Known for her insightful and thought-provoking journalism, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tackles the controversial subject of global warming in this year’s University of Washington "Common Book" selection. Americans have been warned since the late nineteen-seventies that the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere threatens to melt the polar ice sheets and irreversibly change our climate. With little done since then to alter this dangerous course, now is the moment to salvage our future. By the end of the century, the world will likely be hotter than it's been in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the future of life on earth for generations to come. From the Series:UW Common Book