Nevermore: Todd, Pitts, & Climate

Two recent library presentations made a big impression on the Nevermore readers Chuck Todd of NBC News spoke on November 10 as part of the Discovery series, and King College’s Buechner Institute presented columnist Leonard Pitts at the library on November 12.

Todd’s major points concerned the changing demographics of America as well as voter patterns that defied conventional wisdom. His ability to recall facts and figures as well as make informed comments about a wide variety of political topics made a very favorable impression on the large crowd at the VI Auditoium. There will no doubt be much written about the 2012 race, just as there were several books about 2008. One of the better known books about the 2008 race is Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin which was made into a movie. Our reviewer said she finished the book disliking every candidate.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. is a popular social commentator and author of three non-fiction books and one novel. His most recent book is Freeman, a novel set in the aftermath of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination. Sam, a former slave, sets out from Philadelphia to find his wife, who was left behind in Mississippi when Sam and their son escaped to the North; meanwhile, an affluent white woman from Boston sets out for the South with the intent of building a school for the newly freed slaves. Mr. Pitts also drew an enthusiastic local audience which made for Standing Room Only in Main's J. Henry Kegley Meeting Room.

The Storms of My Grandchildren is an examination of current climate conditions and the threat of climate change as detailed by James Hansen. Hansen is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and he sees catastrophic conditions in the future if steps aren’t taken now to prevent more global warming. His book not only deals with the physical aspects of change, but with the geopolitical roadblocks that are keeping emissions high in various countries.

A related book is Global Weirdness by Climate Central, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group of scientists who took up Thomas Friedman’s challenge to write a report on climate change. Jud’s impression was that it was well done but there were a lot of facts and figures to absorb. These two books led to a general discussion on climate change. Who do you trust? Is climate change real? If it is real, what can we do about it?