Whither the Kyoto Protocol? That’s the big question at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, now into its second week in Milan. Russia is waffling about whether it will sign the treaty, leaving the protocol’s fate dangling in the balance.
Meanwhile, as many people consider climate change an issue for other countries, essays in a new issue of Granta magazine bring the heat home. As editor Bill McKibben writes, “People talk about global warming in the way they think about violence on television, or growing trade deficits.” From the Mongolian plateau and the Peruvian Andes, to Vermont’s declining winter, global warming isn’t just changing the weather. It’s changing the character of home.
Guests:
Bill McKibben, author of “The End of Nature” and “Enough: Genetic Engineering and the End of Human Naure.” He is also scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College
Mark Lynas is a journalist and author of the forthcoming, “High Tide: News from a Warming World”
Philip Marsden, author of “The Main Cages.” All three writers have pieces on climate change in the most recent issue of Granta.