In Search of the Canary Tree: The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World

The award-winning and surprisingly hopeful story of one woman's search for resiliency in a warming world

Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment. Eloquent, insightful, and deeply heartening, In Search of the Canary Tree is a case for hope in a warming world.

ISBN-13: 9781541697126

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Basic Books

Publication Date: 11-27-2018

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

Lauren E. Oakes is a conservation scientist and science writer. She has held various appointments at Stanford University over many years, as a researcher, a lecturer, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Earth System Science. Author of In Search of the Canary Tree, she lives in Bozeman, Montana.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Part I The Slow Burn

Introduction 9

Chapter 1 Ghosts and Graveyards 19

Chapter 2 Stand Still 31

Chapter 3 Fear and Forests in a Changing Climate 41

Chapter 4 Solving Puzzles 61

Chapter 5 Countdown 83

Part II Birdsong

Chapter 6 Thrive 99

Chapter 7 Coveted 121

Chapter 8 Apart and a Part 141

Chapter 9 Saturation Point 163

Part III Tomorrow

Chapter 10 Measured and Immeasurable 179

Chapter 11 The Greatest Opportunity 201

Chapter 12 The Sentinels 215

Epilogue 233

Acknowledgments 239

Notes 245

Further Reading 259

Index 263

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