Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Climate Change - Is Time Running Out? [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

One never ceases to marvel at the consistent way in which we humans seem to be lunging headlong into the ecological abyss. In this wonderful new book by former New York Times reporter Elizabeth Kolbert, the reader is whisked away into a series of field trips into the myriad of places across the globe where the increasing evidence of approaching disaster is being observed, discussed, and reacted to in ways that has to give the reader pause. Eskimos are abandoning a small island in the Artic Ocean even as the surrounding ice cap that once protected from wind and storm damage melts into oblivion as a direct result of the Greenhouse Effect.

Kolbert offer us poignant glimpses at humans forced to confront ugly truths about the nature of the Anthropocene era, that is, that so-far limited expanse of time that humans have inhabited the earth. Presented with the bulk of the evidence, it is hard for an objective intellect to escape the distinct possibility that as a species we seem to be hell-bent on self-destruction. Indeed, the breadth and scope of the manifest effects of climate change on human habitation is breath-taking, affecting societies as far-flung as Netherlands to Siberia, from South Africa to the Great Barrier Reef. She writes wryly about stepping through the looking glass in a conversation with a Washington wonk who attempted to justify the Bush administration's active opposition to both the Kyoto Treaty and any attempt to rework it into a manageable tool to effectively combat the effects of global warming.

It is in such encounters that she discovers her voice and her poignant sense of urgency; if the best educated among us choose to stand in active opposition, what chance is thereto turn this catastrophic change in climate around? Furthermore, in interviewing climate specialists, we discover that the environment is moving rapidly toward disaster, and while there are reasons to hope, there is also reason to view our inaction and our opposition to meaningful global action with alarm. As the former Third World countries like India and China become both more industrial and more consumptive societies, the environment's ability to overcome the cumulative injuries to the earth's biosphere becomes even more difficult to imagine. This book is an easy read, is quite informative, delivered in a reporter's style of succinct and yet comprehensive prose. It does yeoman's service in informing citizens of just how dangerous and calamitous this developing ecological, social, and economic catastrophe truly is. This is a great book, and one I can heartily recommend. Enjoy!

Earlier this year I read The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. It was an excellent book full of scientific explanations to nearly all the questions I had about the issue of climate change. Now I have just finished Field Notes From a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert. It also is an excellent book. In fact, I wish I had read it first - not because it is the better of the two books, but because it is a better introduction to the subject.

Field Notes From A Catastrophe details the author's experiences as she traveled, met, and conversed with several leading authorities of the climate change issue. The first chapters explain some of the negative effects of climate change on nature, while the later chapters deal with how climate change has affected man and civilization in the past, how it will likely affect us in the future, and how political leaders are squandering the last few years we have left to make much of difference - all in order to appease their big-time cash contributors.

The author excels in letting experts in the field tell the story for her. For example, in explaining the devastating consequence of modest, but prolonged, local climate change to an ancient middle-eastern civilization the leading paleo-climatologist to study the case says, "The thing they couldn't prepare for was the same thing that we won't prepare for, because in their case they didn't know about it and because in our case the political system can't listen to it. And that is that the climate system has much greater things in store for us than we think."

I highly recommend this book. For more advanced scientific information about climate change many other good books are available (including The Weather Makers), but for an introduction to the subject this one is nearly perfect.

Discussing global climate patterns which are exacerbating weather changes worldwide, Elizabeth Kolbert explains how human-induced global will likely have dire consequences. In the Netherlands, Kolbert explains, construction is under way on buoyant roads and amphibious homes resembling toasters. In Alaska, as myopic politicans insist on drilling for more the last drop of oil, climate change is forcing people to leave their homes and, as Kolbert explains, their ways of life.

This will affect us all, as conflict over basic needs could soon turn the United States into a fully guarded zones, with security personnel staving off millions of migrants from flooded regions. Yet, as Kolbert also notes, the United States is the largest emitter of carbon in the world. Thus, the U.S. population has substantial responsibility for the migrations to come.

This book deserves serious attention, not only as a handbook of facts about climate and geography, but also for its keen interest in what real people are experiencing, right now.

Kolbert foresees widespread and dire consequences, yet interviews an expert who retains some hope that we could still avert utter disaster. In that sense, there's an element of activism to this book -- although Kolbert's sense of doom is quite clear by the book's conclusion. We're selfish, says this book, and it's killing us.

So what should our response be? Carbon emissions are more dangerous due to the increasing lack of forests, which we tear down for cities and rangeland. Methane is second to carbon dioxide in its warming potential; it accounts for 9 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with more than twenty times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. It's generated during cows' digestion processes, as well as by the consumption of oil and gas in animal processing.

As agribusiness is the prime culprit behind the loss of the forests needed to absorb greenhouse gas, we can do something today, literally, by changing to a plant-based cooking style. (I've co-authored a recent book, available elsewhere on this site, which can be of benefit in this way -- I derive no personal benefit from this non-profit project -- called Dining With Friends: The Art of North American Vegan Cuisine.) Truly, if its message is taken to heart, Kolbert's book should be sold together with a vegetarian cookbook.

Kolbert's work also suggests that China will overtake the U.S. as the carbon-emitting leader in just two decades. Yes, China should ensure future reliance on low-emission technology. But again, a big part of this is lifestyle. Ironically, the case of China presents a situation where ideas of western affluence are resulting in the heavy promotion of more and more animal products.

Readers are advised to put two and two together, and not wait for the commander-in-chief to see the light from a Texas ranch. As for global disaster, that would definitely "bring it on."