Field Notes: Chapters 5 and 6

As much as I know about global warming now, I was under the impression that the catalyst of it speeding up is because of the life we as humans have been living. When I read Kolbert's description of the ancient civilization and how global warming has been around and is not necessarily caused by one civilization or the other. I thought that this was pretty interesting. Yes, I know that the world has been around for a while and because of that, needs to regulate itself. But although the world needs to regulate itself, (i.e global warming) we haven't been helping too much either. I thought it was very important that Kolbert take this approach and it was a good way to inform readers like me about global warming history. She also went on to discuss and breakdown the world and its atmosphere and did so in a way that kept me interested while learning a lot. Her method of breaking the world up into cubes was very helpful in making me understand what she was talking about, which I think Kolbert is very good at doing when it comes to informing readers who know nothing about the subject.

Like always, I have enjoyed Kolbert's style of writing and although her extra comments and descriptions (i.e the amphibian houses in a row like toasters) may be a bit useless, they still place a picture in your head and make you remember that chapter.

Field Notes Part 2

After reading these chapters I can honestly say that I think Arrhenius' prediction of global warming was truly eye opening. The information that was presented by him shows that he knew what would happen to the world's climate just by judging the levels of CO2 during his time. I thought it was interesting that he was able to deduce this and I thought it was really impressive that he was correct. What really makes me think hard about it is that this man was able to predict the climate change in the world but did not add in the effects of greenhouse gases that would be produced by factories and cars in the future. That was something that I thought was really amazing that his assumptions were still correct even though all of that was before his time. Kolbert introduced a bunch of new information in these chapters but she did it in a non-overbearing way so that I wasn't overwhelmed when reading it. It was still very much conversational and flowed very nicely. I like the way she added small quirky bits about each scientist and even though it wasn't necessarily relevant to the topic, it still gave a more personal feel to the chapter. As I keep reading, I am continually learning more about climate change and global warming. 

Observations from Field Notes from a Catastrophe

As soon as I opened then book and started reading I got an immediate image in my head of what this woman was talking about. I thought that her writing was very descriptive. I think that this is a good quality to have in your writing because when you're writing about the Earth and climate change, you want to have the reader know and understand what your trying to say. When the author is talking about nature and the weather, its important to envision what they describe. Another thing that I really liked about the writing is how conversational it was. Kolbert would add little quirky bits on information about the people she interviewed or the town that it made the story that much more personal. I think that it was important that the writing was so conversational because, to be honest, I thought that this book was going to be really boring because of its topic. However, while reading it, the writing was very smooth and flowed well and it made it that much more of an easy read. 

Finally, while reading this piece I thought her use of information was placed perfectly in the writing. In the beginning when she was describing the village, she talked about its history and the people and then talked about the changes that the village went through since then. I thought the way she described the relocation of the town was very interesting and she kept me engaged. I really liked her writing style and I learned a lot.