Elizabeth Kolbert is a journalist and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Growing out of a groundbreaking three-part series in The New Yorker, Field Notes 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.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 03/21/2010 - 13:44.
Here is the Press Release.
Let Elizabeth Kolbert know what is coming down around here - if she is well informed on local concerns, this should be a fascinating and valuable talk in this venue.
Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert to discuss social responsibility and climate change In celebration of Earth Day, Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the highly acclaimed Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, will give a talk on how environmental changes can be brought into the consciousness of the American people and how we can all contribute to living more sustainably on our planet. Sponsored by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities and the Rose Wohlgemuth Weisman Women's Voices Lecture Fund, this free, public talk begins at 6:00 p.m., April 22, in the Museum of Natural History (please note venue change). Registration for the event is recommended. Field Notes (Bloomsbury USA 2006), an eye-opening analysis of climate change, “lets facts rather than polemics tell the story,” according to a review by Publisher’s Weekly. Based on her “field work” in various locations, including Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, and the Netherlands and extensive research on the subject, Kolbert aims to get to the heart of the science and politics of global warming. This immensely popular and influential book is an expanded version of a three-part series, entitled “The Climate of Man,” that Kolbert originally wrote for The New Yorker. “The Climate of Man” won the 2006 National Magazine Award for Public Interest, the 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award, and the 2006 National Academies Communication Award. Often compared to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin 1962), a book that raised awareness of the extensive use of pesticides and chemicals in food production half a century ago, Field Notes has been praised for its scientific credibility and persuasive, fact-based reporting. In addition to the accounts of her field studies and interviews with researchers and environmentalists, Kolbert weaves into her analysis the historical accounts of lost ancient civilizations and the personal stories of those most affected: people living close to the poles watching their worlds slowly disappear. Elizabeth Kolbert began her career as a reporter at The New York Times and has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999 where she has contributed with articles on climate change and influential politicians as well as New York personalities, including Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Rudolph Giuliani, and Regis Philbin. These profiles appeared in The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power and Deceit (Bloomsbury USA) in 2004. “The Climate of Man,” the work that led to Field Notes, was a result of a year-long assignment in Greenland where Kolbert studied “ice-coring,” a process that allows a chronological tracking of weather changes. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is reported to eventually raise sea levels by 20 feet, but even Kolbert acknowledges that for anyone who has never seen an ice sheet it would seem perplexing to believe that it could raise sea levels that much. In an interview to environment 360, she notes, “When you actually stand on top of almost 11,000 feet of ice, it becomes more comprehensible.” “It’s such an amazing place,” she adds, “and you realize how startling the world is and how very contingent and fragile the conditions that we live under are.” To a question whether there is an ethical dimension to the issue of climate change, Kolbert, who now lives in Massachusetts, answered, “if there’s not a moral dimension to potentially leaving a totally impoverished planet to future generations, all future generations, I don’t know what would be.” In her lecture at Case Western Reserve University, Kolbert will discuss her field trips and research, and will explore ways in which we can all take a small but significant role in “handing off a planet that’s habitable” to future generations. For information, visit http://case.edu/humanities or call 216-368-8961.
Joe Bastardi, who goes by the title “expert senior forecaster” at AccuWeather, has a modest proposal. Virtually every major scientific body in the world has concluded that the planet is warming, and that greenhouse-gas emissions are the main cause. Bastardi, who holds a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, disagrees. His theory, which mixes volcanism, sunspots, and a sea-temperature trend known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, is that the earth is actually cooling. Why don’t we just wait twenty or thirty years, he proposes, and see who’s right? This is “the greatest lab experiment ever,” he said recently on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show.
Bastardi’s position is ridiculous (which is no doubt why he’s often asked to air it on Fox News). Yet there it was on the front page of the Times last week. Among weathermen, it turns out, views like Bastardi’s are typical. A survey released by researchers at George Mason University found that more than a quarter of television weathercasters agree with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” and nearly two-thirds believe that, if warming is occurring, it is caused “mostly by natural changes.” (The survey also found that more than eighty per cent of weathercasters don’t trust “mainstream news media sources,” though they are presumably included in this category.)
