The Future of Ice

This book was written out of Gretel Ehrlich's love for winterfor remote and cold places, for the ways winter frees our imagination and invigorates our feet, mind, and souland also out of the fear that our "democracy of gratification" has irreparably altered the climate. Over the course of a year, Ehrlich experiences firsthand the myriad expressions of cold, giving us marvelous histories of wind, water, snow, and ice, of ocean currents and weather cycles. From Tierra del Fuego in the south to Spitsbergen, east of Greenland, at the very top of the world, she explores how our very consciousness is animated and enlivened by the archaic rhythms and erupting oscillations of weather. We share Ehrlich's experience of the thrills of cold, but also her questions: What will happen to us if we are "deseasoned"? If winter ends, will we survive?

Gretel Ehrlich is the author of This Cold Heaven and The Solace of Open Spaces, among other works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She divides her time between California and Wyoming.