Antonello on Gerhardt, 'Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean'

It is a commonplace in the politics and scholarship of climate change that small island nations have contributed least to the greenhouse gas emissions precipitating global warming but will suffer most in our hotter future. Islands and island states are existentially threatened by rising seas. Some will disappear completely, with some communities already having been displaced, and many others planning for their future displacement. Many will struggle to maintain freshwater supplies or to continually rebuild and respond to the likely more frequent and more severe weather events that beset them. What more to say, to know, to see, to sense, to feel on this subject?

Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean is an attempt to bring these suffering islands into focus through the venerable and protean form of the atlas. Predominantly composed of text by Christina Gerhardt, a German studies and environmental humanities scholar, with accompanying maps drawn by Molly Roy, this atlas focuses on forty-nine islands or island nations across the globe...