Field Notes from a Catastrophe
Field Notes from a Catastrophe – Review
I am effectively giving this book 5 stars, not because I think it’s the greatest book on global warming, or even the most complete, but because it is a excellent overview that is readable in one or two sittings. Many of the annecdotes and examples in this book can be commonly found in other books on the same topic, but this one does a excellent job of finally bringing together some important ones. Besides the evidence on global warming and the discussion of where we stand, two things started out at me about this book. The first one was the fact that the author traveled all over the world and not only interviewed some key players, but also really spent time with many of them in the field tagging along and actually helping out on the research. The other thing that struck me was how the author involved interviews and little biographical details about some researchers who have been working on this issue. You make to see a little mostly bit of what guys like Jim Hansen are like. One of the constants among skeptics of global warming is their tendancy to downplay the research and the researchers and seek to create the impression that it’s all a gigantic hoax by people who are politically-minded and who are just out for grant money. Nothing could be farther from the truth in most cases, and books like this tend to show how outlandish such suggestions actually are. The identity of scientists who have been working on this issue involve people who have been at it for many decades and who are well-respected. The work they do is painstaking and clear in its conclusions. The author takes a amount of remarkable examples, but as she points out, she could have chosen others with special details, and the main story would be the same. This is a beautiful book to start with if you are interesting in what global warming is all about and want something that is easy to get through.