'Here, we see a range of attempts to save species and ecosystems from invasive human impacts. This theme - the merging of nature and the unnatural - is emphasized further in the next section of the book, 'Into The Wild. And, of course, the solution is more intervention - to the point where 'the Louisiana delta is often referred to by hydrologists as a 'coupled human and natural system.'' In the Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana, which she describes as one of 'the fastest-disappearing places on earth,' the cause is once again human intervention, as our need to control the flooding of the Mississippi River has prevented coastal lands from being able to renew themselves.

Kolbert offers another example of a well-intentioned 'solution' that has only made matters worse.

And the solution has been to electrify the waterway, another example of our relentless need to 'fix,' at any cost and with no awareness of our surroundings.

The Asian Carp became such a threat only because the earlier alterations to the river and its sediment allowed for easy admission into these waters. Then arose the problem of aquatic weeds in the river basin, so plant-eating Asian Carp were introduced, only to become a notorious invasive species capable of outpopulating the ecosystem's native organisms across the Great Lakes. The problem began years ago, when the river was rerouted to better dispose of human waste - talk about living in the 'Anthropocene' epoch. We see this clearly in the first section of the book, 'Down the River ,' which she opens by recounting her time visiting the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Again and again, she shows humans attempting to create solutions to ecological problems created by solutions to earlier problems.

She travels across continents to witness those human-made changes for herself and describes the devastation, sparing no details. She brings that methodology to her new book, again using personal experience to drive her narrative - the narrative that 'a future is coming where nature is no longer fully natural.'Īs in her previous work, Kolbert skillfully shows us how our actions are negatively affecting the planet, rather than just telling us that they are. In that book, she curated a powerfully moving collection of first-hand accounts detailing the disappearance of multiple species. A staff writer at the New Yorker since 1999, where her work has been focused mainly on environmentalism, Kolbert is the best-selling author of The Sixth Extinction, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2015. In her sobering yet captivating book, Under A White Sky: The Nature of the Future, Elizabeth Kolbert examines the ongoing human attempt to control nature, a vicious cycle that often results in the creation of more problems.

Kolbert under a white sky