Under a White Sky (2021)

We live in an age of “the control of the control of nature.”
— Elizabeth Kolbert

If there’s one conclusion that lingers after reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future (2021), it’s this: any attempt to innovate our way into reproducing nature will always be more expensive and less effective than nature itself.

Worse still, every technological fix we devise to repair the damage we’ve caused is often just the beginning of an even bigger problem.

A vicious circle of control where we never stop solving invented problems.

Kolbert’s journalistic brilliance lies in her refusal to give the reader easy answers. Instead, she does something far more valuable: she lays out the evidence, for and against, and allows readers to form their own opinions.

Her narrative takes us to cement-reconstructed coral reefs, genetically engineered fish fighting extinction, and the unnerving prospect of a planet literally painted white to reflect sunlight and cool the Earth.

Solving Invented Problems

The book’s central paradox is the tension between what we can do and what we should do.

Humanity hasn’t just reshaped nature; we are now forced to intervene in our own interventions:

1. We controlled rivers by channelling their flow, only to later need to control the floods and collapsing ecosystems caused by their disruption.
2. We controlled fish populations through industrial fishing, only to have to control their decline by artificially restocking the very species we pushed to the brink.
3. We controlled crops by introducing pesticides and monocultures, only to now control the pests and diseases that emerged as a result of our interventions.

Each chapter feels like a Russian matryoshka doll: solutions nested within problems, nested within solutions.

We face increasingly complex systems where technological solutions are costly and short-lived, while nature, in its constant efficiency, remains unrivaled.

Kolbert doesn’t write to alarm — though this is her third book on the environmental crisis. Nor does she naively celebrate technological fixes. Instead, she looks squarely where many refuse to: at the limits of control.

If we’ve passed the point of no return, what does it truly mean to adapt? Can we survive in a world where nature no longer sustains us?

What does it mean to geoengineer the planet to cool it down? What risks are we accepting when we “edit” the DNA of living beings?

There are no certainties here, only an open question:

Are we repairing nature, or deepening our disconnection from it?

The book’s title refers to one of the most extreme proposals for addressing climate change: injecting particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the Earth. It’s an idea that, like many innovations Kolbert describes, is both a testament to our desperation and our relentless ambition to control everything.

Under that artificially white sky—expensive, uncertain, and wholly human-made—lies the absurdity of trying to replace what functioned perfectly for millions of years.

Kolbert reminds us that nature doesn’t need improving; it needs respecting. Technology can be part of the solution, but not when it serves as a Band-Aid on a broken system.

Innovating to recreate the natural world is, at best, an exercise in hubris; at worst, it’s an irreversible mistake.

It’s time to abandon the obsession with control and rewild ourselves. Perhaps in the silence of an untouched forest or the flow of an unhindered river, we’ll find the answers we’re so desperately seeking.

One of the most insightful books I read this year — an unexpected and perfect birthday gift from my wonderful wife.