Rocky Mountain Books is pleased to announce that Our Vanishing Glaciers: The Snows of Yesteryear and the Future Climate of the Mountain West (RMB, 2017) by Robert William Sandford has won the 2017 Lane Anderson Award for science writing.
Our Vanishing Glaciers chronicles the history of Canada’s western mountain glaciers through stunning photography, personal reflection and the most recent scientific research. Written by one of the most respected experts in water and water-related climate science, and featuring stunning photography collected over the past four decades, Our Vanishing Glaciers explains and illustrates why water is such a unique substance and how it makes life on this planet possible.
“There has probably never been a time in history when making science understandable to a vastly diverse public has been more important,” says Sandford. “We are also at a bottleneck in the evolutionary history of our species where failing to understand and act appropriately on what we know, could have devastating impacts on future generations and potentially catastrophic effects on Earth system function for the rest of time.”
“This book is about hope,” Sandford added. “Not just wishful thinking – but the genuine hope we can have if we pay attention to what we know and act on that knowledge in the service of creating a better world and a more secure future for all who come after us. For that is what science is meant to do.”
Robert William Sandford is the EPCOR Chair for Water and Climate Security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. He is the co-author of the UN Water in the World We Want report on post-2015 global sustainable development goals relating to water. He is also the author of some 30 books on the history, heritage and landscape of the Canadian Rockies. Sandford lives in Canmore, Alberta.
The Lane Anderson Award – created by the Fitzhenry Family Foundation – honours the very best science writing in Canada today, in both the adult and the young reader categories. The winner in each category receives $10,000.