Synopsis
Long known for her insightful and thought-provoking political journalism, author Elizabeth Kolbert now tackles the controversial and increasingly urgent subject of global warming. In what began as groundbreaking three-part series in theNew Yorker, for which she won a National Magazine Award in 2006, Kolbert cuts through the competing rhetoric and political agendas to elucidate for Americans what is really going on with the global environment and asks what, if anything, can be done to save our planet. Now updated and with a new afterword,Field Notes from a Catastropheis the book to read on the defining issue and greatest challenge of our times. Elizabeth Kolbertwas a reporter for theNew York Timesfor fourteen years before becoming a staff writer covering politics for theNew Yorker. She and her husband, John Kleiner, have three sons. They live in Williamstown, MA. An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year 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 path, the world has reached a critical threshold. By the end of the twenty-first century, it will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the course of life on earth for generations to come. In writing that is both clear and unbiased, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert approaches this 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, in the eerie foreshadowing, are watching their worlds disappear. Growing out of a three-part series for theNew Yorker,Field Notes from a Catastrophebrings the environment into the consciousness of the American people and asks what, if anything, can be done to save our planet. "[Elizabeth Kolbert's] research is thorough. She gleaned much of her information from personal interviews and visits to localities around the world. Although she is clearly distressed by the lack of concern of the Bush administration about global warming and climate change, Kolbert tends not to use alarmist language to argue for a particular viewpoint, choosing instead to let her stories and interviews do the talking. That is an effective approach to a topic that could, in less-skilled hands, make for dull reading. And by the end of the book, the reader will have no doubt that the problem is a serious one."—Doug Macdougall,The Chronicle of Higher Education "[Elizabeth Kolbert's] research is thorough. She gleaned much of her information from personal interviews and visits to localities around the world. Although she is clearly distressed by the lack of concern of the Bush administration about global warming and climate change, Kolbert tends not to use alarmist language to argue for a particular viewpoint, choosing instead to let her stories and interviews do the talking. That is an effective approach to a topic that could, in less-skilled hands, make for dull reading. And by the end of the book, the reader will have no doubt that the problem is a serious one."—Doug Macdougall,The Chronicle of Higher Education "The hard, cold, sobering facts about global warming and its effects on the environment that sustains us. Kolbert'sField Notes from a Catastropheis nothing less than aSi