" but "What is good?" Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not "How much can we take?" but "How much ought we leave?" and "How much might we give?" Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral. With each action we decide whether to sow the grapes of wrath or the seeds of peace.
The compass of compassion suggests that very few things, each simple, are needed. We shouldn't hate people for the group they were born into, or because we hold conflicting beliefs about things that cannot be proven, seen or measured. We can't infinitely take more from- or infinitely add more people to- a finite planet. While living in a world endowed with self-renewing energy, we can't run civilization on energy that diminishes the world. If we can get these simple things under control, I think we could be okay. Simple does not mean easy. Yet more than ever before in history, we can now understand what's needed. But nations need to act boldly and soon. Time runs short at an accelerating pace."
___
"The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, whether big or small, to heal the world. That, to me, is spirituality and one's 'soul.' Not some disembodied wishfulness but a way of being that, most days, I can work on. Life is like walking with a flashlight on a dark night. You can't see your destination, but each step illuminates the next few steps, and, taking one after another, you can get where you need to go. Only now, we'll need to quicken our pace if we are to avoid major upheaval in this century. It's up to us not just as individuals but as citizens of nations and of the world."
__
"America is a world power of expanding wealth and shrinking spirit, enlarged houses and broken homes, engorged executive pay and low worker morale, increased individualism and diminished civility, obesity and what Robert Lane calls "a kind of famine of warm interpersonal relations." We slave for prosperity but shirk purpose, cherish individual freedom but long for inclusion and meaning.
Simply put, more is better up to a point; after that, more is worse. When you're hungry, eating is good for you; when you're overweight, it isn't- but you want to eat more. The continuing appetite for more stuff, after emotional well-being stops increasing, is a psychic disease of the developed world. You can be right on track until you pass your destination; then- without changing course- you're headed in exactly the wrong direction What makes people happy: working on relationships. So maybe one stepping stone on the path to happiness has the word "Enough" engraved into it."
__
"A morning like this makes me feel happy. And I don't mind knowing that the feeling will be temporary. Happiness, like everything else in this rhythmic realm, comes and goes in waves, and it's good to savor it when the wave rises and, when the wave recedes, understand that another wave will come. Sometimes you ride the wave; sometimes you ride out the trough. A wave's height is measured by its depth, anyway.
My father, a schoolteacher who suffered from real depression, used to say, 'Those who know they have enough are rich.' I'm not sure he believed it. But I did. When I was young my friends and I would sit around with a fish on the grill and a beer in hand-very low-budget- and joke, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing.' A dry roof, a cold fridge, a hot shower, wheels, and climbing into any boat- even when the roof wasn't mine, nor the fridge, nor the shower, nor the boat- that's always felt like incredible riches. I'm not knocking money, but it's got its limitations. It can make many things easier, but it doesn't guarantee that you'll choose the right things and ask the right questions, and a lot of people with money remain (or become) unhappy. Anyway, I've seen what real poverty looks like. So my middle-class life and my connection with the sea have always seemed amazing luck. I've never thought that having more stuff would solve all my problems or make me happier- and that's proven true."
__
"Relationships are the music life makes. Context creates meaning. Asking, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question; it makes you look in the wrong places. The question is, "Where is the meaning in life?" The place to look is: between. Neither the Red-wings nor Kenzie need to be taught that what's crucial is that we be mindful of the relationships."
__
"Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion."
"Anyone looking for a country with low taxes; no funds wasted on social programs; no government regulation of business, health worker safety, or the environment; and no gun control might consider moving to Somalia."
"Rather than focusing on growth and the (increasingly unlikely) possibility of further development, we could focus on development with the (increasingly implausible) possibility of growth."
"I wasn't the problem, but we're always only part of the problem. At some point one confronts the question of right and wrong in private, with the door closed. We can do the right thing. Right things maintain a community.... We each make our solo voyages to deep, expansive waters. Alone in our contest with the wider world, we test our mettle and seek our trophies, promotions, compliments, and accolades. We strive to be needed and thereby to know that there is a reason for us. We seek to be told we are good because we're too unsure of ourselves to know. Yet often we remain so focused on our neediness that we forget the creatures- human and otherwise- we're drawing into the vortex of our own passion play. All of us have compulsive loves we must forbear. We forget to see that we can engage the world without harming it. And although we fish for approval, the challenge is: to capture our prizes while bringing more to the world than we take."
"Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish, and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake... Children yet to come will be the cleanup crew to our festivities. Because we know they won't be coming to the ballroom until we've all waddled off, we've granted ourselves permission to party like there's no tomorrow."
Can't underline a library book so keeping a running tab of quotes here:
"The compass of compassion asks not "What is good for me?" but "What is good?" Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not "How much can we take?" but "How much ought we leave?" and "How much might we give?" Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral. With each action we decide whether to sow the grapes of wrath or the seeds of peace.
The compass of compassion suggests that very few things, each simple, are needed. We shouldn't hate people for the group they were born into, or because we hold conflicting beliefs about things that cannot be proven, seen or measured. We can't infinitely take more from- or infinitely add more people to- a finite planet. While living in a world endowed with self-renewing energy, we can't run civilization on energy that diminishes the world. If we can get these simple things under control, I think we could be okay. Simple does not mean easy. Yet more than ever before in history, we can now understand what's needed. But nations need to act boldly and soon. Time runs short at an accelerating pace."
___
"The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, whether big or small, to heal the world. That, to me, is spirituality and one's 'soul.' Not some disembodied wishfulness but a way of being that, most days, I can work on. Life is like walking with a flashlight on a dark night. You can't see your destination, but each step illuminates the next few steps, and, taking one after another, you can get where you need to go. Only now, we'll need to quicken our pace if we are to avoid major upheaval in this century. It's up to us not just as individuals but as citizens of nations and of the world."
__
"America is a world power of expanding wealth and shrinking spirit, enlarged houses and broken homes, engorged executive pay and low worker morale, increased individualism and diminished civility, obesity and what Robert Lane calls "a kind of famine of warm interpersonal relations." We slave for prosperity but shirk purpose, cherish individual freedom but long for inclusion and meaning.
Simply put, more is better up to a point; after that, more is worse. When you're hungry, eating is good for you; when you're overweight, it isn't- but you want to eat more. The continuing appetite for more stuff, after emotional well-being stops increasing, is a psychic disease of the developed world. You can be right on track until you pass your destination; then- without changing course- you're headed in exactly the wrong direction What makes people happy: working on relationships. So maybe one stepping stone on the path to happiness has the word "Enough" engraved into it."
__
"A morning like this makes me feel happy. And I don't mind knowing that the feeling will be temporary. Happiness, like everything else in this rhythmic realm, comes and goes in waves, and it's good to savor it when the wave rises and, when the wave recedes, understand that another wave will come. Sometimes you ride the wave; sometimes you ride out the trough. A wave's height is measured by its depth, anyway.
My father, a schoolteacher who suffered from real depression, used to say, 'Those who know they have enough are rich.' I'm not sure he believed it. But I did. When I was young my friends and I would sit around with a fish on the grill and a beer in hand-very low-budget- and joke, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing.' A dry roof, a cold fridge, a hot shower, wheels, and climbing into any boat- even when the roof wasn't mine, nor the fridge, nor the shower, nor the boat- that's always felt like incredible riches. I'm not knocking money, but it's got its limitations. It can make many things easier, but it doesn't guarantee that you'll choose the right things and ask the right questions, and a lot of people with money remain (or become) unhappy. Anyway, I've seen what real poverty looks like. So my middle-class life and my connection with the sea have always seemed amazing luck. I've never thought that having more stuff would solve all my problems or make me happier- and that's proven true."
__
"Relationships are the music life makes. Context creates meaning. Asking, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question; it makes you look in the wrong places. The question is, "Where is the meaning in life?" The place to look is: between. Neither the Red-wings nor Kenzie need to be taught that what's crucial is that we be mindful of the relationships."
__
"Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion."
"Anyone looking for a country with low taxes; no funds wasted on social programs; no government regulation of business, health worker safety, or the environment; and no gun control might consider moving to Somalia."
"Rather than focusing on growth and the (increasingly unlikely) possibility of further development, we could focus on development with the (increasingly implausible) possibility of growth."
"I wasn't the problem, but we're always only part of the problem. At some point one confronts the question of right and wrong in private, with the door closed. We can do the right thing. Right things maintain a community.... We each make our solo voyages to deep, expansive waters. Alone in our contest with the wider world, we test our mettle and seek our trophies, promotions, compliments, and accolades. We strive to be needed and thereby to know that there is a reason for us. We seek to be told we are good because we're too unsure of ourselves to know. Yet often we remain so focused on our neediness that we forget the creatures- human and otherwise- we're drawing into the vortex of our own passion play. All of us have compulsive loves we must forbear. We forget to see that we can engage the world without harming it. And although we fish for approval, the challenge is: to capture our prizes while bringing more to the world than we take."
"Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish, and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake... Children yet to come will be the cleanup crew to our festivities. Because we know they won't be coming to the ballroom until we've all waddled off, we've granted ourselves permission to party like there's no tomorrow."
October 17, 2011
A wonderful book, beautifully written. Usually I read books of this nature and end up with a sense of dread and guilt - not so here. While Safina lays bare the problems that are facing us now and also those that are coming up quickly he also is diligent in noticing what is going right, and how well things respond when just a little care and restraint are given and practiced. Probably the greatest thing I took from this book was something that shocks me - public interest groups are forbidden by law from either making campaign contributions or spending much time lobbying. How can that be in a democracy, in a country where we are supposed to care about our fellow citizens? Definite food for thought (and hopefully action).
If you care about where we are headed, as a country and also as citizen of the world, read this one. Very highly recommended.
*The forested slopes tune my mind to a more peaceful frequency. I am "rejoicing in the possession of so blessed a day," as Muir was moved to put it.*
*People came into a world like this, rich, natural, but not without danger. The prospects for real trouble here are low, but the prospects for feeling alive are guaranteed. Many people are shadowed most dangerously by beasts of their own imaginations. Being here is real. That's why this silence, coiled and charged, speaks volumes. Too often, we let fake things stalk us. Accept no substitutes for real experience, real friends, true love, and real bears. Either you set the bar high and keep striving or you create a danger greater than any Griz sneaking up on you: letting real life sneak away.*
*...Fasting living thing. It is not that death comes so fast. It is that between the bookends of nothingness, we have this magnificent glowing life upon whose pages we can write book after book, or which we can leave blank. How many ways shall we make it count? How full or meager?*
*Meanwhile, public-interest groups are forbidden by law from either making campaign contributions or spending significant time lobbying. if you don't represent a special interest trying to make money, you can't participate in democracy.* (WTF????)
*The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, big or small, to heal the world.*
If you care about where we are headed, as a country and also as citizen of the world, read this one. Very highly recommended.
*The forested slopes tune my mind to a more peaceful frequency. I am "rejoicing in the possession of so blessed a day," as Muir was moved to put it.*
*People came into a world like this, rich, natural, but not without danger. The prospects for real trouble here are low, but the prospects for feeling alive are guaranteed. Many people are shadowed most dangerously by beasts of their own imaginations. Being here is real. That's why this silence, coiled and charged, speaks volumes. Too often, we let fake things stalk us. Accept no substitutes for real experience, real friends, true love, and real bears. Either you set the bar high and keep striving or you create a danger greater than any Griz sneaking up on you: letting real life sneak away.*
*...Fasting living thing. It is not that death comes so fast. It is that between the bookends of nothingness, we have this magnificent glowing life upon whose pages we can write book after book, or which we can leave blank. How many ways shall we make it count? How full or meager?*
*Meanwhile, public-interest groups are forbidden by law from either making campaign contributions or spending significant time lobbying. if you don't represent a special interest trying to make money, you can't participate in democracy.* (WTF????)
*The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, big or small, to heal the world.*
June 10, 2011
hohkay, some will read this and give it the one star/this-is-tripe rating, and some will give it the 5 star/this-is-groundbreakingly-wonderful rating. I gave her a 4 because i learned a few things: 1. in the summer, little eddies and whirlpools break off of the gulf stream and drift into long island sound and carry with them LOTS of teeny tiny tropical fish babies, and aquariums from all over go net them for their uses in aquarium worlds 2. there were over 100 different species of penguins (one over 6 feet tall) but now just 18 or so. 2a. humans didn't extinct any of the 100 or so extinct penguin species (as far as we know) 2b. it's estimated that all penguin species will be extinct by 2050 or so :( 3. there is actually a fairly viable AND growing new-economy movement, that rejects the "growth" model and is shooting for local, sustainable, fair economies.
Though this isn't the best nat hist book ever, and the guy gets a little ad naseum (sp?) on his philosophizing of philosophy, religion, economy, empathy, wars, capitalism, overpopulation, he DOES write about birds, fishes, shores, etc very very well. and listen to his props:
1st book won all kinds of first-book awards plus Lannan Literary Prize plus MacArthur genius prize. His 2nd book all kinds of "best nat hist" book prizes. and for this, his 4th book he won a "special" Guggenheim Fellowship (whatever that means, it impressed me, hah). If you need to know about coral reefs, salmon, long island sound ecosystem, Svalbard, grizzlys, how to cook fresh caught Atlantic fish (just add lemon), penguins, icebergs and glaciers, AND LOTS MORE, this will be a great read for you. was for me.
Though this isn't the best nat hist book ever, and the guy gets a little ad naseum (sp?) on his philosophizing of philosophy, religion, economy, empathy, wars, capitalism, overpopulation, he DOES write about birds, fishes, shores, etc very very well. and listen to his props:
1st book won all kinds of first-book awards plus Lannan Literary Prize plus MacArthur genius prize. His 2nd book all kinds of "best nat hist" book prizes. and for this, his 4th book he won a "special" Guggenheim Fellowship (whatever that means, it impressed me, hah). If you need to know about coral reefs, salmon, long island sound ecosystem, Svalbard, grizzlys, how to cook fresh caught Atlantic fish (just add lemon), penguins, icebergs and glaciers, AND LOTS MORE, this will be a great read for you. was for me.
July 28, 2020
I picked this book up off the library shelf hoping a nature-y book like it would turn me into an eco-friendly person who
appreciated the planet's miraculousness more. I'd always felt indebted towards the environment, but never had full motivation to do anything serious about it.
This book was exactly the book I needed, and while it didn't make me suddenly passionate about nature, that's more my high expectations' fault than the book's.
To start, having each chapter one month out of the whole year was brilliant. It gave a little structure and almost a sort of plot line to what could have otherwise been an unorganized collection of ramblings.
Safina's writing is relaxing, contemplative, persuasive, and unassuming. Before reading, I expected the book to be less informational and preachy and more just a description of an amazing, nature-filled year, but now I'm glad Safina included his save-the-earth preachings, because I really enjoyed them.
However, the book wasn't the perfect one for me. Many times the slow-moving writing would fail to hold my attention. I was unable to get through pages in this book if I was in a distracting environment. Some sections of the book didn't interest me as much as others, and I found myself reading just to get to the next chapter for something new to begin. As a whole, the book was too long for me;
too much slow environmental musings in one book. By September I was just waiting to finish the book. Surely, along the way, digging through the pages to get to the end, I would find gold bits of commentary or a lovely description of nature that I'm glad I got to hear about, but as a whole it was a drag to get through.
So I want to say everybody should at least start this book, because this sort of valuable environmental scoldings can be beneficial to everyone. However, finishing the book if you don't like it midway through wouldn't make you miss anything crazy.
appreciated the planet's miraculousness more. I'd always felt indebted towards the environment, but never had full motivation to do anything serious about it.
This book was exactly the book I needed, and while it didn't make me suddenly passionate about nature, that's more my high expectations' fault than the book's.
To start, having each chapter one month out of the whole year was brilliant. It gave a little structure and almost a sort of plot line to what could have otherwise been an unorganized collection of ramblings.
Safina's writing is relaxing, contemplative, persuasive, and unassuming. Before reading, I expected the book to be less informational and preachy and more just a description of an amazing, nature-filled year, but now I'm glad Safina included his save-the-earth preachings, because I really enjoyed them.
However, the book wasn't the perfect one for me. Many times the slow-moving writing would fail to hold my attention. I was unable to get through pages in this book if I was in a distracting environment. Some sections of the book didn't interest me as much as others, and I found myself reading just to get to the next chapter for something new to begin. As a whole, the book was too long for me;
too much slow environmental musings in one book. By September I was just waiting to finish the book. Surely, along the way, digging through the pages to get to the end, I would find gold bits of commentary or a lovely description of nature that I'm glad I got to hear about, but as a whole it was a drag to get through.
So I want to say everybody should at least start this book, because this sort of valuable environmental scoldings can be beneficial to everyone. However, finishing the book if you don't like it midway through wouldn't make you miss anything crazy.
