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A Road Running Southward
Following John Muir's Journey through an Endangered Land
by Dan Chapman
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Kentucky southward to Florida. One hundred and fifty years later, on a similar whim, veteran Atlanta reporter Dan Chapman, distressed by sprawl-driven environmental ills in a region he loves, recreated Muir's journey to see for himself how nature has fared since Muir's time. Channeling Muir, he uses humor, keen observation, and a deep love of place to celebrate the South's natural riches. But he laments that a treasured way of life for generations of Southerners is endangered as long-simmering struggles intensify over misused and dwindling resources. Chapman seeks to discover how Southerners might balance surging population growth with protecting the natural beauty Muir found so special.
Each chapter touches upon a local ecological problem—at-risk species in Mammoth Cave, coal ash in Kingston, Tennessee, climate change in the Nantahala National Forest, water wars in Georgia, aquifer depletion in Florida—that resonates across the South. Chapman delves into the region's natural history, moving between John Muir's vivid descriptions of a lush botanical paradise and the myriad environmental problems facing the South today. Along the way he talks to locals with deep ties to the land—scientists, hunters, politicians, and even a Muir impersonator—who describe the changes they've witnessed and what it will take to accommodate a fast-growing population without destroying the natural beauty and a cherished connection to nature.
A Road Running Southward is part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur, and paints a picture of a South under siege. It is a passionate appeal, a call to action to save one of the loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world by understanding what we have to lose if we do nothing.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 26, 2022 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781642831955
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781642831955
- File size: 1753 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 1, 2022
Tracing naturalist John Muir's 1867 walk from Kentucky to Florida, a journalist despairs of environmental ills and fears for the future of the wild, biodiverse South. Chapman starts in Louisville, where Muir's lushly leafy oak forests have given way to suburban sprawl. In Tennessee he chronicles coal-ash pollution; in Georgia, water-use litigation, riparian degradation, and coastal flooding. Florida, the "flowery Canaan" sought by Muir, is paving its wilderness and squandering its freshwater aquifers. A veteran Atlanta reporter (currently with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), Chapman offers a lucid feature-story narrative with a splash of gonzo. He sleeps rough in Savannah's storied Bonaventure Cemetery, where Muir had an epiphany about his life's work and contracted malaria. But it's modern-day worries about "environmental carnage," not mosquitoes, that haunt Chapman. Despite a few glimmers of hope--rebounding oyster beds, an Ossabaw Island marksman saving turtles by shooting feral hogs--the prognosis is grim. Chapman may be following Muir's footprints, but as a work of environmental consciousness-raising, this book's true inspiration may be Rachel Carson.COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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