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Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change

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Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change [Abridged] [Audiobook] (Audio CD)

by Elizabeth Kolbert (Author), Hope Davis (Reader)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Audio CD
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (Mar 7 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743555643
ISBN-13: 978-0743555647
Product Dimensions: 15 x 13.2 x 2.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 159 g

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #591,381 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. On the burgeoning shelf of cautionary but occasionally alarmist books warning about the consequences of dramatic climate change, Kolbert's calmly persuasive reporting stands out for its sobering clarity. Expanding on a three-part series for the New Yorker, Kolbert (The Prophet of Love) lets facts rather than polemics tell the story: in essence, it's that Earth is now nearly as warm as it has been at any time in the last 420,000 years and is on the precipice of an unprecedented "climate regime, one with which modern humans have had no prior experience." An inexorable increase in the world's average temperature means that butterflies, which typically restrict themselves to well-defined climate zones, are now flitting where they've never been found before; that nearly every major glacier in the world is melting rapidly; and that the prescient Dutch are already preparing to let rising oceans reclaim some of their land. In her most pointed chapter, Kolbert chides the U.S. for refusing to sign on to the Kyoto Accord. In her most upbeat chapter, Kolbert singles out Burlington, Vt., for its impressive energy-saving campaign, which ought to be a model for the rest of the nation—just as this unbiased overview is a model for writing about an urgent environmental crisis. (Mar. 14)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Montreal Gazette

"If I could, I would give Kolbert's book as a Father's Day present to every father, especially to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush, U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, and every oil company executive on this aching planet--but when you are dealing with closed minds, even a book as explosive as this one cannot blow open the door." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

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4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is time to face up to the real world, Jun 16 2006

By	John W. Warnock "Political economist" (Regina, Saskatchewan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Field Notes From A Catastrophe (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book to give to those you know who are skeptical of the scientific data on climate change. It is written for the average reader, and it focuses on key scientific findings. A warning, however. The data presented by the scientists, combined with the business as usual approach to the crisis, means that we are all in for a shocking future. Or at least our children.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Are you guilty?, April 11 2007

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Field Notes From A Catastrophe (Hardcover)

The "envirosceptic" remains a potent force. It's hard to know if that's merely depressing or downright dangerous. Envirosceptics are enthusiastic gardeners: they root about seeking an attractive seed. Once found, the seed is nurtured and pandered to ceaselessly in the hope that it will bear fruit. Such seeds are numbers. They reflect an "unknown" portion of what we understand about our changing world. While the sceptics would like that seed to become a glorious blossom, it always turns out to be a weed. The sceptics are working enclosed in mental greenhouses. Others are outside finding out how the changes are affecting people and places.

Elizabeth Kolbert is one of the investigators observing changes and asking what they mean. In this book, which is, as the title suggests, a set of "field notes", she relates where she's been and who she's talked with. Her wanderings have enabled her to form a comprehensive image of our warming world. She relates her travels, and travails, in fine style - never pretending to adopt a researcher's role or enhance their findings. Even so, she manages to provide some sense of how they work when she's given tasks while interrogating the scientists about how they do research. Scientists are often sceptical themselves - always about their findings, since that's how science works, but more so about journalists who have an unhappy tendency to massage words. Kolbert isn't one of these and the "field notes" read in a straightforward manner. That doesn't mean "dull", particularly with a topic of such immediate importance to us all - and to our children.

Kolbert first visits the Arctic, an area of high concern to climate scientists. The ice is melting. For the village of Shismaref, that means curtailed hunting. It also means the village is being steadily swept away, taken by the rising ocean. That process is not only evident, it's clear that it's accelerating. Recent reports of Nanooks losing their hunting grounds on the ice don't seem important this far south. The loss, however, means open water instead of ice in the Arctic indicates climate change is occuring more rapidly than previously believed. Going farther east in the North, Kolbert visits the glacier research teams on the Greenland Ice Cap. How fast is that cover melting and what are the implications. "Glacial" is supposed to imply leisurely movement. Today, however, the glaciers are, relatively speaking, galloping. Meltwater at the top is percolating to the bottom, providing lubricant for the mass of ice. "Can the entire ice cap slide into the sea?", Kolbert asks. Elsewhere glaciers are simply shrinking with astonishing speed.

There's more involved here than watching ice act like it's at Indianapolis. The changes are affecting the life around us. The story of the Golden Toad is indicative. This creature, who lived in the mountains of Central America, is gone. We knew it for only thirty years - half a single lifetime. Increasing temperatures drove it up the Costa Rican mountainsides until there was no place left for it to live. Warming air in the tropics has more meaning than simply evicting toads from their usual habitat. The heat raises the ocean's temperature, Kolbert reminds us. For the Western Hemisphere, that means more intense storms. "Katrina", which nearly wiped the city of New Orleans off the map, was an indicator. There won't necessarily be more hurricanes, Kolbert notes, but they will be more vicious. Warming, she reminds us, means heavier rains in some places, but elsewhere it results in droughts.

Kolbert extends her investigation to how people are responding to the threat of climate change. The short answer is: "Not enough!" She relates the attitudes of scientists and politicians to the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol. It was saved, she notes, in spite of two industrialised nations, the United States and Australia opting out. Kolbert's interview with one of the Bush administration's bureaucrats is telling. The quest to find "different approaches" has so far offered no alternative solutions. Certainly, as Kolbert notes, there are no attempts in the United States to place any mandatory caps on emissions or to actively seek alternative energy sources. What these policies are accomplishing is nothing more than camoflage for "Business As Usual". That is, continuing the conditions that created the climate threat in the first place.

For Kolbert, such views ignore the reality and significance of the problems facing us - and our children. Unlike the envirosceptics, researchers studying climate change and its future impacts, aren't trying to pin down "hard numbers". What they study are the trends - and those are alarming, even potentially "catastrophic". As countless studies have indicated, today's climate change is not a "natural phenomenon" as has occured in the past. This time, she warns, we are the major cause, and there is a wealth of information to support that conclusion. Therefore, Kolbert urges, it's up to us to correct the situation. Some places, like our neighbours in the town of Burlington, Vermont, are making some attempts. But it will take more serious action, Kolbert concludes. It's important for us, and it's vital for our children. Will we leave them a world too stressed for them to endure? Is that a form of child abuse we all stand guilty of and should be preventing instead? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

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1 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Oh Great, Even More confusion, April 30 2007

By	Silence Dogood - See all my reviews

This review is from: Field Notes From A Catastrophe (Paperback)

Global Warming and Climate change are so frickin confusing. This book confuses me even more. How can two sides proposing opposite theories be right. I will tell you now, to be honest, that this was a valiant attempt to promote Global Warming Theory. It seemed well though out, and planned. However, The book seems to start with the premise that everything is caused by Global Warming, with only the fact that Global Warming could be a cause. Anyway, Global Warming couldn't cause stronger hurricanes despite increasing temperatures. Such an assertion is based not on science, but simplistic assumptions. Global Warming is a fraud that, if appropriate measures to prevent it were implemented, would result first in world poverty, and then a grand loss of human dignity. Do we ever learn that the media is capable of making a scare (Global Cooling) This is a new cycle of the news media, in which every few decades or so, a theory is proposed to explain some new research, and then it is investigated. Remember that human beings contribute a microscopic amount of Co2 to the world Climate, and that The Global Mean Tempurature, although a valiant attempt to predict climate, is almost (Note almost) worthless. However, it was an enjoyable read, and if you still believe in global warming, than it will make you very happy.

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