Artefacts of a
Burning World

Opinionated collection of 38 articles, films, podcasts and other artefacts related to the climate crisis.

Article

When the Arctic Melts

By Elizabeth Kolbert
Old photograph of an ice-covered landscape with technical instruments and igloos
“When it comes to tipping systems, the future is in our hands until it isn’t.”

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winning “The Sixth Extinction” and “H is for Hope”, writes about the devastating effects of climate change on the Greenland ice sheet. The consequences of its melting will be global, ranging from the obvious rise in sea levels to difficult-to-model effects on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) (also listen to "The Hole in the Map of the World" from the September–October 2024 issue of Wired at New York Times Audio). The gripping (and long) article tells the story of Eismitte, explains the mechanism of feedback loops and ice cores.