One-Page Summary of the Book

Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe is intended to be a device of communication between the scientific community and the public, explaining the nature of climate change, the possible options of mitigation, and the reasons why these measures have thus far not been effectively enforced. Kolbert argues that the scientific consensus on climate change is firm, long-present, and based on sound research. Current signs of warming are daunting and predictions are even worse. Yet, despite our knowledge on the subject and our options for mitigation, we remain largely inactive and that mostly because of a small group of elite fossil fuel-related businesses, which enjoy great power and influence over the government of the United States, the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases. Climate change can only successfully be contained by international cooperation, which was made difficult by the withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. It was achieved through lobbying efforts by the Global Climate Coalition, among others, including Chevron, Chrysler, ExxonMobil, Ford, General Motors, Shell, and Texaco, which spent roughly $13 million on an anti-Kyoto advertising campaign. Its goal was to discredit the science behind the protocol, which would have subjected said companies to binding emissions reductions and thus harming their businesses. Ever since, the Bush administration, itself a staunch supporter of this attitude, has repeatedly tried to suppress notions to the contrary and to spread the point of views that there exists no consensus among scientists on the matter and that policy should therefore not be built on an unstable foundation. Scientific consensus, however, is firm and well-supported by organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and many others. Observations of the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change date as far back as the 1850s, with the work of John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius. Global temperatures over past millennia have since been explored, for example, by analyzing ice records and precise future predictions have been made using sophisticated climate models such as the Goddard Institute’s ModelE. The forecasts look demoralizing and even contemporary signs of warming can no longer be denied. Glaciers across the globe and the polar ice caps are melting at accelerating rates. The latter is responsible for the rise in sea levels, which threatens many coastal areas with flooding, while oceans are warming up and becoming more acidic. This is likely to raise the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Further, permafrost is melting, the severity of forest fires is increasing and species are forced to adapt by migrating by the threat of extinction. Changing precipitation patterns due to climate change have previously caused the collapse of entire civilizations before. The Akkadian Empire, the Classic Mayan Civilization, the Tiwanaku Civilization, and the Old Kingdom of Egypt have all met this fate. Today, however, we do not attribute global climate destabilization to moods of the gods. We are in a position, in which we are not only knowledgeable about the problem we are facing, but also able to act against it. Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, for example, argue that only 15 “stabilization wedges”, as they call them, are needed to prevent one billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted by 2054. These include the widespread harnessing of solar, wind, and nuclear energies, and reductions in the use of light and heating appliances as well as in the driving of automobiles. Further, carbon capture and storage methods should be introduced and carbon credit trading and carbon taxation should be encouraged. Combined, efforts like these can greatly alter the course of global temperatures, but only if internationally enforced. Kolbert stresses that there are no valid reasons, why the international community should not start countering climate change immediately. The only obstacle is the propaganda spread by influential lobbying groups, which does not outweigh the scientific evidence that predicts the formation of a global catastrophe.