Why, with global warming, is it always one step forward, two, maybe three steps back? A year ago, it looked as if the so-called climate debate might finally be over, and the business of actually addressing the problem about to begin. In April, the Obama Administration designated CO2 a dangerous pollutant, thus taking the first critical step toward regulating carbon emissions. The following month, the Administration announced new fuel-efficiency standards for cars. (These rules were finalized last week.) In June, the House of Representatives passed a bill, named for its co-sponsors, Edward Markey and Henry Waxman, that called for reducing emissions seventeen per cent by 2020. Speaking in September at the United Nations, the President said that a “new era” had dawned. “We understand the gravity of the climate threat,” he declared. “We are determined to act.”
Then, much like the Arctic ice cap, that “new era” started to fall to pieces. The U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in December broke up without agreement even on a possible outline for a future treaty. A Senate version of the Markey-Waxman bill failed to materialize and, it’s now clear, won’t be materializing anytime this year. (Indeed, the one thing that seems certain not to be in a Senate energy bill is the economy-wide emissions reduction required by the House bill.) Last week, despite the Senate’s inaction, President Obama announced ....
Bill, Norm et al.--I hope that someone in REALNEO's membership may be able to attend tonight and provide coverage.
I really respect how Elizabeth Kolbert has provided exposure to the difficult realities we must face together. She needs to shine her spotlight on NEO.
I am unfortunately contending with issues closer to home and must attend a local meeting.
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Let Elizabeth Kolbert know what is coming down around here
Here is the Press Release.
Let Elizabeth Kolbert know what is coming down around here - if she is well informed on local concerns, this should be a fascinating and valuable talk in this venue.
Disrupt IT
Thursday--Earth Day Elizabeth Kolbert
See above--Hear award-winning environmental author Elizabeth Kolbert
In Celebration of Earth Day
Nice article by her in the New Yorker Last Week...
Up in the Air
by Elizabeth Kolbert April 12, 2010
Joe Bastardi, who goes by the title “expert senior forecaster” at AccuWeather, has a modest proposal. Virtually every major scientific body in the world has concluded that the planet is warming, and that greenhouse-gas emissions are the main cause. Bastardi, who holds a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, disagrees. His theory, which mixes volcanism, sunspots, and a sea-temperature trend known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, is that the earth is actually cooling. Why don’t we just wait twenty or thirty years, he proposes, and see who’s right? This is “the greatest lab experiment ever,” he said recently on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show.
Bastardi’s position is ridiculous (which is no doubt why he’s often asked to air it on Fox News). Yet there it was on the front page of the Times last week. Among weathermen, it turns out, views like Bastardi’s are typical. A survey released by researchers at George Mason University found that more than a quarter of television weathercasters agree with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” and nearly two-thirds believe that, if warming is occurring, it is caused “mostly by natural changes.” (The survey also found that more than eighty per cent of weathercasters don’t trust “mainstream news media sources,” though they are presumably included in this category.)
Why, with global warming, is it always one step forward, two, maybe three steps back? A year ago, it looked as if the so-called climate debate might finally be over, and the business of actually addressing the problem about to begin. In April, the Obama Administration designated CO2 a dangerous pollutant, thus taking the first critical step toward regulating carbon emissions. The following month, the Administration announced new fuel-efficiency standards for cars. (These rules were finalized last week.) In June, the House of Representatives passed a bill, named for its co-sponsors, Edward Markey and Henry Waxman, that called for reducing emissions seventeen per cent by 2020. Speaking in September at the United Nations, the President said that a “new era” had dawned. “We understand the gravity of the climate threat,” he declared. “We are determined to act.”
Then, much like the Arctic ice cap, that “new era” started to fall to pieces. The U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in December broke up without agreement even on a possible outline for a future treaty. A Senate version of the Markey-Waxman bill failed to materialize and, it’s now clear, won’t be materializing anytime this year. (Indeed, the one thing that seems certain not to be in a Senate energy bill is the economy-wide emissions reduction required by the House bill.) Last week, despite the Senate’s inaction, President Obama announced ....
Read the rest at: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/04/12/100412taco_talk_kolbert#ixzz0lVcjQTjm
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By refusing to deal honorably with others, you dishonor yourself.
Elizabeth Kolbert tonight-please attend
Bill, Norm et al.--I hope that someone in REALNEO's membership may be able to attend tonight and provide coverage.
I really respect how Elizabeth Kolbert has provided exposure to the difficult realities we must face together. She needs to shine her spotlight on NEO.
I am unfortunately contending with issues closer to home and must attend a local meeting.