Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe was at Campbell Hall on Thursday evening to discuss her book and other topics on global warming. The audience was more knowledgeable than what we had expected, and Elizabeth talked more “behind the scenes” about her book.

One of the most interesting things we thought was how she had to change the statistics in the book after just a year because of the dramatic changes in climate due to global warming. She pointed out that global warming will happen in the future and we cannot stop it, all we can do is minimize the effects for the future. The only way that we can really “stop” global warming is to stop flying, stop driving cars, cut down CO₂ emissions, and cut energy down by 80%. Even small things help, but she encouraged us to “get politically active and to convince the congress to make changes in the environment.”

We can’t stop climate change, but we can stop some disasters. We felt that she was a bit pessimistic and that she didn’t think that we could change our future dramtically.