Elizabeth Kolbert has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1999.  In her current book-in-progress, Kolbert tells the story of the ice ages of the past in a way that conveys the importance of environmental “feedbacks” to the future. The book weaves natural history and the history of science with contemporary, cutting-edge research. The ice ages may seem comfortably in the past—a feature of animated movies and dusty dioramas; in fact, they are all too relevant to a warming world.