January 15, 2013
Mmm, exactly my kind of book. A deeply intelligent and inspirational scientist takes the time to describe where he lives, on a spit of land where the sun rises and falls over the ocean, and then also describes his travels to other oceans and coasts, and merges the two together intensely and beautifully and sometimes heartbreakingly. We see a year in his life, as well as year of the world’s life, and nothing is more beautiful, to watch the world grow and change nor is it more important, to pay attention to climate change and the people affected in remote parts of it, affected by my use of gasoline, my use of electricity, my irresponsibility. The book was written before Hurricane Sandy destroyed many of the areas he lives near on Montauk, but he wrote in it, and maintains, that while he has federal flood insurance, he would be fine with taking it away, and believes we need to, so to impede the headlong rush into coastal rebuilding of bigger and better houses (usually their 2nd home) in danger zones, ignoring the warnings. I love that humility, I was wondering what the hurricane did to his town, and it sounds like hit or miss, although his little cottage was spared, I believe.
As I read this, I was waiting for either feelings of despair at the state of the world, and the politics of conservation or hope, that we can effect change somehow, and the author provides examples of both. I just don’t know how we can prevent the disasters coming; I heard the other day that Colorado will go from 5 million to 10 million by 2050 or so, and it boggles the mind. Even if we make changes, it seems hopeless that they will make any difference with that giant leap. But what is extremely cool, is that people like Carl Safina exist, and are making a difference. Raising awareness is the first step.
I have to disagree with one of his assertions, also a generalization, which he goes on to say are not truths: “ for those who don’t fish, the ocean is just scenery. The beauty in fishing comes to the senses as a search for connection with deep-dwelling mysteries.” I love what he writes in the next quote because I know fishermen and women, and also some marine biologists who don’t fish who know the same exact things. I don’t fish, have no interest at all, but love to go with them and be on the ocean, near the ocean, and Dr. Safina, respectfully, it is not just scenery. He disproves himself anyways, when he describes canoeing or counting whales or birds and the end result is the same: feeling the air on your skin, in your lungs, watching the wild things swim and fly and run and kill, and being present in the world, as part of it.
“Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life. It’s time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds…Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy.”
Dr. Safina does address the contradiction between overfishing, conservation, and sportfishing. He is honest about his own challenges regarding competition, about being defined as a man, as a fisherman as bringing in the biggest fish, or the most elusive. He also addresses catch and release which I will never understand, and in an interesting way, but I cheered when he would admit or announce that he won’t be doing it any more with certain fish, etc.
There is a section on hunting/killing shorebirds that chilled me to the bone. The author quotes men in the early 1800’s who detail their “take”: a “gentleman sportsman” recorded killing 69, 087 Wilson’s Snipe. Audubon records seeing the “sport” continue all day, just shooting them all out of the sky, possibly 48,000 Golden Plover. In one day. At least the other so-called gentleman took some years to kill his 69, 087 birds. The shooting frenzies that went on can’t be explained by our hunter gatherer genes, those were bred for slow, deliberate in MODERATION kills for food and supplies. At some point it changed, and it sounds more like a mass murder than “sports.” Whatever need it filled in these men, it sounds atrocious in this day and time, to me. I can’t even start to visualize what it looked life, first to see that many birds at once, and second, to see them all littering the ground.
“Then again, Isaac Newton himself said, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother shell or prettier pebble than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Well, exactly. So I’ll grant myself the pretty stones.
The Sound reflects both the light of morning and the calls of sea ducks. I cup my ears and hear the Long-tailed Ducks’ ah-oh-da-leep. Their call means it’s winter-and it means I am home. Among the gifts of the sea is a wonderfully portable sense of place. Portable because an ocean washes all shores. Like these migrants themselves, my sense of home goes where they go…Mysteries notwithstanding, this daily morning walk is how I take the pulse of the place, and my own. It’s a good spot in which to wake up.
The sun here comes out of the sea and returns to the sea-a trick that’s hard to pull off if you don’t live on an island or some narrow bit of land with its neck stuck out.”
“Science has marched forward. But civilization’s values remain rooted in philosophies, religious traditions, and ethical frameworks devised many centuries ago. Even our economic system, capitalism, is half a millennium old. The first stock exchange opened in 1602 in Amsterdam. By 1637, tulip mania had caused the first speculation bubble and crash. And not a lot has changed. Virtually every business stills uses the double-entry bookkeeping and accounting adopted in thirteenth –century Venice. So our daily dealings are still heavily influenced by ideas that were firmly set before anyone knew the world was round. In many ways, they reflect how we understood the world when we didn’t understand the world at all.”
In a universe devoid of life, any life at all would be immensely meaningful. We ARE that meaning. “And what we see, “says the poet Mary Oliver, “is the world that cannot cherish us, but which we cherish.” AS though life itself is the great, universal, unrequited love of all time. But there is even more to this. Deep mystery. We are the universe aware of itself. We let the miracle get lost in distractions. On a planet so rich with living companions, much of humanity sentences itself to solitary confinement. Late at night, I used to lie in my boat listening to radio calls from ships to families ashore. There was only one conversation, and it boils down to, “I love you and I miss you; come home safe.” Connections make us individuals. Ironic, isn’t it? The more connected, the more unique our life becomes…”
“In my youth I was sometimes told to pay attention to the “real world,” that place of tedium tallied in digits and zeros, where strings of zeros are pursued and prized. The mass delusion of that “real world” is the fervent belief that the ledger books capture the value and the consequences of our transactions.”
“The avuncular Trojan horse of greed, Ronald Reagan, largely abrogated the social contract because- as far as I can tell- he and his ilk didn’t like paying taxes or being “regulated.” Well, who does? But who doesn’t want roads, police, education, fire protection, and jobs; who doesn’t see Europe’s often superior health care, job training, child care- and its citizens generally higher level of satisfaction with their lives and their government; who besides the greediest doesn’t realize that being great means we all pitch in?”
“It’s hard to walk briskly at this time of year; the accelerating pace of unfolding spring slows my own. I repeatedly stop- to watch what’s moving. Soon the torrent of migrants will completely overwhelm my ability to keep up with all the changes. But it’s easy to revel in the exuberance and the sense of rebirth, renewal.”
“There is the glorious energy of such tiny lives lived so large that to complete a year they require two continents (about migrating shorebirds).”
“The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you’re adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can’t see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it’s working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces.”
“For beauty and the awesome mystery of evolution on our coast, nothing exceeds the epic complexity of the migrations of monarch butterflies. Theirs is no simple north-south. It’s a bizarre, multi-generational migration. Three generations only go north; one generation goes from Mexico to the southern U.S.; the next generation goes from the southern to the northern U.S.; the third generation hatches in the U.S. and finally reaches Canada. Only the fourth generation goes south, but it goes all the way from Canada to mass wintering sites in central Mexico. Northbound migrants live only about two months. Those making the southbound trip survive about nine months.”
“Summer has weeks left, but once the calendar displays the word “September,” you’d think it was Latin for “evacuate.” I pity them for missing the best weather and the most energized time of year…It’s an extremely impressive display of life at the apogee of summer, the year’s productivity mounded and piled past the angle of repose. It is a world lush with the living, a world that-despite the problems- still has what it takes to really produce.”
“There appears no assurance that in the times of our own grandchildren the world will contain viable populations of wild African Lions, Tigers, Polar Bears, Emperor Penguins, gorillas, or coral reefs. These are the animals expectant parents pain on nursery room walls. Their implied wish: to welcome precious new life in to a world endowed with the magnificence and delight and fright of companions we have traveled with since the beginning. Some people debate the “rights of the unborn” as though a human life begins at conception but we don’t need to concern ourselves with its prospects after birth. Raging over the divine sanctity of anyone else’s pregnancy is a little overwrought and a little too easy when nature itself terminates one out of four by the sixth week. There are much bigger, more compassionate pro-life fish to fry. Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake.”
“The winds of summer push warm surface water up the coast. Eddies break off the Gulf Stream and come whirling over the shelf and occasionally hit the beaches and inlets with startlingly blue, clear water. In the water ride the eggs and larvae of reef fishes from a thousand miles south. Thus do juveniles of tropical fishes of many kinds come to us in streaming tongues of warm water…they cannot migrate south again, so trapped, they would die except the aquarium folks come out and collect them for their collections…”
“Maybe we’ll live to see sharks recover. Right now, that seems as improbable as seeing all these falcons. Hope is the ability to see how things could be better. The world of human affairs has long been a shadowy place, but always backlit by the light of hope. Each person can add hope to the world. A resigned person subtracts hope. The more people strive, the more change becomes likely.”
“A morning like this makes me feel happy. And I don’t mind knowing that the feeling will be temporary. Happiness, like everything else in this rhythmic realm, comes and goes in waves, and it’s good to savor it when the wave rises, and when the wave recedes, understand that another wave will come.”
