Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Climate of Man”

From The New Yorker's archive: an award-winning series about the environment and the ways in which our planet has been rapidly changing.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   View in browser | Update your preferences     Annals of Science The Climate of Man, Part I The climate is like a rowboat: you can only tip it so far before you get to the other stable state, which is upside down. By Elizabeth Kolbert The novelist T. C. Boyle once remarked that the journalist Elizabeth Kolbert "writes with an aching beauty of the impact of our species." Since 1999, Kolbert has contributed more than two hundred and eighty pieces to The New Yorker. She has written on a wide variety of topics, including the expanding influence of misinformation, the legacy of the Holocaust and her great-grandmother's experience at Auschwitz, and a plan to sequence the entire Neanderthal genome. Like her New Yorker colleague Bill McKibben, Kolbert has written extensively and lucidly about global warming and the effects of climate change on the planet. Her most recent book, "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History," which was published in 2014, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. In 2005, The New Yorker published Kolbert's "The Climate of Man," an award-winning three-part series about the environment and the dramatic, alarming ways in which our planet has been rapidly changing. During an expansive journey, Kolbert travelled across the Arctic, Iceland, and other regions to observe the accelerated melting of the glaciers. As she writes about these transformations, she weighs the significance of the pace of the metamorphosis. "The climate record shows that it would be a mistake to assume that change, when it comes, will come slowly," she writes. The scientist Donald Perovich "offered a comparison that he had heard from a glaciologist friend. The friend likened the climate system to a rowboat. 'You can tip and then you'll just go back. You can tip it and just go back. And then you tip it and you get to the other stable state, which is upside down.' " With rigorous attention to detail, Kolbert methodically, elegantly unravels the specious arguments of climate denialism and exposes humanity's nonchalant approach to halting the greenhouse effect. How much more information do we need, she seems to ask, before we're finally able to come to terms with the existential dangers we've created? With exquisite precision, Kolbert's writing asks us to contemplate our resolve in the face of a tipping planet.   —Erin Overbey, archive editor More from the Archive     A Reporter at Large The Sixth Extinction? There have been five great die-offs in history. This time, the cataclysm is us. By Elizabeth Kolbert     A Reporter at Large Silent Spring A groundbreaking 1962 investigation into the harmful effects of DDT and other pesticides on the environment. By Rachel Carson This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com.    For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions.   View our Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe.   Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.