192 pages | 7th March, 2006 | Non-fiction | Earth Science
An argument for the urgent danger of global warming in a book that is sure to be as influential as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
Known for her insightful and thought-provoking journalism, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert now tackles the controversial subject of global warming. Americans have been warned since the late nineteen-seventies 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.
In writing that is both clear and unbiased, 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, in an eerie foreshadowing, are watching their worlds disappear. Growing out of a groundbreaking three-part series for the New Yorker, Field Notes from a Catastrophe brings the environment into the consciousness of the American people and asks what, if anything, can be done, and how we can save our planet.
“A small miracle of concision...offer(s) the clearest view yet of the biggest catastrophe we have ever faced.”
Los Angeles Times
“Sober, detailed, and alarming without being alarmist.”
Newsweek
“Gripping, well-written...Kolbert never editorializes, but her message comes through all the louder for her restraint”
Seattle Times
“Passionate...well-researched.”
New York Times Book Review
Elizabeth Kolbert is the bestselling author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, The Sixth Extinction, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and Under a White Sky, which was named a top ten book of the year by The Washington Post. For her work at The New Yorker, where she’s a staff writer, she has received two National Magazine Awards and the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.
US: Bloomsbury