Under a White Sky
by Elizabeth Kolbert, Joan Lluís Riera · first published 2021
67% recommend33% neutral
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
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Read Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Under A White Sky” for a history of how best-intentioned interventions into ecologies have consistently backfired, in each case the unpredictable and far reaching complexity of the system was thrown out of balance. I…
on “Ocean geoengineering scheme aces its first field test” ↗…classic hubris of mankind to aspire to become gods. We want to control nature and life, yet our limited knowledge prevents us from understanding the ramifications of our actions until it is too late. (Under a White Sky is an interesting read on the subject)
on “How Doctors die. It’s not like the rest of us (2016)” ↗…unravel to travel further up the food chain. Tag. You're it. And yes, it's apocalyptic. It really, really is. If you want to throw textbooks around, please read _This Changes Everything_. Then, read _Under a White Sky_. You will find them both in the nonfiction section. [1] Before you get typing: yes, inflation and supply-chain disruption can be symptoms of climate change -- specifically, when both are occasioned…
on “Dodge Is Cancelling the Hemi V8” ↗…agriculture, among the first widely adopted technologies, deprived us of a utopia that we're scrambling to recover with more technology ever since. I call this the Operation Cat Drop problem. See also Under a White Sky.
on “Singles Want to Find Love in Real Life Again, If Only They Could Remember How” ↗I sadly forgot where I read about it (maybe "Under a White Sky" by Elizabeth Kolbert) but the States do already pay people to mass-cull these Asian carp by the literal ton (found https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/7362/827782934 specifically about this point). It's…
on “Asian carp threaten the Great Lakes. Will calling them ‘copi’ help?” ↗Pumping sulfur up, a dangerous game if you can't keep doing it all the way to the time when CO2 scrubbing fusion plants save your crispy bacon. There is a recent book named: under a white sky.
on “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021” ↗