Oceans: The Threats to Our Seas and What You Can Do to Turn the Tide (Participant Guide)
In this companion to the Disney movie Oceans, released in April 2010, the editor candidly writes that jolting readers into environmental activism is his purpose. Credible for this task due to his stature as a documentary film producer and author (Birthplace of the Winds, 2001), Bowermaster enlisted dozens of contributors who, in several pages apiece, address particular environmental problems of the oceans. Equal in their advocacy of urgency, they are quite unequal in expository quality. Renowned for his works on marine biology, writer Richard Ellis observes the plight of bluefin tuna with his usual cogency and depth; alas, actor Leonardo DiCaprio's superficial save-the-planet thoughts barely buoy a sentence, let alone a paragraph. Between their extremes of compositional ability range most of Bowermaster's recruits. Some are professional oceanographers; others are nonscientific activists who express their advocacy in avocations for rowing, sailing, swimming, or fishing; one battler accosts Japanese whalers on the high seas; and one advances the blue agenda as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Bowermaster concludes with contact information to environmental organizations for motivated readers. --Gilbert Taylor