"So I guess what I’m trying to say is that, though I’m a secular person and a scientist, I believe that our relationship with the living world must be mainly religious. But I don’t mean theological. I mean religious in the sense of reverent, revolutionary, spiritual, and inspired. Reverent because the world is unique, thus holy. Revolutionary in making a break with e drift and downdraft of outdated, maladaptive modes of thought. Spiritual in seeking attainment of a higher realm of human being. Inspired in the aspiration to connect crucial truths with wider communities. Religious in precisely this way: connection, with a sense of purpose. If you don’t like the word “religion”, think of it this way: it’s imperative to have something to believe in that both centers and expands your life.”
As I read this, I was waiting for either feelings of despair at the state of the world, and the politics of conservation or hope, that we can effect change somehow, and the author provides examples of both. I just don’t know how we can prevent the disasters coming; I heard the other day that Colorado will go from 5 million to 10 million by 2050 or so, and it boggles the mind. Even if we make changes, it seems hopeless that they will make any difference with that giant leap. But what is extremely cool, is that people like Carl Safina exist, and are making a difference. Raising awareness is the first step.
I have to disagree with one of his assertions, also a generalization, which he goes on to say are not truths: “ for those who don’t fish, the ocean is just scenery. The beauty in fishing comes to the senses as a search for connection with deep-dwelling mysteries.” I love what he writes in the next quote because I know fishermen and women, and also some marine biologists who don’t fish who know the same exact things. I don’t fish, have no interest at all, but love to go with them and be on the ocean, near the ocean, and Dr. Safina, respectfully, it is not just scenery. He disproves himself anyways, when he describes canoeing or counting whales or birds and the end result is the same: feeling the air on your skin, in your lungs, watching the wild things swim and fly and run and kill, and being present in the world, as part of it.
“Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life. It’s time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds…Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy.”
Dr. Safina does address the contradiction between overfishing, conservation, and sportfishing. He is honest about his own challenges regarding competition, about being defined as a man, as a fisherman as bringing in the biggest fish, or the most elusive. He also addresses catch and release which I will never understand, and in an interesting way, but I cheered when he would admit or announce that he won’t be doing it any more with certain fish, etc.
There is a section on hunting/killing shorebirds that chilled me to the bone. The author quotes men in the early 1800’s who detail their “take”: a “gentleman sportsman” recorded killing 69, 087 Wilson’s Snipe. Audubon records seeing the “sport” continue all day, just shooting them all out of the sky, possibly 48,000 Golden Plover. In one day. At least the other so-called gentleman took some years to kill his 69, 087 birds. The shooting frenzies that went on can’t be explained by our hunter gatherer genes, those were bred for slow, deliberate in MODERATION kills for food and supplies. At some point it changed, and it sounds more like a mass murder than “sports.” Whatever need it filled in these men, it sounds atrocious in this day and time, to me. I can’t even start to visualize what it looked life, first to see that many birds at once, and second, to see them all littering the ground.
“Then again, Isaac Newton himself said, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother shell or prettier pebble than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Well, exactly. So I’ll grant myself the pretty stones.
The Sound reflects both the light of morning and the calls of sea ducks. I cup my ears and hear the Long-tailed Ducks’ ah-oh-da-leep. Their call means it’s winter-and it means I am home. Among the gifts of the sea is a wonderfully portable sense of place. Portable because an ocean washes all shores. Like these migrants themselves, my sense of home goes where they go…Mysteries notwithstanding, this daily morning walk is how I take the pulse of the place, and my own. It’s a good spot in which to wake up.
The sun here comes out of the sea and returns to the sea-a trick that’s hard to pull off if you don’t live on an island or some narrow bit of land with its neck stuck out.”
“Science has marched forward. But civilization’s values remain rooted in philosophies, religious traditions, and ethical frameworks devised many centuries ago. Even our economic system, capitalism, is half a millennium old. The first stock exchange opened in 1602 in Amsterdam. By 1637, tulip mania had caused the first speculation bubble and crash. And not a lot has changed. Virtually every business stills uses the double-entry bookkeeping and accounting adopted in thirteenth –century Venice. So our daily dealings are still heavily influenced by ideas that were firmly set before anyone knew the world was round. In many ways, they reflect how we understood the world when we didn’t understand the world at all.”
In a universe devoid of life, any life at all would be immensely meaningful. We ARE that meaning. “And what we see, “says the poet Mary Oliver, “is the world that cannot cherish us, but which we cherish.” AS though life itself is the great, universal, unrequited love of all time. But there is even more to this. Deep mystery. We are the universe aware of itself. We let the miracle get lost in distractions. On a planet so rich with living companions, much of humanity sentences itself to solitary confinement. Late at night, I used to lie in my boat listening to radio calls from ships to families ashore. There was only one conversation, and it boils down to, “I love you and I miss you; come home safe.” Connections make us individuals. Ironic, isn’t it? The more connected, the more unique our life becomes…”
“In my youth I was sometimes told to pay attention to the “real world,” that place of tedium tallied in digits and zeros, where strings of zeros are pursued and prized. The mass delusion of that “real world” is the fervent belief that the ledger books capture the value and the consequences of our transactions.”
“The avuncular Trojan horse of greed, Ronald Reagan, largely abrogated the social contract because- as far as I can tell- he and his ilk didn’t like paying taxes or being “regulated.” Well, who does? But who doesn’t want roads, police, education, fire protection, and jobs; who doesn’t see Europe’s often superior health care, job training, child care- and its citizens generally higher level of satisfaction with their lives and their government; who besides the greediest doesn’t realize that being great means we all pitch in?”
“It’s hard to walk briskly at this time of year; the accelerating pace of unfolding spring slows my own. I repeatedly stop- to watch what’s moving. Soon the torrent of migrants will completely overwhelm my ability to keep up with all the changes. But it’s easy to revel in the exuberance and the sense of rebirth, renewal.”
“There is the glorious energy of such tiny lives lived so large that to complete a year they require two continents (about migrating shorebirds).”
“The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you’re adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can’t see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it’s working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces.”
“For beauty and the awesome mystery of evolution on our coast, nothing exceeds the epic complexity of the migrations of monarch butterflies. Theirs is no simple north-south. It’s a bizarre, multi-generational migration. Three generations only go north; one generation goes from Mexico to the southern U.S.; the next generation goes from the southern to the northern U.S.; the third generation hatches in the U.S. and finally reaches Canada. Only the fourth generation goes south, but it goes all the way from Canada to mass wintering sites in central Mexico. Northbound migrants live only about two months. Those making the southbound trip survive about nine months.”
“Summer has weeks left, but once the calendar displays the word “September,” you’d think it was Latin for “evacuate.” I pity them for missing the best weather and the most energized time of year…It’s an extremely impressive display of life at the apogee of summer, the year’s productivity mounded and piled past the angle of repose. It is a world lush with the living, a world that-despite the problems- still has what it takes to really produce.”
“There appears no assurance that in the times of our own grandchildren the world will contain viable populations of wild African Lions, Tigers, Polar Bears, Emperor Penguins, gorillas, or coral reefs. These are the animals expectant parents pain on nursery room walls. Their implied wish: to welcome precious new life in to a world endowed with the magnificence and delight and fright of companions we have traveled with since the beginning. Some people debate the “rights of the unborn” as though a human life begins at conception but we don’t need to concern ourselves with its prospects after birth. Raging over the divine sanctity of anyone else’s pregnancy is a little overwrought and a little too easy when nature itself terminates one out of four by the sixth week. There are much bigger, more compassionate pro-life fish to fry. Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake.”
“The winds of summer push warm surface water up the coast. Eddies break off the Gulf Stream and come whirling over the shelf and occasionally hit the beaches and inlets with startlingly blue, clear water. In the water ride the eggs and larvae of reef fishes from a thousand miles south. Thus do juveniles of tropical fishes of many kinds come to us in streaming tongues of warm water…they cannot migrate south again, so trapped, they would die except the aquarium folks come out and collect them for their collections…”
“Maybe we’ll live to see sharks recover. Right now, that seems as improbable as seeing all these falcons. Hope is the ability to see how things could be better. The world of human affairs has long been a shadowy place, but always backlit by the light of hope. Each person can add hope to the world. A resigned person subtracts hope. The more people strive, the more change becomes likely.”
“A morning like this makes me feel happy. And I don’t mind knowing that the feeling will be temporary. Happiness, like everything else in this rhythmic realm, comes and goes in waves, and it’s good to savor it when the wave rises, and when the wave recedes, understand that another wave will come.”
"So I guess what I’m trying to say is that, though I’m a secular person and a scientist, I believe that our relationship with the living world must be mainly religious. But I don’t mean theological. I mean religious in the sense of reverent, revolutionary, spiritual, and inspired. Reverent because the world is unique, thus holy. Revolutionary in making a break with e drift and downdraft of outdated, maladaptive modes of thought. Spiritual in seeking attainment of a higher realm of human being. Inspired in the aspiration to connect crucial truths with wider communities. Religious in precisely this way: connection, with a sense of purpose. If you don’t like the word “religion”, think of it this way: it’s imperative to have something to believe in that both centers and expands your life.”
