Rain rain go away, Come again another day.
A simple nursery rhyme for a rainy day. It also happens to be a central theme to Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett. We need rain to survive. Too much, too little and either at the wrong time can be devastating.
Ms. Barnett starts out at the solar system level and points out that Earth was not the only planet with water. Mars clearly had water. Venus had water, too. The rest are too far away from the sun or too close to the sun for liquid water. The oceans (or whatever the bodies of water may have been) did not survive on Mars and Venus. Life on earth survived because of the rain, turning the planet blue.
And green. Rain brings plants. Plants convert sunlight to food and provides the energy for life. No rain, no plants, no life.
Rain is not a science book. It’s also not a history book. It drips in the arts with exposition on the influence of rain on music and art. It drips in religion. Ancient civilization put a profound amount of exposition and prayer into keeping the rain gods happy. Ms. Barnett even points out passages in Bible that focus on god’s influence over rain and the life it brings. (e.g. Noah’s ark)
Ms. Barnett’s background is that of an environmental journalist. Rain has large drops of global warming and climate change. She balances the past local weather cycles as experienced during the dust bowl years and settling of the western plains with the current broader trends of global climate trends.
I finished reading Rain while sitting on my front porch during a rain storm. It seemed a fitting perspective. Just last week I barely survived a bike ride in a rainstorm that had turned into the biggest hail storm Boston had seen in 50 years. Rain flooded the streets and hail stones dented car hoods. It also turned my parched lawn greener. I chanted that nursery rhyme while hiding from the pelting of the hail stones under a bridge. It didn’t work.
Rain is inevitable. Rain is unpredictable. Rain, the book, will give you some perspective.
The publisher provided me with a copy of the book in expectation of a review.