the nature of the future elizabeth kolbert

The issue is not whether we’re going to alter nature, but to what end?

Whichever it is, she argues, rejecting these ideas isn’t going to bring nature back. Some of the most innovative and promising ideas-for maintaining livable space in New Orleans, for protecting endangered species around the globe, for slowing the speed of melting glaciers, and more-could be described as brilliant, visionary, or crazy. Because so much environmental damage is irreversible, we will be increasingly compelled to use what we know to manipulate-not save-nature. She explores the possibility that-paradoxically-the feats of human innovation that have imperiled our planet may now be the only hope. It led to an inevitable question: “But is there any hope? Is there anything we can do?”ĭrawing on her new book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, Kolbert offers a powerful, resonant, counterintuitive response. Journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert is best-known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, The Sixth Extinction, which vividly portrayed the rich and diverse world disappearing rapidly before our very eyes.

The nature of the future elizabeth kolbert