July 19, 2022
This has become my all time favourite book
August 19, 2022
Fabulous book! Salina philosophically explores the natural world through the historical evolution of a number of living beings. His effort to share their constant changes through climate changes over eons illustrates how creatures adapt to adversity— and how human beings need to adapt or be the next extinct species. That critical adaptation includes compassion, understanding, education, and a sense of community to combat the tragedy of commons. What a book! (Early publishing date makes some of the stats defunct, but the overarching themes are as relevant as ever, not only environmentally, but socially and politically as well. Individual needs and rights v community needs and responsibilities… Who are the stakeholders when we make decision?)
May 22, 2017
I learned of this book when my librarian spouse was engaged in a year-long project of reading "year of" books -- an entire genre of books whose authors dedicated a year to a particular topic or practice. This meta project involved reading two such books each month, and we shared a few of them. Since I am an environmental geographer, she read this one to me.
Around the same time, I was realizing that the textbook in my introductory environmental geography class was becoming a bit out-of-date, and in particular that it was not adequately addressing climate change. I decided to try assigning this book as the main text in that survey course, and I am very glad I did. It is the only book that large numbers of students THANK me for assigning.
This is all the more impressive because students really do struggle with this book. It is a beautifully written account of some very unpleasant -- one could say inconvenient -- truths about a rapidly changing world. Some students are offended that Safina does not do more to soften the blow, but most eventually come to appreciate his approach.
Like Rachel Carson before him, Safina is both a talented writer and a consummate scientist. He also reveals a deep love for his chosen home on Long Island sound and the many other places around the world that his work has taken him.
I should emphasize that although I use this as a textbook, it is not written that way. In the process of telling his stories and making his case, this biologist happens to cover many of the topics I feel I need to include in my geography course. He does it so beautifully that I am happy to provide a few supplements to cover those areas, so that my students and I can immerse ourselves in this important and beautiful work.
My environmental geography blog includes a number of items about Safina and this book: http://environmentalgeography.blogspo...
Around the same time, I was realizing that the textbook in my introductory environmental geography class was becoming a bit out-of-date, and in particular that it was not adequately addressing climate change. I decided to try assigning this book as the main text in that survey course, and I am very glad I did. It is the only book that large numbers of students THANK me for assigning.
This is all the more impressive because students really do struggle with this book. It is a beautifully written account of some very unpleasant -- one could say inconvenient -- truths about a rapidly changing world. Some students are offended that Safina does not do more to soften the blow, but most eventually come to appreciate his approach.
Like Rachel Carson before him, Safina is both a talented writer and a consummate scientist. He also reveals a deep love for his chosen home on Long Island sound and the many other places around the world that his work has taken him.
I should emphasize that although I use this as a textbook, it is not written that way. In the process of telling his stories and making his case, this biologist happens to cover many of the topics I feel I need to include in my geography course. He does it so beautifully that I am happy to provide a few supplements to cover those areas, so that my students and I can immerse ourselves in this important and beautiful work.
My environmental geography blog includes a number of items about Safina and this book: http://environmentalgeography.blogspo...
March 19, 2011
There was a bit too much infinite detail on fish and fishing and sea creatures and types of ducks for me, but in between, what an amazing and articulate look at how we are and are not affecting the natural world around us. This guy can write.
May 12, 2018
Starting with the viewpoint provided from his renovated beach cottage overlooking the bay at Lazy Point on the Montauk Peninsula, the well-known ecologist Carl Safina takes us on a tour of the marine environment from a coastal perspective. No matter whether he is discussing the role played by single-celled algae, or that played by the relatively giant Polar Bear, Safina shows that he is as sensitive to the environment as were Thoreau and Whitman in their day. He is clearly familiar with the work of these two great philosophers and recorders of the human spirit, with it no doubt having formed the spawning ground for many of his own insightful musings. Despite urging an ongoing vigil as to the dangers and risks facing the natural environment, Safina’s message is far from being one of doom and gloom. Rather, he is intent on exploring the benefits that can be gained from a wise and perspicacious awareness of one’s environs.
Safina writes with great fluency and ease, so that the reading of this chronicle of a year is felt to be as if the summer breeze were wafting gently against one’s face. One breathes his writing in as one does a welcoming balm, allowing his every word to soothe and ease the soul. His writing, which has the effect of enabling us to transcend our daily anguish, transports us to a world where the real matters and the trivial is, thankfully, obscured.
This marvelous gem of a book gave me gooseflesh as soon as I had read a few pages―it is just so much in sync with where I live, in a tiny fishing village on the West Coast of South Africa. On a daily basis, I wonder at how very few people strive to appreciate the wonders of nature that surround us. Seldom will you find anyone walking on the beach or alongside the river merely to savor the brisk freshness of our wintry weather―they’d far rather spend time indoors gossiping about their neighbors, and tearing the local government and society apart.
The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World is for those others of us who prefer to drift with the natural tide, and who find the natural rhythms of life around us comforting and inspiring―we must acknowledge that we are, indeed, blessed. Those who desire a warm and comforting companion on a dark and blustery night need go no farther than The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World.
Safina writes with great fluency and ease, so that the reading of this chronicle of a year is felt to be as if the summer breeze were wafting gently against one’s face. One breathes his writing in as one does a welcoming balm, allowing his every word to soothe and ease the soul. His writing, which has the effect of enabling us to transcend our daily anguish, transports us to a world where the real matters and the trivial is, thankfully, obscured.
This marvelous gem of a book gave me gooseflesh as soon as I had read a few pages―it is just so much in sync with where I live, in a tiny fishing village on the West Coast of South Africa. On a daily basis, I wonder at how very few people strive to appreciate the wonders of nature that surround us. Seldom will you find anyone walking on the beach or alongside the river merely to savor the brisk freshness of our wintry weather―they’d far rather spend time indoors gossiping about their neighbors, and tearing the local government and society apart.
The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World is for those others of us who prefer to drift with the natural tide, and who find the natural rhythms of life around us comforting and inspiring―we must acknowledge that we are, indeed, blessed. Those who desire a warm and comforting companion on a dark and blustery night need go no farther than The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World.
November 6, 2022
I'm gonna steal from another review in saying that it feels performatively embellished and overwritten. I was recommended this book from my more-outdoor-conscious uncle, and overall enjoyed it, mostly for how it's written. If you're interested in hearing about how we as humans are disrupting nature's cycles via global warming and overfishing, spoken by someone who all the while is fishing and patronizing the general public for buying food at a grocery store, then this book is for you. If you know a lot of birds by their name, especially sea birds (I know like 6 kinds of birds, maybe?) then you might really love this book. If you know many kinds of fish and birds (especially sea birds) by name and you can picture them by name AND you love embellished nature writing, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU.
Trigger warnings: climate change, coral destruction, killing animals, human existential hopelessness
Trigger warnings: climate change, coral destruction, killing animals, human existential hopelessness
October 2, 2017
This book is amazing. It speaks to you on a intellectual and an emotional level. Beautifully written, it comprises a mix of summarized scientific research and the authors own work in the field. It follows the author through a year or travel and experience as he reflects on the happenings in the natural world from death to rebirth and reconstruction. It makes you really think about what humans are doing to the environment. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in environmental science or just someone who wants a a different philosophical take on the world.
October 1, 2020
The View from Lazy Point is a beautiful, if heartbreaking book. Capturing the turn of the seasons from his cottage on Block Island Sound east of Amaganset, the story widens out to the fate of our planet with journeys to Alaska, Antarctica, Palau and Svalbard. Despite the emphasis on the parts of the natural world that we've lost, Safina tries to leave us with a sense of hope and human possibility to mend our ways.
March 13, 2011
This is Safina’s fourth book and perhaps is most prominently attended to—though the earlier ones received prizes and best non-fiction, science or nature honors from many and sundry publications and organizations. The View from Lazy Point is part meditation on a particular place and one man’s presence in it, part advocacy for more responsible behavior by humans locally and throughout the world (they are essentially the same thing—man’s small corner and the great wide world, this current moment and the moments that led up to it and go forward from it), and part science and history of science. There are great moments in all three interwoven parts, though I was most engaged in the discussions of Safina’s time at Lazy Point, a small bit of land between the Hamptons and Montauk at Long Island’s east end. This was always fascinating and entertaining, particularly for someone who enjoys visiting that neck of the woods from time to time. It’s a beautiful part of the world, rich with birds, plants and fish and Safina’s prose here is always precise and poetic.
