SNQ: Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Under A White Sky”
by Miles Raymer
Summary:
Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under A White Sky is about the history and possible futures of geoengineering. Specifically, Kolbert examines how various geoengineering technologies are being used or may soon be used to combat the worst effects of climate change. Part One, “Down the River,” describes efforts to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, and also how we are managing sea level rise and flooding in the Mississippi River Delta. Part Two, “Into the Wild,” describes attempts by biologists to save endangered species such as the Devils Hole pupfish in Death Valley and coral in the Great Barrier Reef, as well as CRISPR-based attempts to curtail the harmful spread of the cane toad in Australia. Part Three, “Up in the Air,” examines theories and methods of solar geoengineering, which is probably our quickest, cheapest, and most effective method of climate change mitigation available at the moment, but which may also have significant unintended consequences for climate (in)stability.
Key Concepts and Notes:
- Kolbert repeatedly discusses the “irony loop” or “recursive logic of the Anthropocene,” a dynamic whereby solutions to old problems create new problems that then require new solutions (117).
- Kolbert effectively critiques the traditional conceptualization of “untouched nature,” arguing that at this point in history all environments across the globe have been significantly impacted by human activity in one way or another.
- When it comes to something as complex and unpredictable as geoengineering, it’s critical to avoid broad generalizations about what it will or will not do. The details and specific context of any given proposal matter much more than any philosophical or ethical judgments about the fundamental goodness or permissibility of geoengineering as a tool.
- Given the extreme dangers of climate change and the new technologies we will have to leverage to cope with them, Kolbert asserts that we are entering a new era, an Anthropocene in which we will increasingly inhabit and create “no-analog climates, no-analog ecosystems, a whole no-analog future” for humanity and the rest of life on Earth (7-8).
- In general, Kolbert does a good job of remaining neutral in a classic journalistic fashion. She seems skeptical of geoengineering as a default (or personal bias), but gives both the pros and cons a fair shake.
Favorite Quotes:
Rejecting such technologies as unnatural isn’t going to bring nature back. The choice is not between what was and what is, but between what is and what will be, which, often enough, is nothing…The issue, at this point, is not whether we’re going to alter nature, but to what end? (137)
Yes, people have fundamentally altered the atmosphere. And, yes, this is likely to lead to all sorts of dreadful consequences. But people are ingenious. They come up with crazy, big ideas, and sometimes these actually work. (153)
This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems. In the course of reporting it, I spoke to engineers and genetic engineers, biologists and microbiologists, atmospheric scientist and atmospheric entrepreneurs. Without exception, they were enthusiastic about their work. But, as a rule, this enthusiasm was tempered by doubt. The electric fish barriers, the concrete crevasse, the fake cavern, the synthetic clouds––these were presented to me less in a spirit of techno-optimism than that might be called techno-fatalism. They weren’t improvements on the originals; they were the best that anyone could come up with, given the circumstances. As one replicant in Blade Runner says to Harrison Ford, who may or may not be playing a replicant: “You think I’d be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?”
It’s in this context that interventions like assisted evolution and gene drives and digging millions of trenches to bury billions of trees have to be assessed. Geoengineering may be “entirely crazy and quite disconcerting,” but if it could slow the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, or take some of the “pain and suffering away,” or help prevent no-longer-fully-natural ecosystems from collapsing, doesn’t it have to be considered? (200)
I like it – great to get the key ideas and some specific quotes. And i’m sure it takes less time than the usual reviews.
Yep, you nailed it Tyler! I’m trying to use a format that will still be useful to readers while greatly reducing the amount of time it takes to produce a review. The summary section requires me to write a concise synthesis of the book as a whole, then much of the rest can be copied/pasted from my Roam notes and then lightly edited.
Target is to get SNQ production time down to 30 minutes or less. This one took longer than that (closer to an hour, including cross-posting to Goodreads), but given that I was using a new format I’m expecting that to go down over time. I also expect that SNQs for fiction will generally take less time than for nonfiction, which was the case with my full reviews as well.
Glad you dig it and thanks for the feedback! 🙂
I like this style too, Miles. It feels robust and flavor-ful, but also simple and quick. Perhaps I do miss some measure of your voice and grappling that feels absent in comparison with your “review” style. I sense that the simplicity of this format makes this an “easier” read—and it must be less challenging (and maybe less interesting?) for you to write in many ways. As I took this piece in as though it were a glass of cool water, I realized that I read your reviews half for learning about new ideas through your synopsis of books I’ll likely never read, and half to hear your fleshy, real, and human voice and reflection style that enriches me directly. I look forward to other ways you may come put your mind on display for the many of us in your fan club 🙂
While I’m here, I want to put forth a topic that I’d love to hear your thoughts on. Or perhaps you’ve already written on this and can point me there. The topic: how have you managed to stay so disciplined in this endeavor? I’m attempting to engage more text study for a lecture series I’m set to give in a couple months, but struggling to maintain a schedule or my drive, though this study will be necessary. I’m sure you’ve found a number of tactics and vital choreographies in your relationships and personal energetics that make your extensive reading and writing possible. Have you written/would you be willing to write about that? Or, a bullet point list to my email would be super cool too!
Take care and thanks for your efforts to share your mind/heart/inspiration with all of us.
Hi Mark and great to hear from you! You’ve been one of my most consistent and appreciative readers over the years, and that means so much to me!
I totally agree with you that the downside of the SNQ format is that there’s less of my “fleshy, real, and human voice,” as you put it. This will probably be a benefit for readers who find that aspect of my writing annoying, but I definitely think it means these pieces will have less character and variety compared to my full reviews. I’m okay with that for now, especially because it was precisely that personal aspect of my writing that I felt was getting stale, at least in the context of my review writing. The SNQ style, though somewhat colder and more clinical, feels like a huge relief at this moment! So I’m going to stick with it for the time being, maybe making tweaks here and there. But not to worry––I have at least one idea for a longer review/essay that I’ll be working on in the coming months, so you can expect that to come out sometime this year. They’ll be plenty of “me” in that piece, I can assure you! 🙂
Regarding your request for information about how I’ve cultivated my reading and writing practice over the years, this is actually not something I’ve written much about, either publicly or privately. I think I’ve avoided it for a couple reasons: (1) I don’t think what I’ll have to say on this topic is very different from numerous other resources one could already find on the web, and (2) it feels a little self-aggrandizing. However, now that you’ve made a direct appeal, I’ve decided to go for it. Look for a new post sometime in the next week or two––maybe sooner.
Hey! This is different. Now I’m going to have to actually read the books!
Ouch, my bad! 😉