2008 Woodie Awards
Author lectures on climate change
Gretchen Schrafft
Issue date: 4/6/06 Section: Features
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Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and author of a recently published book on global warming, lectured before an audience of students, faculty and community members in McCardell Bicentennial Hall last Monday. Kolbert is touring to publicize her book, "Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change," and spoke at Middlebury as a part of the College's "Meet the Press" series of guest lecturers.
Kolbert explained that the topic of her book arose from an article she undertook to write for The New Yorker about research being conducted in the field of paleoclimatology, or climate history. Kolbert shadowed a research team which based its findings about climate change upon readings conducted from samples of ice drilled in Greenland. Kolbert's wry humor reveiled itself as she discussed public reception of the article, which appeared in print on Sept. 10, 2001. "You can imagine how many people were interested," she said.
The article did, however, generate enough interest to prompt The New Yorker to offer Kolbert a three-part series assignment on the topic of global warming and climate control. Kolbert's somewhat-surprising reaction to this proposal introduced a crucial point which seemed to lie at the heart of her lecture.
Kolbert struggled with the decision to accept the assignment, well aware of the inherent difficulties in creating a compelling article on the gradual effects of global warming.
A perfect example of the subject's "unreportability" lies in the fact that much of scientific information is communicated in numbers and technical phrases, often incomprehensible to the average person.
In Kolbert's attempt to attach narrative to her topic, she utilized a variety of tactics in each article. The first focused on the current plight of an island town in the Arctic that is grappling with the effects of global warming. The second employed the anecdote of a drought that devastated the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia as a cautionary message applicable to the planet's own future. Lastly, Kolbert provided an alternative approach to the current United States policy of describing events taking place in the Netherlands where government-sponsored ads about the dangers of global warming are routinely aired on television.
Kolbert explained that the topic of her book arose from an article she undertook to write for The New Yorker about research being conducted in the field of paleoclimatology, or climate history. Kolbert shadowed a research team which based its findings about climate change upon readings conducted from samples of ice drilled in Greenland. Kolbert's wry humor reveiled itself as she discussed public reception of the article, which appeared in print on Sept. 10, 2001. "You can imagine how many people were interested," she said.
The article did, however, generate enough interest to prompt The New Yorker to offer Kolbert a three-part series assignment on the topic of global warming and climate control. Kolbert's somewhat-surprising reaction to this proposal introduced a crucial point which seemed to lie at the heart of her lecture.
Kolbert struggled with the decision to accept the assignment, well aware of the inherent difficulties in creating a compelling article on the gradual effects of global warming.
A perfect example of the subject's "unreportability" lies in the fact that much of scientific information is communicated in numbers and technical phrases, often incomprehensible to the average person.
In Kolbert's attempt to attach narrative to her topic, she utilized a variety of tactics in each article. The first focused on the current plight of an island town in the Arctic that is grappling with the effects of global warming. The second employed the anecdote of a drought that devastated the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia as a cautionary message applicable to the planet's own future. Lastly, Kolbert provided an alternative approach to the current United States policy of describing events taking place in the Netherlands where government-sponsored ads about the dangers of global warming are routinely aired on television.