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https://www.sciencenews.org/article/under-white-sky-kolbert-book-save-nature-ecosystems>
"In 1900, the city of Chicago completed a 45-kilometer-long canal that
altered the hydrology of two-thirds of the United States.
That wasn’t the intention, of course. The plan was to reverse the flow
of the Chicago River to divert waste away from the city’s source of
drinking water: Lake Michigan. The engineering feat worked, but it also
connected the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, two of the
world’s largest — and until then, isolated — freshwater ecosystems,
allowing invasive species to pour through the opening and wreak
ecological havoc.
Elizabeth Kolbert opens
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
with this parable of humans’ hubristic attempts to control nature. We’ve
put our minds toward damming or diverting most of the planet’s rivers,
replacing vast tracts of natural ecosystems with crops, and burning so
much fossil fuel that 1 in 3 molecules of atmospheric carbon dioxide
came from human action, she writes. We’ve warmed the atmosphere, raised
sea levels, erased countless species and forged an uncertain future for
humankind and the planet.
Our collective ingenuity got us into this mess, and Kolbert explores
whether that same ingenuity can get us out. This is “a book about people
trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems,”
she writes. A fitting follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize–winning
The Sixth
Extinction (SN: 2/22/14, p. 28), the book will satisfy readers keen on
a skeptical survey of how innovation could save coral reefs or turn
climate-warming carbon into stone."
Via Muse, who wrote "I may have to buy this book"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
