Field Notes from a Catastrophe is hardly what one might expect of a book on global warming. Elizabeth Kolbert draws from her experience as a journalist to give the book a humanistic touch. Rather than focusing entirely on overwhelming statistics, Kolbert removes the discussion of climate change from abstraction through a series of personal narratives. She does, of course, rely heavily on scientific data, but this data is not the book’s focal point. The book reads both as a personalized microcosm of the climate change issue, and as a broader reaching analysis of the global macrocosm.
Stemming from a three-part New Yorker series on global warming, Kolbert’s book does not disseminate data; it recognizes and reports the newsworthy qualities of the unfolding occurrences of global warming. In an interview with the National Resource Defense Council, Kolbert said that one of book’s main goals was not to cater to the scientific community-as so many books on global warming do-but rather she hoped to make climate change vivid to everyday people. She clearly succeeds in this objective; Kolbert artfully pushes aside technical jargon whenever possible in hopes of exposing the true factors at play in the realm of global climate change.
The book is steeped in verbal imagery, the likes of which can entice even the most casual of readers interested in climate change. The pages chronicle Kolbert’s journey of discovery, highlighting key interviews and experiences which helped contribute to her understanding of global warming. Kolbert met documents meetings with officials from various organizations in the United States and abroad. But it is not these expert sources which give the book its uncanny readability, the laypeople discussed in Kolbert’s book give the text its interesting edge. However, this is not to say that her book does not humanize its expert sources-like when Kolbert describes a scientist’s quirky habit of putting stickers saying “I’m changing the climate! Ask me how!” on SUVs (pg. 33). It is this attention to personal detail which gives Kolbert’s words existential meaning above and beyond the cold calculated statistics of scientific research. Readers cannot help but become invested in the story of the golden toad’s extinction (pp. 81-82), disrupted butterfly distribution (pg. 45), accelerating ice sheets (pp. 126-127), flooded homes (pp. 120-125), and a host of other detrimental changes caused by climate change.
Of course Field Notes from a Catastrophe does not rely solely on individualized accounts of climate change. It is rich with scientific data, but the artful framing of this data is what makes for an interesting an engaging read. Kolbert explains the methodology of climate study in easily understood terms. Much like the visual representations which make Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth a powerful film, Kolbert’s skilled verbal representations make her work a powerful book. Kolbert breaks down the scientific data and elucidates it in specific parts, often parsing out various explanations throughout several chapters at an easily absorbed pace. She continually emphasizes the key issues of climate change-most importantly the concept of “feedbacks”-while only minimally delving into more obscure, possibly less relevant, pieces of information. This writing tactic lends itself to enhanced reader comprehension while still remaining aligned to credible scientific sources. Kolbert eloquently explains the GISS climate modeling system through nearly an entire chapter (pp. 97-119), she returns to the concepts involving ice sheets repeatedly (pp. 31-32 & 47-55), and her narratives involving species extinction often illuminate similar principles from multiple angles (pp. 67-87); again and again Kolbert emphasizes key concepts while downplaying the minute ones. In this way, her book is able to give an astute account of global climate change in a succinct fashion, avoiding an inundation of unnecessary information.
Her evidence, derived both from firsthand accounts and scientific data, leads to several insightful conclusions concerning humankind’s technological advancement, adaptability, and apparent willingness to ignore unpleasant realities even in the face of possible destruction. These complex views of human nature are achieved through Kolbert’s parallel individual and global discussions. Any reader who finishes Field Notes from a Catastrophe would no doubt understand some, if not all of the key concepts she espouses. The interesting way that climate history is determined through bubbles of trapped air (pg. 50), the details of the United States’ withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol (pp. 148-170), climate-driven natural selection (pp. 77-80), and the feedbacks associated with ice (pp. 47-48) and permafrost melting (pg. 21) are all concepts which any reader of Kolbert’s book can expect to become privy to. These concepts, explained through her choices in linguistic imagery-and in a few cases graphical data (pp. 28, 37, 43, 51, 100, & 137)-underpin an intelligent and thoughtful discussion of global warming.
Her book has hardly any weaknesses; perhaps, in some cases, her personalized approach overshadows compelling scientific data-but in most cases she maintains a good balance. The thoughtful discussion of global warming is only disserved in that it can either be seen as localized or globalized, very rarely does an individual reader get a sense that climate change directly affects his or her life. However, Kolbert is quick to point out that, regardless of where a person lives, climate change will affect everybody in the very near future. Yet her book still struggles with this direct concern, one which has plagued many other global warming books such as Al Gore’s written version of An Inconvenient Truth. Global climate change either seems too hugely abstract or too specifically localized. Kolbert tries to constantly remind readers that the negative effects of global warming that she observed in various specific regions can be echoed throughout many seemingly dissimilar regions; however, she occasionally fails to concretely emphasize the links.
Overall, the book’s explicit strengths eclipse its implicit weaknesses. Kolbert’s book serves to inform readers in a manner that is both entertaining and analytical. The objective balance that is crucial to good journalism makes itself ever-present in Field Notes from a Catastrophe. It is a book which any eco-conscious human being must read in order to enhance his or her perspective on the interaction between catalytic climate temperatures, humankind, and the global environment.
Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, Bloomsbury Publishing.
National Resources Defense Council, An Interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, NRDC.
Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Paramount Home Video.
Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Rodale.