The advocacy parts worked often, particularly if you share the sense that time is running out on our wasteful management (or lack thereof) of our own lifespan-limited time on this planet. Safina calls attention to the selfishly misplaced priorities that have allowed the last seven or eight generations (since the start of the Industrial Revolution when man’s footprint started to alter the basic ingredients of life on earth) to put us on our present path with its swelling but emptying oceans, exponentially increasing global population that far exceeds the planet’s resources, declining diversity of species, and increasingly less compatible air. Safina handles the documentation part of the crisis well, matter of factly illustrating his case with evidence from around his Lazy Point home or, from the several excursions he takes to the further reaches of civilization (the Arctic, Antarctica, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, Alaska, and the Svalbard islands). From these remote wild areas he reports on coral reefs, melting ice, rising seas, declining polar bear populations and other ecological changes linked to man’s dominance of the planet. He sometimes goes snarky in the polemical stretches that intercut these case studies—calling a spade a spade in what might be perceived a partisan way, though when you’re Cassandra and folks are not only not listening but contradicting facts with unscientific assumptions and emotional-political arguments anyone might get a little snarky. It’s also possible to misconstrue the partisan sides here—it’s not Democrats (the do littles) versus the Republicans (the do nothings or the keep doing what we’re doing only faster, bigger, and more often); it’s science and life on the planet’s future versus selfishness and the private interests of the few. In both the domestic ruminations and the wilderness expeditions, Safina also shares his knowledge of science to explain succinctly and clearly why scientific theory is not what most opponents of evolution or global warming pretend it to be (anyone’s guess, and yours is no better than mine), why coral reefs and other indicators of planetary health are more important to us all, not just scuba divers, and how our scientific knowledge of life on earth is young, far younger than any of the political, economic, or religious philosophies that tell people how they should live. None of these pre-industrial belief systems has altered its various assumptions or ethical understandings to account for our unhealthy, even suicidal approach to the planet and its resources. Politically, if it’s “yours” it’s yours to do what you wish with; economically, resources, however non-renewable or critical to the sustaining of life on the planet, are there to be used; religiously we have been given dominion of the birds of the air, the beasts of the land, and the fish of the sea. Never mind that these licenses were awarded in a time when man’s numbers and technologies couldn’t lay such dramatic waste to the planet’s health that life itself would be jeopardized. But it’s been a couple of centuries since then. We’re in the billions and we’re now an imminent threat to our existence. So the high priests of God, wealth, and justice better wake up and examine their understandings and start leading the charge to a more responsible custodianship of our time on the planet before it’s too late. It’s fast becoming too late because in this tiny epoch of the planet’s four plus billion years of existence we are both the dinosaurs and the meteor coming to end our way of life.
Safina is a calm, appreciating lover of life and the natural world. He does his best to sound a warning without sounding like a doomsayer. The View from Lazy Point describes a world too beautiful and essential to lose but at risk. It’s been compared to Walden because of its personal and philosophical nature. It can also be compared to the best of Rachel Carson, Peter Matthiessen, Barry Lopez, and other writers and scientists who have been doing their best to alert us to what we have before we haven’t.
The advocacy parts worked often, particularly if you share the sense that time is running out on our wasteful management (or lack thereof) of our own lifespan-limited time on this planet. Safina calls attention to the selfishly misplaced priorities that have allowed the last seven or eight generations (since the start of the Industrial Revolution when man’s footprint started to alter the basic ingredients of life on earth) to put us on our present path with its swelling but emptying oceans, exponentially increasing global population that far exceeds the planet’s resources, declining diversity of species, and increasingly less compatible air. Safina handles the documentation part of the crisis well, matter of factly illustrating his case with evidence from around his Lazy Point home or, from the several excursions he takes to the further reaches of civilization (the Arctic, Antarctica, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, Alaska, and the Svalbard islands). From these remote wild areas he reports on coral reefs, melting ice, rising seas, declining polar bear populations and other ecological changes linked to man’s dominance of the planet. He sometimes goes snarky in the polemical stretches that intercut these case studies—calling a spade a spade in what might be perceived a partisan way, though when you’re Cassandra and folks are not only not listening but contradicting facts with unscientific assumptions and emotional-political arguments anyone might get a little snarky. It’s also possible to misconstrue the partisan sides here—it’s not Democrats (the do littles) versus the Republicans (the do nothings or the keep doing what we’re doing only faster, bigger, and more often); it’s science and life on the planet’s future versus selfishness and the private interests of the few. In both the domestic ruminations and the wilderness expeditions, Safina also shares his knowledge of science to explain succinctly and clearly why scientific theory is not what most opponents of evolution or global warming pretend it to be (anyone’s guess, and yours is no better than mine), why coral reefs and other indicators of planetary health are more important to us all, not just scuba divers, and how our scientific knowledge of life on earth is young, far younger than any of the political, economic, or religious philosophies that tell people how they should live. None of these pre-industrial belief systems has altered its various assumptions or ethical understandings to account for our unhealthy, even suicidal approach to the planet and its resources. Politically, if it’s “yours” it’s yours to do what you wish with; economically, resources, however non-renewable or critical to the sustaining of life on the planet, are there to be used; religiously we have been given dominion of the birds of the air, the beasts of the land, and the fish of the sea. Never mind that these licenses were awarded in a time when man’s numbers and technologies couldn’t lay such dramatic waste to the planet’s health that life itself would be jeopardized. But it’s been a couple of centuries since then. We’re in the billions and we’re now an imminent threat to our existence. So the high priests of God, wealth, and justice better wake up and examine their understandings and start leading the charge to a more responsible custodianship of our time on the planet before it’s too late. It’s fast becoming too late because in this tiny epoch of the planet’s four plus billion years of existence we are both the dinosaurs and the meteor coming to end our way of life.
Safina is a calm, appreciating lover of life and the natural world. He does his best to sound a warning without sounding like a doomsayer. The View from Lazy Point describes a world too beautiful and essential to lose but at risk. It’s been compared to Walden because of its personal and philosophical nature. It can also be compared to the best of Rachel Carson, Peter Matthiessen, Barry Lopez, and other writers and scientists who have been doing their best to alert us to what we have before we haven’t.
March 19, 2018
REALLY enjoyed.
June 29, 2018
Didn't finish..
July 26, 2018
Very good, from a scientific and environmental perspective. He got a little preachy when he delved into the political issues.
Read
August 30, 2019Orion award winner
June 22, 2022
everyone should read this book
August 9, 2012
Winner of the 2012 Orion Book Award
Named one of Best Books of 2011 by Newsday
“A Thoreau for the 21st century.” --New York Post
“Safina’s book soars...I had to—and wanted to—read THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT very slowly, allowing myself to digest its wealth of information, to revel in the beauty of Safina’s writing and to absorb fully the implications of his musings…What a pleasure it is to be asked to stop rushing about and take time to think, to grapple with fundamental questions, and to find such an enlightening, provocative companion for walking and talking—and reading. We can ask no more from those who warn about dark days ahead than that they also awaken us to the miracle of everyday life as they try to illuminate a better path forward.” --The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice, received a full-page feature
“Ecologist Carl Safina’s books about ocean wildlife evince two traits not commonly associated with science writing: exquisite language and freely expressed empathy for animals...[THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT is] a book of beautifully modulated patterns and gracefully stated imperatives.” --Booklist, starred review
“Solid science and excellent storytelling. A superb work of environmental reportage and reflection.” --Kirkus, starred review
“Striking...It is Safina's meditations...which move this book from a modern 'Walden Pond,' as great as that would be, to something else. For, really, this is a book about philosophy...It is about what it means to be human in a world where the rhythms of life have been throw askew, indeed, burst asunder...Read his book and remember, or learn, what is to live in the embrace of the seasons and to see in all life oneself.” --Huffington Post
“Each chapter roils with informed, impassioned descriptions of Lazy Point’s abundant wildlife...In this wide-eyed way, Safina’s view from Lazy Point encompasses the planet, illuminating our interconnected whole.” --National Geographic, Book of the Month
“[A] lyrical conversationist...[A] compassionate account...An optimism suffuses this sensible and sensitive book.” --Publishers Weekly
“This eloquent take on our bond with the natural world is delivered with beauty and reflection—and little preaching.” --Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Reminiscent of Thoreau’s WALDEN but thoroughly Safina’s.” --Miami Herald
“With his grand sense of adventure, eye for beauty, heart for mercy and high hopes to shake us from our complacency, Safina seems a godsend among modern-day prophets. His is a voice worth listening to, and I hope his song hits the top of the charts.” --The Oregonian
“Safina is a contemporary prophet who merits your attention. Yes, he tells truth to power, but his writing is also full of beauty, optimism and the quiet reverie that comes from living close to nature.” --Audubon Magazine
“A true masterpiece. The writing is both powerful and poetic, the observations so keen and telling as to shed new light on so many subjects: conservation, ethics, politics, economics, and, well, life. LAZY POINT just might become the 21st century's WALDEN POND.” --Gary Soucie, former editor of Audubon Magazine
“Before Carl Safina, environmentalists could often be heard wondering where the next Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold or Henry Beston might be hiding...[Safina's] pure sensuous detail, seeing the natural world from a variety of angles, was missing in the generations after Carson and Leopold.” --Newsday
“Safina’s got a scientist’s eye and a boxer’s knockout punch.” --The Providence Journal
“Mr Safina’s writing moves easily from revelatory observation sparked by a flash of bird or splash of fish to passionate, lyrical philosophy. He rails against the concept of growth-based development. He tears into Adam Smith’s thoughts on the benefits of selfishness and argues that defending dirty energy is as morally bankrupt as defending slavery. Mr Safina rubs away at the chalk circle that 19th-century thinkers drew around humanity to separate it from the natural world.” --The Economist
“I was flat-out blown away. This thing is a great glittering gem of a book, certainly the first immortal work of popular natural history of the 21st century. It was a thrill and an honor to read. And when I finished I felt young again and full of lightning.” --Steve Donoghue, Managing Editor, Open Letters Monthly
“This book is beautifully written, elegiac and insistent—a very necessary read.” --Sheryl Cotleur, Book Passage booksellers, Corte Madera. Ca.
