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Description
New Yorker writer Kolbert tackles the controversial subject of global warming. Americans have been warned since the late 1970s that the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere threatens to melt the polar ice sheets and irreversibly change our climate. With little done since then to alter this dangerous course, now is the moment to salvage our future. By the end of the century, the world will likely be hotter than it's been in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the future of life on earth for generations to come. Kolbert approaches this monumental problem from every angle. She travels to the Arctic, interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science and the studies, draws frightening parallels to lost ancient civilizations, unpacks the politics, and presents the personal tales of those who are being affected most--the people who make their homes near the poles and are watching their worlds disappear.--From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
Better than most, a bit more science, much more personal interest (partly i think because the author is female and partly because it began as a series in the NYT). It
Chapter 3, Under the Glacier is both the most interesting and the best written chapter. Her personality and observational abilities both make this an excellent place to start reading and a good introduction to the book. If you are looking for a nice read on the topic of global climate change, this is a suitable and interesting book.
Kolbert takes a journalist's approach to explaining the climate change phenomenon (the book began as a series in the New Yorker). She takes the reader to Shishmaref, Alaska an island village rapidly becoming an untenable place to live due to climate-induced sea ice changes, to the North Slope, to the great Greenland ice shield and she brings the story down to a human scale.
Kolbert also leads the reader through the science of global warming making understandable seemingly arcane topics like "dangerous anthropogenic interference" (DAI), which is basically the point where something truly major goes haywire. Kolbert brings the joy of learning to the reader, until one ponders the potential consequences of what she lays out for us. Perhaps most disturbing is the evidence she marshals that the climate has already changed. For example, the climate has warmed sufficiently to allow numerous butterfly species to migrate to new previously too cold locations and to cause the extinction of certain frog species.
Scientists do not, of course, understand everything about climate change (indeed, it is in the very nature of science that an endpoint of total knowledge is never achieved). Those political and economic forces (primarily in the United States) that benefit from the status quo latch on to the uncertainties to create doubt among the public and forestall action. Her interviews with Bush administration officials strike an odd note - they stonewall with robotic incantations. While Europe and most of industrialized world has acted, the US has dithered, delayed, and denied.
Kolbert explains why scientists conclude that it is virtually certain that under the current `business as usual' approach, greenhouse gas concentrations will reach a level that causes massive coastal flooding, large scale extinctions, and crop failures leading to starvation (DAI). These outcomes will not be evenly distributed and are likely to fall heaviest on the poorest countries. Scientists do not, however, know what level of greenhouse gas concentration will cause these impacts. The Bush administration uses that uncertainty as a reason to do essentially nothing and Congress too has failed to force any action.
Kolbert's book inspires the reader to search out even more current information (NOAA's Arctic Change web site is one good source). And the news is alarming. This stuff is not just a tree hugger's paranoid delusion: global heating is happening, it is happening now, and it is getting worse faster than anticipated.
Kolbert's book is a work of journalism (and given the rapidly changing reality, journalism is probably the best source of information) that informs on both the science and the politics of climate change without stridently hectoring the reader. Kolbert presents the facts. The reader would have to be a dim bulb indeed not to get the picture.
Absolutely the very highest recommendation. Kolbert's Field Notes From a Catastrophe deserves more than 5 stars
I still don't fully understand her inclusion of the demise of Mesopotamian civilization of Akkadians. They suffered loss of fertile and arable land via droughts, heat and sandstorms over a century. Yet, if we are hurtling towards the same fate through coal burning, gas guzzling and tree falling, what did the Akkadians do to suffer the same downfall?
My copy has been marked with margin comments on nearly every page. One thing that became apparent was an occasional quick toss of a bone to "global warming deniers" and acknowledgement of arguments, possibly to suggest plausibility as being evenhanded, but she just as swiftly follows-up with a caveat by order of a counter-argument. This book was not science based, it was written to persuade those who are concerned but maybe not "on the bandwagon" yet. From a sorrowful Native Alaskan and sinking homes in thawing permafrost, to horrified Scandinavian children subjected to public service announcements threatening doom in a deluge of flood water, to awe of Dr. James Hansen and his computer models which take a month of processing to predict the end of the world, Elizabeth Kolbert pleads a case more and more people are believing less and less in.
However this is less depressing than you might expect since I just read [book:The World Without Us] and it seems like even if we don't survive at least the rest of the world will, and it'll probably evolve some interesting new
Also, this book was a more entertaining read than I thought it might be, because apparently climate scientists are FUN GUYS. Perhaps they feel liberated, knowing that it's pretty much the end of the world as we know it.
This is another book that looks at climate change – what humans are doing to cause it, the politics, the science, and what is happening with the climate and our world.
It was good. I think the author presents it in an easy-to-understand way. I will admit to losing focus a few times while