The New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction and Field Notes from a Catastrophe returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment in Under a White Sky.
That man should have dominion "over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it's said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. The question we now face is: Can we change nature, this time in order to save it?
Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction, takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets scientists 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. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction and Field Notes from a Catastrophe returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment in Under a White Sky.
That man should have dominion "over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it's said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. The question we now face is: Can we change nature, this time in order to save it?
Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction, takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets scientists 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. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
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Narrator Rebecca Lowman is an excellent choice for Kolbert's report on the future of our environment. Lowman narrates clearly, enunciates precisely, and provides a sense of immediacy while bringing energy and intelligence to the task. The work looks at the sinking of New Orleans, carbon capture in Iceland, invasive carp on the Mississippi River, geo-engineering, and more. Kolbert, a Pulitzer prize winner, is both an engaged writer and a thoughtful witness to the daunting challenges ahead. She is also a fine storyteller. The existential challenges of the heating of the planet and the often quirky fixes that are being proposed--from using nano-diamond aerosols in the sky to planting billions of trees--are scrutinized and weighed. Science writing has never been more important, and Kolbert's audiobook deserves a wide audience. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
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Starred review from December 14, 2020
Pulitzer-winner Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction) focuses once again on the Anthropocene in this illuminating study of humans’ “control of nature.” Humans have already changed the natural world, she writes, and now are innovating to counter the fallout. As she surveys climate-related discoveries, Kolbert describes barriers erected to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes after the carp were brought to America in 1963 to “keep aquatic weeds in check.” She also tells of the divers who conduct a yearly “census” on the Devil’s Hole pupfish, a threatened species surviving in a single pond in the Mojave Desert. Kolbert notes the irony and ingenuity of humans battling natural processes to which they have contributed: the dams and levees along the Mississippi River, for instance, were “built to keep southern Louisiana dry” but have caused a massive “land-loss crisis” due to flooding elsewhere in the state. Along the way, Kolbert covers interventions on the cutting edge of science, such as “assisted evolution,” which would help coral reefs endure warmer oceans. Her style of immersive journalism (which involves being hit by a jumping carp, observing coral sex, and watching as millennia-old ice is pulled from the ice sheets of Greenland) makes apparent the challenges of “the whole-earth transformation” currently underway. This investigation of global change is brilliantly executed and urgently necessary. Agent: Kathy Robbins, the Robbins Office.
