While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change

by M. Jackson, Bill McKibben (Foreword)

While Glaciers Slept weaves together the parallel stories of what happens when the climates of a family and a planet change. Dr. M Jackson reveals how these events are deeply intertwined, and how the deterioration of her parents’ health was as devastating as the inexorable changing of Earth’s climate. Nonetheless, the book shows that even in the darkest of times we cannot lose hope. Dr. Jackson guides us to solar, wind, and geothermal solutions, bringing us along on her expeditions to research climate change and to educate people about how to stop it. Scientists are continually looking for better ways to translate hard science into human language and that is precisely what this book does. Climate change, she convinces us, is not just about science—it is also about the audacity of human courage and imagination.

Genres: Nonfiction, Climate Change, Memoir, Environment, Nature, Read For School, Biography

232 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2015

About the author

M Jackson is an adventurer and environmental educator pursuing a Ph.D. in geography and Earth science at the University of Oregon, where she is researching glaciers and climate change in the Arctic. M is the recipient of a 2015-2016 Fulbright-NSF Arctic Research Grant. A veteran U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Turkey and Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia, M holds a Masters of Science degree from the University of Montana, where she focused on climate change and Alaskan glaciers.

Reviews

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I normally don’t count books I read for school but this one was so good I had too. A beautiful and real take on our climate crisis and how to handle it as humans with complex emotions.

[Cherie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fantastic. Fantastic. V gave me this book, and at times, I wish she hadn't. Although my grandmother passed away three months ago, it's so hard. This book reminded me of how hard, and I was in tears in many sections of this book. Jackson is writing two stories - one of the heartbreaking pain of losing both of her parents in mere years, and the other heartbreaking pain of seeing the destruction of the planet. It's an amazing memoir, one of the best I've read in a while.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was describing this book to a friend, and they responded that this sounded like the perfect book for me. Ugh, this was heartbreaking! Spellbinding! Haunting! Mesmerizing! Call it fate that I found it in the library bookstore for approx. $1!

M Jackson is a geographer and glaciologist. I honestly wasn’t expecting much when it came to writing style, but wowie; I was blown out of the water. Jackson does an incredible job of blending together memoir and science. She describes how reading was one of the bonds she had with her mother, and how they would pass books between each other. Her love for reading definitely shows, because it is impossible to write something so reflective, precise, and vivid without being well-read. The love Jackson has for her family runs deep, as does her love for the world. While Glaciers Slept also runs with an extended metaphor, in which Jackson compares the loss of her parents with climate change; both seem so big and impossible but are the reality she’s living with. And yet, while grief looms large in this book, Jackson also manages to capture so much wonder and hope. Truly a book that ticks all the boxes for me.

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To this day, I am not sure whether I am evolved enough to understand adequately the enormity of my mother's death, or of climate change. But I am trying, every second. I am imagining, and I am walking into a future ever so dark and uncertain and unknown, with my hands reaching out for meaning, for understanding, for a way forward every day."

Beautiful writing. Quiet, reflective, loving and encouraging without being chipper. I am a glaciologist and I avoided this for a while, fearing it would be too much like work in my leisure time. Now that I've read it, I can see that was silly. The book touches on glacier stories, but the subtitle tells it: it's about being human, and being human in this changing climate. Highly recommend.

[Diana Von · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourites -

[Rachel Fagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science writing, memoir, poetry, essay, all and none and better. On the shelf with Annie Dillard's Teaching A Stone To Speak. Extraordinary.

[Tim Weed · Rating 5 out of 5]

An affecting memoir of personal grief blended with interesting scientific detail and acute, defamiliarized observations of nature, particularly having to do with but not limited to glaciers. All of it told in M Jackson’s quirky, funny, intelligent voice. Jackson has a unique way of seeing the world, and the reader is immeasurably enriched by borrowing her eyes and ears for a time. Because, make no mistake: this woman can write.

In sum, this is a memoir to keep you company, a book to reread and refer to when you need reassurance and companionship in difficult times. Let’s stick together, is the overall message. We’ll either get through this unified, with a new kind of mentality that involves a more thoughtful collaboration with the other species with whom we share this planet, or we won’t get through it at all.

[Gillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

M. Jackson's pooling the similarities between the death of her parents and the climate change challenge we now face is haunting, jarring and eloquently beautiful. M. Jackson gives vivid pictures of her travels, expeditions and work as a scientist. The stories weave in her past as a teenager and life with her parents growing up. She gives clear and poignant details on the state of climate change and champions readers to wake up to the important task facing us. Part memoir, part science, part empathy and humane based, readers can find bridges between the world they inhabit on a global scale and their everyday lives.

[Swan Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am uncertain if the weaving together of the parallel stories worked as well as the author had hoped. I certainly knew when I was reading one or the other so there was never any confusion. I will have to see how I feel about this as I have some distance from the reading. I did find myself getting impatient with the mourning of her mother. Of course I felt empathy for her pain but it did seem extreme. I continue to grieve for the loss of my best friend in 1998 but it is a layered process and at this point in my life I wear the grief like breath, easy and smooth.

[Marly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"They'd lived all over the map, traveling north and south in bell-bottomed jeans along twisty roads in unreliable vehicles, searching for a place to believe could be home."

The author writes many more engaging sentences. Often going back to previous scenes to paint a better picture. By the end of the book, all the scenes are beautiful.

Grappling with both her parents death by the time she is 26. She weaves climate change's belief into a reality.

Borrowed from my public libraries digital stacks. It was a coincidence "Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods" by Christine Byl.

[Seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It feels like I'm being told a story by word of mouth, with honest passion and heartbreak standing right in front of me. The intertwining of human and animal life happenings along with those of the glaciers serve not only as metaphors, but directly true comprising between concepts both far away and those right under our noses. This book has inspired to dig deep and learn more, to better appreciate the living being that is Earth, and to color my actions with discipline, passion, and tenderness.

[Sheila Tarbet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this unique book. M Jackson's writing weaves her deeply touching personal and family story with her work on glaciers and climate change. She writes of glaciers and the natural world with such loving detail and passionate care. We come to know her as a deeply committed, honest, caring person living an adventurous and interesting life. This book is very different than others I have read on the climate change topic so far. Bill McKibbon has authored the book's foreword.

[erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent and captivating memoir that links the author's experience of loss alongside her research and love for glaciers. It is heavier on the memoir/personal dimension of the story then it is on the science, but I think that's ok and also what makes the book so readable and accessible. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and finished it in just a few days.

[Alistair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the switching between current & past and interspersing of science and family memoir. Primarily focuses on her struggles with the death of her parents, she juxtaposes internal/personal struggles against climate change and its struggle to recognition and action. Ultimately I was hoping for a more science orientated book so I was a little disappointed.

[Janette Mcmahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book that combines grief, melting glaciers, and climate change all in one book. Jackson's writing on climate change makes you think about where we are headed in the future, while connecting with the reader kn a very human level through talking about her parents deaths. Highly recommend.

[Bibliovoracious · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing memoir layering the author's personal story- the loss of her mother, with the existential crisis that climate change poses - the author is a scientist. A wonderful meld of the personal and global, with a soft, lyrical writing style. Loved it!

[Jennifer]

http://www.yesmagazine.org/climate-in...

[Nightshadequeen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far more a memoir than a book on science.

[Hemendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandatory Read for Everyone!

This book is poetry more than anything else. It gives wings to the reader's imagination. It is poignant and incisive at the same time.

[Stan]

Banff Mountain Book Festival entry