The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption

We are in the midst of the most important predicament in the history of mankind, and there are few who are chronicling it as well as Mr. Jamail. If you want to know the latest on the science of climate disruption, there are many qualified sources. If you want to know what the changes feel like, and how they are manifesting themselves, you only have a very few choices, Mr. Jamail being far and away the best of them.Anthropomorphic climate disruption has already displaced tens of thousands of people all over the world, including thousands of Americans in Louisiana, California, the Carolinas, and Texas. Still there are those who would deny that anything out of the ordinary is happening, although recent events are making denial harder then ever. I have followed Mr. Jamail’s work for years, and anxiously awaited this volume. It doesn’t disappoint.We are losing our world, but as “End of Ice” makes clear, it isn’t all about us. Unfortunately, we’re taking millions of species along with us. Estimates on how much longer we might survive vary from only a few years to several decades, but it looks as though the endgame is already baked into the climate systems. This was a hard book to read, from the standpoint of the emotions it awakens. At times I found myself only able to read a few pages at a time before having to set it down for a while. The writing is quite compelling, invoking powerful images of various climate catastrophes-in-motion.“End of Ice” doesn’t overtly try to convince anyone of anything, instead it’s an engaging “war journal,” who’s only purpose is to enlighten. I would recommend the work most highly to anyone searching for an expert journalists account of where we stand, and what’s happening currently with the climate on our only planet.

Uncomfortable truths presented by a committed journalist.The interviews and evidences that Jamal produces are a compelling story of ecological overshoot that anyone interested in reality should read.

Jamail, Dahr. (2019). THE END OF ICE: BEARING WITNESS AND FINDING MEANING IN THE PATH OF CLIMATE DISRUPTION, paperback edition with 2020 epilogue. New York: The New Press. The ice that is ending include glaciers, including Mount Denali's Kahiltna Glacier. Human climate disruption is causing "unstoppable melting in both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets" (Jamail 2019: 5-6). The purpose of Jamail's book is to "bear witness to what we have done to the Earth," and to "accept the heartbreaking truth" that "it is unlikely to turn anything around" (219-220). Earth is dying.Instead of false hope that climate disruption can be stopped, Jamail grieves.He says: "I am grieving and yet I have never felt more alive. I have found that it is possible to reach a place of acceptance and inner peace, while enduring the grief and suffering that are inevitable as the biosphere declines" (219-220).On analogy to being present with his dying best friend, Jamal says "I think, the greatest service I can offer in these times" is "being with the Earth" (220), and Jamail feels most intimately connected to the Earth when he is mountaineering on Denali.And so chapter 1 is titled "Denali."

I can not say that I enjoyed reading this book due to the gravity of the subject, which really is about the fate of our world. Having said that, I believe that everyone should be induced somehow to read it thru and give it a good discussion. This should be required reading for all influential people. Mr. Jamail even mentioned that he, "was preaching to the choir" in large portions of this book. I know that I am a lifelong member of that choir, especially after visiting Pt. Barrow back in 1975 and the Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau, Alaska. Went back to see the Mendenhall in 1999 only to see that it had retreated nearly one mile upslope!. I have also been fortunate enough to travel down to the Antarctica several time starting in 1974 (US Coast Guard icebreaker) to see the wonderous beauty. Palmer station on the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula was covered in snow and ice back then, now I understand that they can have vegetation growing where the Penguin rookeries used to be (the Penguins are dying off you see due to food disruption). It seems that experiencing climate change for oneself makes you an easy convert to its reality. Trouble is that most people don't go out into the world to experience these conditions for themselves. What can we do about that? One good place to start would be to read this book. And how about getting really out there to experience natures decline for yourselves?

The rapid changes humans have made to the atmosphere's chemistry have geologically outpaced the other four* major extinctions caused by the changes in the Earth's atmospheric and ocean chemistry. Dahr Jamail gives a snapshot of the diverse impacts greenhouse-gas-driven ocean (and atmospheric) warming have already had in our lifetime: Rain high up on ice sheets and mountains, significant melting of alpine glaciers worldwide, shifting and reduction of fish populations, large bleaching events of major coral ecosystems, toxic amoeba and algal blooms in overwarm water, trees that had weathered thousands of years dying of prolonged heat stress, melting permafrost.He combines, in a very readable way, his personal observations of the changes with the analysis of scientists which have been studying various natural aspects of the planet for decades, with the knowledge that the system already has a lot more loss and damage baked in by an atmospheric CO2 content at 415ppm and growing._____*The asteroid impact ~65 million years ago caused a pretty quick change.

This is a brave book as far as climate change/disruption/devastation is concerned; essentially the toll us humans have unleashed on the planet since the start of the Industrial Revolution. The story arouses a myriad of feelings - none of them pleasant and quite right too. We are collectively killing life on earth, whether we jet around the planet on yet another exclusive holiday (or climate change conference) or we sit humbly at home with an array of solar panels just so we can still have some "juice" to power our meaningless gadgets (look at how solar panels are made and the infrastructure on which they depend - they are no solution!).This isn't a book with a happy ending (you'll need to read a children's fairey story for that) nor does it dish out the false hope that we can turn things around (if only we... if I hear that one more time, I will scream!). It pulls no punches; hits way below the belt; knocks you flat out with each chapter. Read it and weep as the planet burns.

If in several million years time, a different civilisation is lucky enough to once again call this planet their home, then this book would be the one I would choose to pass on to them. It would serve as a warning about how not to treat this beautiful place, as a record of how we became extinct and it would let them know that some of us cared, some of us tried and some of us grieved for our only home before we left.

This is an important book. Anyone who is worried about what the next 20 years hold for us as a species should read this book.

The author has been climbing and watching glaciers all his life and shares his love and respect with us; the problem is that the glaciers are disappearing. Every time he re-visits a glacier, the base camp has moved inland to stay close to the retreating ice. Within about 30 years, it looks like the only ice left on the planet will be at each pole and on top of the Himalayas. The real problem is that melting ice is a buffer against climate change; when the ice goes, things will heat up a lot faster. The book is brilliantly written, both a tribute to the world that was and a warning about the future. It will inform and anger you.

There are many better books out there on Climate Change, It’s Causes, and What we Can so About it.I recommend Food Choice & Sustainability by Dr. Richard Oppenlander and The Sixth Extinction.Don’t waste your money... this book was brutal.