Harare Review of Books

256 pages.

First published in 2021.

Finished reading on 19 Feb 2021.

Genre: Non-fiction.

In Under a White Sky, 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 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.

A good read, by the end, about a fascinating subject (climate catastrophe), but: reads like a looong long read, and I got very tired very quickly. (Someone’s dog walks in. Acronyms pronounced such-and-such.)

Quite liked that it didn’t feel like climate change Bible-bashing (as it were), but more like thoughtful–well, thoughts on where we are, and the effects of any interventions we may try. Also many interesting technical details about research on the cutting edge of climate science and biology (my favourite subject).

I came away with the long view (we’re finished, basically), and much to ponder, which has to be a success on the author’s part

Rated: 6/10. You have to be interested in the subject to get through the book, or be a person who finishes every book they start.