Charles
Wohlforth
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The Whale
and the Supercomputer
On the
Northern Front of Climate Change
Charles Wohlforth
Scientists
and natives wrestle with our changing
climate in the land where it has hit first—and hardest
A traditional Eskimo whaling crew
races for
shore near Barrow, Alaska,
while
their comrades drift out to sea; ice that should be solidly anchored
this time
of year is giving way. Elsewhere, a team of scientists with icy beards
traverses the breadth of Alaska,
measuring the thinning snow every ten kilometers in an effort to
understand albedo, the heat-deflecting property
that helps regulate the planet’s temperature.
Climate change isn’t an abstraction
in the far north. It is a reality that has already altered daily life
for Native people who still live largely off the land and sea.
Likewise, its heavy
Arctic footprint has lured scientists seeking to uncover its mysteries.
In this
gripping account, Charles Wohlforth follows both groups as they
navigate a
radically shifting landscape. Scientists drill into the environment’s
smallest
details to derive abstract laws that may explain the whole. Natives
know the
whole through uncannily accurate traditional knowledge built over
generations.
The two cultures see the same changes--the melting of ancient ice, the
animals
and insects in new places--but they struggle to reconcile their
different ways
of comprehending what these changes mean.
With grace, clarity, and a sense of
adventure, Wohlforth
illuminates both ways of seeing a world in flux, and in the process,
helps us
to envision a way forward as climate change envelopes us all.
Anchorage,
began his writing career at a weekly newspaper in an Alaskan fishing
village
and developed it freelancing Frommer’s travel guidebooks and articles
for The
NewRepublic, Outside and other magazines. His experience of climate
change
comes from a lifetime traveling Alaska’s
wilderness and towns, where nature rubs against civilization’s rim.
Readers can
discuss the book with him at www.wohlforth.net.
