Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change | 
 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 37601
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 1596911301
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.73874
EAN: 9781596911307
ASIN: 1596911301
Publication Date: December 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Also Available In:
| • | Audio CD - Field Notes From a Catastrophe - Man, Nature, and Climate Change | | • | Hardcover - Field Notes from a Catastrophe | | • | Paperback - Field Notes from a Catastrophe | | • | Hardcover - Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change | | • | Paperback - Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change | | • | Audio Download - Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (Unabridged) | | • | Hardcover - Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change |
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Product Description
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 the New 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 Catastrophe is the book to read on the defining issue and greatest challenge of our times.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
 Good overview November 25, 2008
I am giving this book 5 stars, not because I think it's the best book on global warming, or even the most complete, but because it is a good overview that is readable in one or two sittings. Many of the annecdotes and examples in this book can be found in other books on the same topic, but this one does a good job of bringing together some important ones. Besides the evidence on global warming and the discussion of where we stand, two things jumped out at me about this book. The first one was the fact that the author traveled all over the world and not only interviewed some key players, but also actually spent time with many of them in the field tagging along and helping out on the research. The other thing that struck me was how the author included interviews and little biographical details about some researchers who have been working on this issue. You get to see a little bit of what guys like Jim Hansen are like. One of the constants among skeptics of global warming is their tendancy to downplay the research and the researchers and try to create the impression that it's all a big hoax by people who are politically-minded and who are just out for grant money. Nothing could be farther from the truth in most cases, and books like this tend to show how outlandish such suggestions actually are. The community of scientists who have been working on this issue include people who have been at it for many decades and who are well-respected. The work they do is painstaking and clear in its conclusions. The author chooses a number of interesting examples, but as she points out, she could have chosen others with different details, and the basic story would be the same. This is a fine book to start with if you are interesting in what global warming is all about and want something that is easy to get through.
I was not an environmentalist. Now I am. August 12, 2008
This book will change the way you look at your impact on the world. Whether you consider the environment to be an important issue or not, it is well worth your time to read this short yet powerful book. The world is changing, fast, and it is becoming impossible to reasonably deny that fact. News reports are consistent: the world is warming faster than expected, and the results are found everywhere we look. More powerful hurricanes, ancient glaciers melting, ice caps shriveling, animals extinct and behaviors changing, more powerful storms and floods, longer droughts, incredible fire seasons. These are the signs of a changing climate.
In her Field Notes, Elizabeth Kolbert carefully walks the uninitiated through the spin and bias commonly found when discussing climate change, and sticks with the facts. Though she begins with anecdotal evidence, the claims stack one upon another to create a neat picture, one which clearly shows the many different impacts the warming climate has already made. She quickly reviews other data, from studies which cover a broader scope, but it's the anecdotes--people watching ancient glaciers in their backyards melting away--that will leave an impact and understanding. We are already experiencing the effects of global warming, and those effects will only become more pronounced as we continue down this dangerous path.
My one complaint with this book is that it leaves you with little guidance on what the reader can do to help. What steps can we each take to lessen our impact on the planet?
While "Top 10" lists of steps to lower your CO2 emissions are common online and in print, it takes more than a switch to CFLs or a hybrid car to really make a difference. It takes a conscious effort to reduce, conserve, reuse. Energy efficiency is more than switching one inefficient device for a more efficient one. These steps help, but more is necessary to reduce, if not reverse, the damage that will be done over the coming decades. It's time to consider alternatives. Instead of air conditioning in the spring or fall, why not open a window and use a ceiling or desk fan? Instead of buying that hybrid car you've been eying, why not keep your current car and start bicycling for all trips within 3-4 miles? Turn off your computers at night! Keep your tires inflated to the proper PSI, and your engine properly tuned! Buy less meat (the average American eats far too much as it is) and buy more local produce. These are some real steps, among many more, that you can take to reduce your negative impact on the environment. We do not have to turn back the industrial clock 100 years to reduce our impact on the environment...we only need to be more efficient in how we use the new technologies of the last century. In time, new developments such as renewable energy will catch up with the problem of global warming, but it's up to us to ensure the impact of our current lifestyle does not leave an unnecessary burden for future generations.
Excellent August 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book came to us in very good condition and earlier than we expected. Thanks!!
a mind opener July 24, 2008
My grandson mentioned this fascinating and informative book which was a must read for incoming freshman last year at Tulane. I was so impressed when I read it that I have been giving and recommending it for high school graduation gifts.
 Poetry when we need science July 16, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is another famous book on global warming. It is not as lightweight as Al Gore's book, which is basically a rock video put down on paper. This book is a series of stories and vigenttes. It certainly reads easily. Kolbert is a talented writer, and has produced a very easy to read book.
But this is not really a subject where we need more easy to read books. Kolbert's underlying assumptions are the same as Al Gore's. First, global warming is an absolute fact, it is caused by human CO2 emissions and, if we do not stop it, life as we know it will come to an end. Second, the reason that we do not act to stop this danger is that people are idiots, who can not understand science. So, if we talk real slow, and have lots of pictures, maybe we can teach these idiots to save themselves.
Kolbert does not go to Gore's coffee-table extremes. While she does not have any honest to goodness footnotes, she does actually cite us to eight pages of sources at the end. If Gore's book is basically a comic book, her book is about the level one would expect in a middle-brow monthly magazine. It is serious, but not very.
Here is the problem, Al and Ms. Kolbert. Many of us are not persuaded that the world is coming to an end. Many of us would like to see hard, well-reasoned science on the subject. Many of us would like to see the thoughts of skeptics taken seriously instead of brushed aside or mocked. This book does none of those things. It basically tells a bunch of stories, and makes no effort to make a serious, sustained and logical argument. It is possible that Gore and Kolbert are right, but it is going to take a much more serious scientific argument to persuade me.
I am less persuaded then I might be, because, even with my scanty knowledge on the issue, I can see her consciously tilting the evidence her way. Example. At one point, she talks about Greenland. She gives us a very short history of Greenland, noting that there were Norse settlers there for 400 years, who "scraped" out a living and then just kind of disappeared for reasons that Kolbert does not attempt to explain. These Norse settlements were founded at the height of the Medieval Warming -- when conditions were fairly nice -- and they died out due to the Little Ice Age, when it got so cold they could not survive. Kolbert knows that, because she refers to both the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age at other parts of the book.
BUT she also knows that issues are very controversial. Those who argue for the global warming thesis support their view by arguing that it is much warmer now than it has been for a very long time. Skeptics counter, by pointing to the existence of the Medieval Warming period, among other times. Thus, supporters of the global warming theory have recently taken to either denying that the Medieval Warming period occurred, or seeking to minimize it in some way.
So, by very carefully not mentioning the climatic reasons why the Norse colony on Greenland died out, Kolbert is consciously slanting her evidence to support her theory. Again, this does not prove that she is wrong. It does, however, prove that you can not trust her to present the facts in an unbiased manner.
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