"Chapman describes this book as a journey he takes through the South, following John Muir's little-known southern trek in 1867, "to highlight the environmental issues bedeviling the South today." He follows Muir's route through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Each chapter touches upon a local ecological problem-at-risk species at Mammoth Cave, coal ash in Kingston, Tenn., climate change in the Nantahala, water shortages in Georgia, aquifer depletion in Florida-that resonates across the South. He delves into the ecological history of each region and in "reader-friendly fashion" details its environmental problems and possible solutions. He adds lots of local color and talks to real people as well as scientists. He describes it as part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur. His goal, he says, is to paint a picture of a South under siege whose ecological ills must be addressed. He sees the book not as a polemic but as a call to action to save one of the "loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world.""-- |