Home > Work > The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change
1 " forecasts have to be based on the past, and "
― David Remnick , The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change
2 " Without recognizing it, we have already stepped over the threshold of such a change. I believe that we are at the end of nature. "
3 " By this I do not mean the end of the world. The rain will still fall, and the sun will still shine. When I say “nature,” I mean a certain set of human ideas about the world and our place in it. But the death of these ideas begins with concrete changes in the reality around us, changes that scientists can measure. More and more frequently, these changes will clash with our perceptions, until our sense of nature as eternal and separate is finally washed away and we see all too clearly what we have done. "
4 " the same day Stephen Schneider assured the subcommittee that “there is virtually no scientific controversy” over the contention that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will produce higher temperatures. “That’s not a speculative theory,” he said. "
5 " Most of the major events of human history gradually lose their meaning: wars that seemed at the time all "
6 " Francis Bretherton, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Time that if the Great Plains became a dust bowl and people followed the seasonable temperatures north, Canada might replace the United States as the Western superpower. "
7 " wildly speculative. "
