The idea was that the carp would eat the weeds, and they did. The challenge for us is no longer just the control of nature-it is “the control of the control of nature.”įor example, the opening chapter is about how wildlife management officials, looking to control invasive aquatic weeds without the use of poisons, introduced Asian carp into a few American rivers in the 1960s. Under a White Sky is, as Elizabeth writes at the end, “a book about people trying to solve problems caused by people trying to solve problems.” Humans have affected so much of the planet’s land and oceans that we face a future without any precedent, she writes. Although I have some issues with the book, overall it is a fine example of her work and an insightful look at the role that scientists and engineers play at the intersection of nature and humans. So I was looking forward to reading her new book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, which came out earlier this year. And I was excited to have her as a guest talking about climate change on the podcast I did with Rashida Jones last year. I read everything she writes in The New Yorker. I loved her book The Sixth Extinction, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015. She brings the subject to life with well-told stories, thorough reporting, and portraits of interesting people. That dry description doesn’t really do Elizabeth’s work justice, though. I’m not sure how she would describe the field she covers, but I’d call it something like “humanity’s impact on nature and our attempts to control it.”

The journalist Elizabeth Kolbert has created a fascinating beat for herself.

Under a white sky paperback