Field Notes From a Catastrophe

Man, Nature and Climate Change

By: Elizabeth Kolbert

Narrated by: Hope Davis

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 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 future of life on earth for generations to come.

Taking listeners from the melting Alaskan permafrost to storm-torn New Orleans, acclaimed journalist Elizabeth Kolbert approaches this monumental problem from every angle. She interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science, draws frightening parallels to lost civilizations and presents the moving tales of people who are watching their worlds disappear. Growing out of an award-winning 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 to save our planet.©2006 Elizabeth Kolbert. All rights reserved; (P)2006 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"A Silent Spring for our time."-T.C. Boyle

"Kolbert's calmly persuasive reposting stands out for its sobering clarity ...This unbiased overview is a model for writing about an urgent environmental crisis."
-Publishers Weekly (starred reveiw)

more people should read this

really informative and easy to follow. good narration. opened my eyes even more to some of the politics of climate change.

A must read for everyone!

The author knows how to write and to convey information without patronizing the audience - she is about information (draw your own conclusions). The book also does not fall into the statistics trap.

Without hesitation an excellent (albeit frightning) resource on climate change and it's consequences.

Reader is also perfectly suited.

informational but slow.

informational but slow and drawn out. had to read for my college environmental history class.

Excellent

Hard to believe we can know this much, and yet do so little to correct things for future generations.
A well told story. Easy to understand. Sometimes a little funny which is necessary to keep you from weeping for the future lives of our children.

As relevant now as in 2010

While it may seem a bit disheartening to realize how little we’ve done since 2010 to change the amount of CO2 we emit, at least we have started to ramp up the amount of solar and wind energy that we use.

In the time since this book was written, coal has become used less and less here in the United States, because wind and solar have become cheaper to bring online than coal.

Also, the electrification of cars, such as the Tesla, has become a widespread phenomenon.

Wow, we have had the hottest years recorded in just the last couple of years. It is a bit disheartening that certain political groups are still pushing. The climate change is not a man-made phenomena.

This book does an excellent job of balancing between being educational, without going into climate doomerism. The adventure stories of those who go to the ends of the Earth to obtain data about the climate and about the climate of days past captured in ancient ice, and rock keeps the listener engaged.

This book is is as essential now as it was in 2010, if not more so. An excellent read and well worth recommending.