Field Notes From A Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert - Essay Example

Field Notes From a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert. Book Reflection on Field Notes from a Catastrophe. At first sight this book looks like a lightweight read: it has a number of sensationalist quotations from famous people on the cover and in the first few pages, such as one from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stating that “Kolbert mesmerizes with her poetic cadence in this riveting view of the apocalypse already upon us. ” (quoted in Kolbert, back cover) One such quotation, which is surely included by the publisher in order to tempt people to buy the book, summarizes the author’s main point: “Kolbert, a staff writer for The New Yorker, surveyed the world’s leading climate scientists, and discovered an alarming unanimity to their message: The world needs to wake up, and fast.” (Wired, quoted inside the front cover in Kolbert, no page number). Climate change is the topic, and the need for everyone in the world to take more notice of the impending disaster that it brings, is the main message of the book. The book is written in a breezy, journalistic style, and starts off with a number of narratives describing journeys the author has made to remote corners of the earth in search of evidence relating to climate change. The places range from the snowscapes of Greenland, to Alaska, the volcanoes and glaciers of Iceland, butterfly fields in England, and coastal areas of the Netherlands. The choice of places does not appear to have any special logic to it, and the author admits this herself saying “Such is the impact of global warming that I could have gone to hundreds if not thousands of other places – from Siberia to the Austrian alps to the Great Barrier Reef to the South African fynbos – to document its effect.” (Kolbert, p. 2) About half way through the book, there is a shift to political issues, and the author describes and discusses the actions which governments have taken, or in some cases have not taken, to try and face up to the implications of climate change. This structure is quite awkward, and the reason for it may well be due to the fact that the book is based on earlier short pieces that the author wrote for the New Yorker magazine (Kolbert, p. 206). It is clear that the author comes to her text with a firm opinion that global warming is anthropogenic, that the world is not taking this issue seriously enough, and that the answer to this must lie somewhere in the domain of politics and intergovernmental actions. There is discussion of the Kyoto Protocol of February 2005, and the fact that the United States did not sign up to this despite being “by far the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases in aggregate – it produces nearly a quarter of the world’s total – and on a per capita basis is rivaled only by a handful of nations, lik Qatar.” (Kolbert, p. 150) The book ends with a provocative suggestion that the world has entered into a new era, which should be called the “anthropocene” due to the unprecedented effects that are now taking place in the physical fabric of the planet due to the actions of human beings and the final sentence echoes the rather pessimistic view that the author has on the long term outcomes of trends that are already underway at the present time: “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.” (Kolbert, p. 189) There are a few maps, graphs and illustrations, which help to make the technical points clear to a non-specialist reader, and the book also has a section at the end with notes and bibliography organized chapter by chapter, and a full index. The numerical detail in the book is decidedly weak, however, and this makes me suspect that important facts are being glossed over. This is not the kind of book that I would rely on if I were trying to substantiate a scientific claim, because the facts are indicated rather than fully quoted and explained. Overall I found this book to be both useful and disappointing. It was useful in bringing together a number of scattered case studies, and then relating them to the political processes that underpin the world’s reactions to climate change. I had not been previously aware that politics can fit in the gap between what people actually know about science, and how they live their lives. Governments regulate the prevailing tenencies of society, and so if these tendencies are leading to overall negative consequences, then it is logical that we should look to politicians to effect some kind of change. This is a realistic fact of life, and it was useful to be reminded of this, and to see some examples described where inaction on the part of governments has let problems like land erosion, rising water levels and crop difficulties become huge and insoluble problems for communities in different parts of the world. Some of the facts and figures were already known to me, such as the extent of the loss of the arctic ice (Kolbert, pp. 25-30) and the implications for reflection of the sun’s rays from the earth, while others were extra pieces of information which were new to me. The study of butterfly species movements in England, for example, was an interesting detail that I had not thought about before. It may seem a small factor, but it provides useful concrete evidence of the changes that occur in ecosystems over time. I felt that the connection with climate was not fully proven in this example, since other factors like differing land uses and farming practices could also drive species into different areas, but climate change is indeed a likely explanation. The disappointing part of this book for me was its failure to deal with the scientific evidence fully, including the counter-arguments and counter-evidence. The impression is given that all change is in the same negative direction, and anything that could be interpreted differently is glossed over. An example of this is the following statement: “Scientists at NASA have calculated that throughout the 1990s the ice sheet, despite some thickening at the center, was shrinking by twelve cubic miles per year.” (Kolbert, p. 52) The fact that ice is thickening, is a counter argument to the disaster scenario that is being painted, and in my opinion the exact nature of and extent of the thickening should have been explored and stated, in the interests of fairness and scientific accuracy. As it is, I have the impression that the positives are being suppressed altogether, in order to make the bigger point of global warming. This leads me to suspect that there may be other factors that are not being mentioned, and this weakens the argument of the whole book. In my own experience I find that listening to a series of scientists talking about their own work can be a very uplifting journey, but each specialist can only see the merits of their own little area of expertise. The author’s approach of interviewing individual specialists one by one is bound to give the impression that each point is proven. I suspect that the author is not herself very well trained in science, because there is no attempt to weigh up one set of data with another, or to build a whole picture that fits together. A far better way of getting at the truth is to pitch two opposing scientists against each other and to listen to how they argue, and what