Review: Field Notes from a Catastrophe

In Field Notes from a Catastrophe, Elizabeth Kolbert connects the dots on global warming and outlines the latest thoughts on the current state of Earth.

It’s a frighteningly good read.

The breadth of Kolbert’s work plainly points to the rapid approach of the end of human civilization thanks to unchecked pollution.

Climatologists speak of “DAI” or Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference, that is “climate change dramatic enough to destroy entire ecosystems, for instance, or cause mass extinction or disrupt the world’s food supply.”

Evidence is mounting that climate change may have destroyed early civilizations thanks to drought and reliance on too few crops.

Reading Kolbert, it’s easy to see that DAI is underway in some, and possibly many ways. But what can be done?

On a personal level, what steps can I or any other individual take to help more than I hurt? My existence is littered with half-hearted attempts to follow through on my latest passion: Exercise, blogs with a purpose, playing an instrument, watching less TV.

Shall I add “giving a shit about the environment” to my list of personal failures? I might be doing that right now, as I type this out on one of two personal computers currently running in my air conditioned, poorly insulated house.

Or can people of conscience do more than exchange pathetic incandescent lights with compact fluorescent bulbs? Can driving less and using less begin to slow the deadly effects of climate change that are underway?

As is the case with civilization, only group action will matter enough to save humans. As Kolbert ends her work:

It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.

Sadly, our government is unable to take responsibility for finding a solution. We need a more educated voter — one who will read the writing on the wall and only accept sustainable governance.

I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about a bridge that I have for sale.

OK, kids, time to get scared
“The planet is already nearly as warm as it has been at any point in the last 420,000 years.” And since humans are about 250,000 years old … it’s about to be hotter than we’ve ever experienced as a species.

The last time it was this hot, “crocodiles roamed Colorado and sea levels were nearly three hundred feet higher than they are today.”

Temperatures globally will rise 4.9 to 7.7 degrees Fahrenheit sometime this century. During the height of the last period of glaciers, “average global temperatures were only about ten degrees colder than they are today.” We’re pushing the Earth’s temperature swing harder and harder — who knows when our children will be thrown off.

A carbon tax of $100 per ton might raise an American’s electric bill by $180 per year — or $15 per month, 50 cents per day. I can hear Sally Struthers already: “Save a dying planet for only 50 cents a day.”

It may also be interesting to note that this book’s publisher, at least according to its PR people, is concerned about environmental impacts. Concerned enough to spend a little more on emission controls for a factory in Brazil.

Do the math
EPA’s Personal Greenhouse Gas Calculator.

My family is above average — pumping out 75,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. The norm? 60,000 pounds.