Under A White Sky

The Nature of the Future

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published April 15, 2021 by Crown.

ISBN:
9780593136270

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (6 reviews)

Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a super coral that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation.

1 edition

Review of 'Under A White Sky' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

It's not the most cohesive book. It reads like a collection of essays that forms a snapshot of where we are at the moment as we struggle to understand the ramifications of our previous attempts to correct nature but also, with climate change looming over us, face the undeniable necessity that we form new plans to make yet more attempts to avert global disaster. The people we meet and the plans they have are all fascinating, but the real strength of the book is the refusal to either condemn or champion anything. Kolbert remains a skeptic not only about whether we still have a chance to correct anything in terms of extinction or climate change, but also whether we have the right to continue meddling when we've only managed to make things worse with our efforts.

Review of 'Under A White Sky' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

“If control is the problem, then, by the logic of the Anthropocene, still more control must be the solution.”

Elizabeth Kolbert managed to create a detailed yet captivating book about climate change that doesn’t skimp out on the science nor leave the reader with generalizations. Most people are aware of the issues we face today, but they lack actionable ideas and a sense of what is directly impacted by human actions—not just a few decades from now, but in our present moment. Kolbert interviews scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and others in order to develop a picture of what is currently being done to combat climate change. The main thesis of this book is how humans are attempting to combat the consequences of our former interventions by… continuing to intervene, but hopefully in a more optimistic direction. At times, Kolbert questions the soundness of this logic, but at other times, seems to …

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