evidence they present. Kolbert claims that a study was made that analyzed refereed journal articles on climate change and found that “75 percent endorsed the view that anthropogenic emissions were responsible for at least some of the observed warming of the past fifty years” (Kolbert, p. 164) I find this unsurprising, and yet at the same time, I wonder if this exaggerates the support that the author claims for the disaster scenarios that she paints. Accepting that humans contribute something, is not the same as admitting that they are responsible for all the consequences, or indeed able to reverse the trend. The quotation implies support for the book’s thesis, but a close reading reveals that it is spurious. Kolbert repeated again and again the message that global warming is a catastrophic process that is becoming increasingly dangerous for the planet, which is fair enough, and I would not argue against that. Where I have some difficulty agreeing wholeheartedly, is in the analysis that the United States government is to blame for the lack of global progress on climate change. The book notes that “between 1990 and 2000, U.S. greenhouse gas intensity fell by some 17 percent, owing to several factors, including the shift toward a more service-based economy.” (Kolbert, p. 161) Once again the author takes a positive factor, and tries to explain it away as a coincidental consequence of something else, rather than applauding progress and those politicians and industrialists in the United States who have in that decade been working on regulating emissions and working out cleaner and more environmentally friendly ways of working. I think human beings are fallible and sometimes inconsistent, but that when they do something positive, which contributes to the preservation of the earth’s resources in a positive way, then this should be applauded. Apparently Kolbert thinks differntly, and tends to see people in absolutes of good and bad, as for example when she mentions one celebrity person’s support for greenhouse gas emission cuts in ironic terms: “Even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hummer collector, joined in; an executive order he signed in June 2005 called on California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 and to 1990 levels by 2020.” (Kolbert, p. 177) The main problem with this book is that it is unhelpfully mixing popular journalism with science. By sensationalizing the issues, and making the key political players into villains, the book makes the whole situation seem hopeless, which in turn could tempt readers to think that there is no point in even thinking about these issues, far less try to address them. People might think that it makes no difference what they do, because the world is going to end in disaster anyway. Paradoxically, the book could therefore actually contribute to the very problem that it is trying to address. A far better way of educating the public, and especially those who are not very familiar with scientific terms, or with the complex inter-relations between different environmental forces, is to lay out the facts clearly and simply, and letting the reader make up his or her own mind, based on those facts alone. Most people do not like being shouted at and the effect of constant tales of woe is in effect like being shouted at by the author. A simple explanation would be far more eloquent, and at the same time would avoid making enemies of the very people who are best placed to put some strategies into motion. A dimension which was lacking from the book was that of global markets and the capitalist structure of the world economy. Without some appreciation of these pressures, the problem looks like simple incompetence on the part of governments. It is my belief that what needs to be done now is for clear global priorities to be worked out and agreed, and for the start that was made in Kyoto to become the foundation for long term planning. If any country does not sign up to the suggestions of the majority, then this area of disagreement should be the focus of the next stage. Governments have good reasons for not going along with protocols, and these can range from the imminence of an election, to the costs involved, to ideological differences, and a host of other reasons. These negociations are bound to be hard and they will fail at times, but they are the world’s best hope of making progress. There should also be a plan also for the way that these issues are communicated to the public at large. I feel that scientists have a responsibility for the dissemination of important knowledge about the world, and that too much of the material available is written by politicians, like the book produced by Al Gore, or by Journalists like Elizabeth Kolbert. These people have their own agendas, and they are not necessarily best placed to present the facts and weigh up the arguments. In fact it is quite possible that the well intentioned efforts of politicians like Al Gore are harmful because they create bad publicity around important issues that should be taken seriously. Reporters have mocked the semi-serious efforts of Gore to promote climate change issues, as can be seen in an article which called climate change “his pet issue” and announced in a mocking tone that Gore was due to “sound off” at a concert event. These efforts by a former world leader were sincere, but unfortunately ineffective, because the message was not delivered in a credible and consistent manner. It was seen as a bandwagon like many others, and comparisons were drawn with Live Aid, Live 8, and other one off events which seemed to make a small difference on a moral issue, but above all further the careers of the famous people involved. In this book the author appears to have collected number of sound bites about the science of what is happening to the earth, but had little to say about concrete actions that individual citizens could take to mitigate the dangerous effects of burning fossil fuels, driving cars, and generally living in the industrial or post-industrial parts of the world. I agree very much with the author’s intention to make some of the dangers known to people, and to invite more reflection on these issues, but I would suggest that a book like this should not just make people afraid, encourage them to despise politicians, and then leave it at that. The book is a collection of fairly superficial impressions and a rant against politicians. What is needed is something more carefully structured, presenting the facts in a logical way, for example showing chronologically what has been happening to the planet, and choosing examples that show this over the ages, along with matching counter arguments, showing the factors which are not yet fully understood, and the most sensible environmental strategies that could be applied to reverse negative trends in the medium term. Above all, there should be practical guidance for readers on how each person can contribute their own individual efforts to the important issue of climate change. References Du Lac, J. Freedom. Al Gore to Sound Off on Climate Change with Concert. Washington Post, February 15, 2007. Available online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/14/AR2007021401629.html Kolbert, Elizabeth. Field Notes from a Catastrophe: A Frontline Report on Climate Change. London: Bloomsbury, 2006. Read More