Elizabeth Austin – författare

Weather, water, and climate. How we feel, how productive we are, even our sheer existence, depends on these three things. The United States' economic activity varies annually by 1.7% due to weather—that is more than $500 billion dollars each year! Weather applications on mobile devices are the second most popular ‘apps’ – more popular than social networking, maps, music,and news. In Treading on Thin Air, Dr. Elizabeth Austin, a world-renowned atmospheric physicist, reveals how the climate is intimately tied to our daily lives. The effects and impacts of weather on humans, society and the planet are changing with the times. Dr. Austin will demystify climate change, revealing what is really happening with our climate and why, whether it is El Nino, tornadoes, floods or hurricanes.Weather and society are at its most fascinating at extremes, and as Dr. Austin is one of a handful of forensic meteorologists around the globe. She has been called upon to investigate plane crashes, murders, wildfires, avalanches, even bombing cases. Drawing upon her rich experiences, Austin’s Treading on Thin Air promises to be an enlightening and informative journey through the wild word of weather.

In the 1950s, Harriet Hunt Burgess persevered in the face of daunting obstacles and took extraordinary risks to conserve hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the American West.  Without Burgess, places like the Lake Tahoe region and the California coast would be much different today. From Grand Canyon to Hearst Ranch is the story of her struggle, but it is also the story of author Elizabeth Austin's search to find Burgess and tell her more personal story.  Austin searches beyond documents and interviews, traveling in Burgess's wake and, in the case of the Grand Canyon, taking a life-changing rafting trip through its depths. Austin has interwoven her journey through the Grand Canyon and Harriet’s experiences there with explorations of her early life and five of her most significant and representative conservation achievements as the founder of the American Land Conservancy.