Global Warming

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (©2006), by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Pop Quiz:

1. What did Augusta, Maine, look like about 100,000 years ago?

2. How much did the average global temperature at that time differ from the average temperature now?

3. How much land are the Dutch reclaiming from the sea every year?

4. “As the effects of global warming become more and more difficult to ignore, will we react by finally fashioning a global response? Or will we retreat into ever narrower and more destructive forms of self-interest?”


Answers:
1. Who knows? It was under a mile of ice.
2. The average world temperature was only 10 degrees colder.
3. None. They are now being forced to give it back.
4. “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.”

This is a short, non-hysterical examination of the effects of global warming in some particularly vulnerable spots around the world. I recommend it.