“Few have done more for the world's oceans than Carl Safina…Now he's back with what might be his best book yet.” --Outside magazine
Named one of Best Books of 2011 by Newsday
“A Thoreau for the 21st century.” --New York Post
“Safina’s book soars...I had to—and wanted to—read THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT very slowly, allowing myself to digest its wealth of information, to revel in the beauty of Safina’s writing and to absorb fully the implications of his musings…What a pleasure it is to be asked to stop rushing about and take time to think, to grapple with fundamental questions, and to find such an enlightening, provocative companion for walking and talking—and reading. We can ask no more from those who warn about dark days ahead than that they also awaken us to the miracle of everyday life as they try to illuminate a better path forward.” --The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice, received a full-page feature
“Ecologist Carl Safina’s books about ocean wildlife evince two traits not commonly associated with science writing: exquisite language and freely expressed empathy for animals...[THE VIEW FROM LAZY POINT is] a book of beautifully modulated patterns and gracefully stated imperatives.” --Booklist, starred review
“Solid science and excellent storytelling. A superb work of environmental reportage and reflection.” --Kirkus, starred review
“Striking...It is Safina's meditations...which move this book from a modern 'Walden Pond,' as great as that would be, to something else. For, really, this is a book about philosophy...It is about what it means to be human in a world where the rhythms of life have been throw askew, indeed, burst asunder...Read his book and remember, or learn, what is to live in the embrace of the seasons and to see in all life oneself.” --Huffington Post
“Each chapter roils with informed, impassioned descriptions of Lazy Point’s abundant wildlife...In this wide-eyed way, Safina’s view from Lazy Point encompasses the planet, illuminating our interconnected whole.” --National Geographic, Book of the Month
“[A] lyrical conversationist...[A] compassionate account...An optimism suffuses this sensible and sensitive book.” --Publishers Weekly
“This eloquent take on our bond with the natural world is delivered with beauty and reflection—and little preaching.” --Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Reminiscent of Thoreau’s WALDEN but thoroughly Safina’s.” --Miami Herald
“With his grand sense of adventure, eye for beauty, heart for mercy and high hopes to shake us from our complacency, Safina seems a godsend among modern-day prophets. His is a voice worth listening to, and I hope his song hits the top of the charts.” --The Oregonian
“Safina is a contemporary prophet who merits your attention. Yes, he tells truth to power, but his writing is also full of beauty, optimism and the quiet reverie that comes from living close to nature.” --Audubon Magazine
“A true masterpiece. The writing is both powerful and poetic, the observations so keen and telling as to shed new light on so many subjects: conservation, ethics, politics, economics, and, well, life. LAZY POINT just might become the 21st century's WALDEN POND.” --Gary Soucie, former editor of Audubon Magazine
“Before Carl Safina, environmentalists could often be heard wondering where the next Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold or Henry Beston might be hiding...[Safina's] pure sensuous detail, seeing the natural world from a variety of angles, was missing in the generations after Carson and Leopold.” --Newsday
“Safina’s got a scientist’s eye and a boxer’s knockout punch.” --The Providence Journal
“Mr Safina’s writing moves easily from revelatory observation sparked by a flash of bird or splash of fish to passionate, lyrical philosophy. He rails against the concept of growth-based development. He tears into Adam Smith’s thoughts on the benefits of selfishness and argues that defending dirty energy is as morally bankrupt as defending slavery. Mr Safina rubs away at the chalk circle that 19th-century thinkers drew around humanity to separate it from the natural world.” --The Economist
“I was flat-out blown away. This thing is a great glittering gem of a book, certainly the first immortal work of popular natural history of the 21st century. It was a thrill and an honor to read. And when I finished I felt young again and full of lightning.” --Steve Donoghue, Managing Editor, Open Letters Monthly
“This book is beautifully written, elegiac and insistent—a very necessary read.” --Sheryl Cotleur, Book Passage booksellers, Corte Madera. Ca.
“Few have done more for the world's oceans than Carl Safina…Now he's back with what might be his best book yet.” --Outside magazine
May 31, 2022
I really like this book. Reminded me of The Sand County Almanac, but modern day and the coastal version. It is a slower read, but very educational.
March 28, 2012
This is among the best works of nonfiction I've ever read. The author is a biologist whose narrative history of one year encompasses three things: his home in Lazy Point (a sea side community on Long Island), his travels around the globe (to South America, to Alaska, to the Arctic Circle, to Micronesia, and to Antarctica), and his thoughts on man's relationship with the natural world. Mr. Safina is not only a knowledgeable scientist, he is a gifted writer, and the combination makes The View From Lazy Point a true work of literary nonfiction.
During the winter of 2010-2011, I was busily shoveling out from snow storm number 73. The snow was so deep that it appeared blue to me as I shoveled it; the sun was going down and the first stars were coming out. All was quiet and peaceful; cold and still. I was struck, at that moment, by how utterly beautiful the world is, and I wished I could somehow capture what I was seeing in feeling, but the words elude me still. Right about then, a podcast I has been listening to went into an interview with the author, and as he read a few sample pages from his work, I knew that there was some synchronicity at play. It was one of those moments when things seem to line up just right.
Carl Safina, in his book, manages to capture the startling, sometimes savage, sometimes sublime soul of our world. He sees it in the birds and fish that he so loves, in the seasons and the landscapes of places so many people would describe as barren or deserted. He writes about the world as he sees it with love and reverence, and while the author describes himself as being secular, one can't help but sense a feeling of transcendence in his words that borders on the sacred. This book describes holiness. There's no other way to put it.
Along with his riveting accounts of the often times struggling existence of animals, fish, and plants in our changing world, Mr. Safina's ruminations on man's place on our planet were most insightful. Have you ever read a book that puts into words things you've struggled to articulate in your own mind? Inchoate ideas, whispers of discernment, shadows of understanding, glimpses of truths that elude you? In this book, I found a voice for many of the things that have troubled my thoughts over these past few years with regard to our planet and the changes it is undergoing. I am not claiming half of the mind or ideas of the author as my own; the man is brilliant. I am saying that Mr. Safina's observations about humanity and our environment made clear things I had only glimpsed before. It was a powerful experience for me. The term 'enlightening' comes to mind, in the truest sense that I feel enlightened. Like, Buddha enlightened.
So yeah. Loved it. Wrote all over it. I'm going to suggest this to friends who I know will both enjoy it and benefit from it. Marvelous book. A life changer, a mind expander, a soul enricher. Good, good stuff.
During the winter of 2010-2011, I was busily shoveling out from snow storm number 73. The snow was so deep that it appeared blue to me as I shoveled it; the sun was going down and the first stars were coming out. All was quiet and peaceful; cold and still. I was struck, at that moment, by how utterly beautiful the world is, and I wished I could somehow capture what I was seeing in feeling, but the words elude me still. Right about then, a podcast I has been listening to went into an interview with the author, and as he read a few sample pages from his work, I knew that there was some synchronicity at play. It was one of those moments when things seem to line up just right.
Carl Safina, in his book, manages to capture the startling, sometimes savage, sometimes sublime soul of our world. He sees it in the birds and fish that he so loves, in the seasons and the landscapes of places so many people would describe as barren or deserted. He writes about the world as he sees it with love and reverence, and while the author describes himself as being secular, one can't help but sense a feeling of transcendence in his words that borders on the sacred. This book describes holiness. There's no other way to put it.
