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Where I have spoken (click here)
“The
Whale and the Supercomputer: On the
Northern Front of Climate Change” is an exploration of two kinds of
knowledge
about environmental change in the Arctic: scientific study, which uses
field
work and computer modeling to compile a picture of the Arctic system;
and the
traditional knowledge of Inupiat hunters, whose holistic appreciation
of the
dynamics of this system is based on a millennia of experience and
community sharing.
The book is also an adventure story about adaptation to the dangerous
changes
in a thawing world.
My slide
show includes 83 images, most of them pictures I took on the sea ice
during my
time with Inupiat whalers. Some of these pictures have been published.
The talk
begins with a description of the Inupiat whaling tradition and how it
was
shaped by climate change 1,000 years ago. Next I discuss what the
Inupiat have
to teach the broader society about environmental knowledge and change.
I
include a brief primer on climate change and why teasing its signal
from
climate variation is so difficult. I show slides and discuss scientific
field
work that incorporates an experiential element similar to the
indigenous way of
knowing. Then I finish with more slides of the Inupiat and discussion
of how
they are adapting to changes, and suggest how their adaptation can
inform the
wider culture. The talk takes 35 minutes, not including questions.
I have
given the talk more than 20 times in 12 cities to audiences as diverse
as a
group of Inupiat whalers, the
Dartmouth College faculty, BP Exploration
officials,
and the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States annual meeting in Washington, D.C., where I was the dinner
speaker. I
can, of course, provide references.
I am a
life-long Alaska resident and, for the
last 12
years, a full-time freelance writer. After receiving a degree in
English from Princeton in 1986 I worked as a
newspaper
reporter in Alaska. I was the lead reporter
for the Anchorage
Daily News on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. I have written for many
publications, including The
New Republic, Outside and National
Wildlife, I have
four books in print (mostly travel), not including ghost writing and
work
included in anthologies. I also served two 3-year terms on the
Anchorage
Assembly, representing the city’s downtown area.
Here are
excerpts from some reviews of my book:
Judgment under uncertainty is a key theme in
"The Whale
and the Supercomputer," Charles Wohlforth's remarkable new book on
climate
change and the
Arctic. …Never has the
complicated
science of climate change been presented so clearly. --San
Francisco Chronicle
In this truly extraordinary book, journalist
Wohlforth, an
Alaskan resident, tackles the central question of our age: how do we
know about
our environment? -- Library Journal
He does a magnificent job of writing about
two disparate
cultures—the Inupiaq Eskimos who live and hunt on the coast of the
Arctic Ocean
and Western scientists attempting to comprehend climate change—and
demonstrating
just how much they have in common. … Moving with ease from
whaling boats
to seminar rooms, Wohlforth brings excitement to the quest for
information
about global warming. --Publisher’s Weekly
In brawny profiles of far-flung researchers,
native whalers,
and other way-up-northerners he details the way humans are themselves
changing
in the face of a mutating planet, “the adventure of surviving and
thriving as
human organisms in a new natural world.” --Men’s Journal
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