Book Review: Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change” was published in 2006, and it’s been on my to-read list since Bootstrap Analysis reviewed it in April of that year. Last winter at AGU, I finally procured my own copy, and I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed the book by the time my plane touched down. Now I finally have an excuse to add my own review to the chorus of praises for the book.
Though the scientific story of anthropogenic global warming is familiar to many of us, Kolbert’s book is still an excellent read. And for those unfamiliar with the causes and consequences of on-going climate change, Kolbert’s book is an essential read. I dare you to read this beautifully written book and not find yourself wandering around the house, book in hand, unplugging electronics and turning off lights.
In the first part of the book, the book focuses on the on-going and projected impacts of climate warming on natural systems – glaciers, permafrost, butterflies, and toads. The author provides just enough clearly-explained scientific details to make sure that all of her readers can appreciate the profound consequences of global warming. In the second part of the book, Kolbert focuses on the consequences of climate change for our species. One of the most memorable chapters of the book chronicles the Dutch attempts to deal with rising sea levels in their low-lying country by reclaiming farmlands for floodplains and even building floating houses.
One of the things I like most about this book, other than the beautiful writing, is that Kolbert spends a signficant amount of space taking her readers through the options we have for mitigating climate change – everything from the Dutch floating houses, to giant solar panels in space, and the idea of stabilization wedges. She doesn’t pretend it will be easy to avoid the on-coming catastrophe, but she doesn’t adopt a fatalistic attitude either. Kolbert takes us to Burlington, Vermont, where voluntary local actions, spearheaded by an energetic mayor, have succeeded in reducing the city’s energy usage by 1% over a 16 year period, while the rest of the state’s usage has increased 15%. But a few pages later, Kolbert reminds us of that China plants to build 150 new 1000 megawatt coal-fired power plants by 2010. Clearly, changing the global emissions trajectory cannot just be the responsibility of individual actions in liberal, well-off communities.
My only gripe with the book is a minor one. The chapter called “The Day after Kyoto” already feels a bit dated and clearly a product of its time – contemporaneously with Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This chapter details the Bush administration’s and others’ efforts to to sabotage international attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to create doubts in the public mind as to the scientific consensus around human-influence climate change. While such chronicling of political misdeeds is certainly important, I felt like this chapter could turn off the very audience this book should be trying to reach – those who haven’t quite made up their mind as to whether climate change is serious and whether we have anything to do with it. Elsewhere I’ve read that such people make up about 1/3 of the US adult population.
Overall though, Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Field Notes from a Catastrophe” is a compelling and evocative reminder of the impacts of anthropogenic global warming on nature and humans. Next on my list to read is Dianne Dumanoski’s “The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth.” That seems like an appropriate title to begin on this Labor Day back-to-school holiday, but Dumanoski has a tall order to stack up against the joy to read of Field Notes from a Catastrophe.