Along with his riveting accounts of the often times struggling existence of animals, fish, and plants in our changing world, Mr. Safina's ruminations on man's place on our planet were most insightful. Have you ever read a book that puts into words things you've struggled to articulate in your own mind? Inchoate ideas, whispers of discernment, shadows of understanding, glimpses of truths that elude you? In this book, I found a voice for many of the things that have troubled my thoughts over these past few years with regard to our planet and the changes it is undergoing. I am not claiming half of the mind or ideas of the author as my own; the man is brilliant. I am saying that Mr. Safina's observations about humanity and our environment made clear things I had only glimpsed before. It was a powerful experience for me. The term 'enlightening' comes to mind, in the truest sense that I feel enlightened. Like, Buddha enlightened.
So yeah. Loved it. Wrote all over it. I'm going to suggest this to friends who I know will both enjoy it and benefit from it. Marvelous book. A life changer, a mind expander, a soul enricher. Good, good stuff.
September 19, 2012
This book is written beautifully and the descriptions of the natural world are breathtaking. It is written by an ecologist very concerned with the state of our world right now, and what we are doing to basically, ruin it. He sounds a warning bell that is clearly articulated and gives examples from real life that makes it ring even truer, but , although he states that without our immediate action the world is going to suffer, and suffer badly-not just the flora and fauna, but the people who live here now and in the future. He wants us to think about the kind of world we are creating and leaving for the unborn generations, or even those who now will inherit the damage we are wreaking, ie our children, and grandchildren and begs us to consider them, and as some native american tribes do "unto the 7th generation". If we do not, it will be on our heads and it will be our legacy to be known as the ones who lead to earth's downfall - and even, perhaps our extinction.
Despite all this he does sound a hopeful note through out declaring that it is not too late, and indeed, we can change the environment and recover from the disasters we are seeing and have seen He believes in regeneration and recovery but only if effort and awareness are put into the mix. I myself, am not as hopeful that we supposedly most intelligent creatures on earth, will do the needed actions and make the needed sacrifices.
The one jarring note for me while reading this book, and I have to admit it distracted me all the way through, was the cognitive dissonance he created, for me at least, between his beautiful descriptions and lyrical prose, and almost magical way of looking at the natural world, by the glee and delight he also takes in killing some of these beautiful wonders, most notably his descriptions of fishing, killing fish and sharks and so on . He does this after talking about "looking into their eyes" and seeing, well something akin to souls for lack of better word, and goes on to describe how he reels them in, etc...and then how he skins, guts, and cooks etc...them. To me this just doesn't jib with loving them. Maybe that is just me. However, I do have to say it disturbed me a great deal.
Nevertheless it is well worth spending time with this man and the "natural year in an unnatural world., and I think I may seek out other books he has written and check them out as well.
Despite all this he does sound a hopeful note through out declaring that it is not too late, and indeed, we can change the environment and recover from the disasters we are seeing and have seen He believes in regeneration and recovery but only if effort and awareness are put into the mix. I myself, am not as hopeful that we supposedly most intelligent creatures on earth, will do the needed actions and make the needed sacrifices.
The one jarring note for me while reading this book, and I have to admit it distracted me all the way through, was the cognitive dissonance he created, for me at least, between his beautiful descriptions and lyrical prose, and almost magical way of looking at the natural world, by the glee and delight he also takes in killing some of these beautiful wonders, most notably his descriptions of fishing, killing fish and sharks and so on . He does this after talking about "looking into their eyes" and seeing, well something akin to souls for lack of better word, and goes on to describe how he reels them in, etc...and then how he skins, guts, and cooks etc...them. To me this just doesn't jib with loving them. Maybe that is just me. However, I do have to say it disturbed me a great deal.
Nevertheless it is well worth spending time with this man and the "natural year in an unnatural world., and I think I may seek out other books he has written and check them out as well.
Want to read
March 9, 2011Lazy Point is a “flat peninsula of scrubby pines between the Sound and the bay,” a “place of real power” on a wild swath of Long Island, where ecologist and ocean advocate Safina lives, avidly observing terns, sea ducks, and other shorebirds, as well as bluefish and horseshoe crabs. From his home base, this celebrated scientist and activist travels to places where the impact of climate change and environmental abuse is starkly evident. With the spiral of a year as his structure and with what Einstein termed the “circle of compassion” as his moral compass, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow Safina illuminates the wondrous intricacy and interconnectedness of life in a book of beautifully modulated patterns and gracefully stated imperatives. Safina’s exacting descriptions of coral reefs and polar bears, the acidification of the oceans and melting glaciers are matched by bold observations regarding the consequences of our failure to incorporate knowledge of how nature, the original network, actually works into our now dangerously inadequate economic systems and social institutions. Emphasizing the fact that where nature is most abused, so, too, are human rights, Safina argues that we must renew the social contract, free ourselves from the politics of greed, and embrace the facts about the still thriving yet endangered, immeasurably precious living world.
March 28, 2013
I actually read this book last January and loved it. I can't believe I forgot to write a review! The View From Lazy Point is my choice for the 2012 Cremin Award for the Best Freaking Book I Read All Year.
Mr. Safina is a marine biologist who writes lyrical, haunting prose. The author writes about science the way poets write about love: with great depth, and beauty, and imagination. Mr. Safina took a year to travel the world and observe the changes being wrought by climate change. He begins his story in Lazy Point, NY, on Long Island where he lives. His descriptions of life in the ocean, and the intricate dance of sunlight, plankton, fish, birds, and mammals reads like a Shakespearean sonnet. Mixed in with excellent, clear science writing is wisdom: observations about mankind's relationship to the natural world, and our intellectual paradigms that provide a mental operating system for our thinking.
I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. Along with excellent writing, the author actually helped to change my thinking about a great many things.
(Note: March 28th, 2013: I actually DID review this book already! Here is the second link: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....
Mr. Safina, we here at the Cremin Book Awards salute you. Well done.
Mr. Safina is a marine biologist who writes lyrical, haunting prose. The author writes about science the way poets write about love: with great depth, and beauty, and imagination. Mr. Safina took a year to travel the world and observe the changes being wrought by climate change. He begins his story in Lazy Point, NY, on Long Island where he lives. His descriptions of life in the ocean, and the intricate dance of sunlight, plankton, fish, birds, and mammals reads like a Shakespearean sonnet. Mixed in with excellent, clear science writing is wisdom: observations about mankind's relationship to the natural world, and our intellectual paradigms that provide a mental operating system for our thinking.
I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. Along with excellent writing, the author actually helped to change my thinking about a great many things.
(Note: March 28th, 2013: I actually DID review this book already! Here is the second link: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....
Mr. Safina, we here at the Cremin Book Awards salute you. Well done.
August 8, 2016
Without question, one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long, long time. Heard him interviewed on NPR and immediately downloaded to my Kindle. This book follows him around the world, exploring what is happening right now to oceans, ice flows, rivers, forests ....habitat all around us. He interviews scientists who are investigating whether or not the planet can recover from what we're doing to it and if so, what to do and how long it will take. At the same time, he chronicles the changes on his little piece of Long Island, NY...the tension between working class people (especially fishermen) and those who are trying to preserve habitat and species for our future consumption. He, like some others I've read recently, gets into the need to deeply reform our economic systems and veer from corporatism if we are to build sustainable societies.
He has a lyrical style that paints an amazing picture of our world and the people in it. Great line drawings in this book as well. One of the few books I could read again.
He has a lyrical style that paints an amazing picture of our world and the people in it. Great line drawings in this book as well. One of the few books I could read again.
December 30, 2012
In a single year, the author covers our most periled environments, from barrier reefs to wetlands to both polar regions, and he recounts the damage done and the consequences of human disregard. The best passages are those describing his walks along a Long Island beach with his beloved dog. Safina writes evocatively of his observations and it's as if you're there walking alongside him and seeing what he sees. How could one man know so many bird species!
There are a few moments of low-key preachiness, which have probably given his critics cause to dismiss all that he says, but they don't diminish his message: that while nature has an awesome ability to recover and endure, we're quickly running out of time to fix what we've so badly mismanaged.
The most frightening statistic that I am able to remember is that 300 million people live at a sea level of 1 meter or less, and that sea level will rise by 1 meter within 10 years. People are already being relocated from Micronesia. Too sad for words.
There are a few moments of low-key preachiness, which have probably given his critics cause to dismiss all that he says, but they don't diminish his message: that while nature has an awesome ability to recover and endure, we're quickly running out of time to fix what we've so badly mismanaged.
The most frightening statistic that I am able to remember is that 300 million people live at a sea level of 1 meter or less, and that sea level will rise by 1 meter within 10 years. People are already being relocated from Micronesia. Too sad for words.
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