Field Notes from a Catastrophe

_________________'A superbly crafted, diligently compressed vision of a world spiralling towards destruction' - Observer'Kolbert mesmerises with her poetic cadence in this riveting view of the apocalypse already upon us' - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'The most frightening book I've read this century' - Times Literary Supplement_________________Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental classic Field Notes from a Catastrophe first developed out of a groundbreaking, award-winning three-part series in The New Yorker. She expanded it into a still-concise yet richly researched and damning book about climate change: a primer on the greatest challenge facing the world today.In the years since, the story has continued to develop; the situation has become more dire, even as our understanding of it grows. Now Kolbert returns to the defining book of her career, with new chapters on ocean acidification, the tar sands, and a Danish town that's gone carbon neutral. Field Notes from a Catastrophe remains as necessary as ever, and a must-read for our moment.

The world has known about global warming since the late 1970s, yet little has been done to halt it. The threat, if we fail, is nothing less than catastrophe - the flooding of coastal communities, the extinction of species and entry into a climate regime of which humans have no experience. Exploring the relationship between what we know and what we refuse to know, Elizabeth Kolbert takes us on an urgent journey from the Arctic to Central America, interviewing researchers, environmentalists and traditional Inuits whose lives have already been dramatically altered by climate change.