Under a White Sky Discussion Questions

What are the effects of creating “conservation-reliant” species as presented in Under a White Sky?

Elizabeth Kolbert uses the term “conservation-reliant” to describe animals that depend on humans for survival. The example she describes in great detail is Nevada’s Devils Hole pupfish, which lives in a pool that is the smallest range of any vertebrate and may be the rarest fish in the world. The pupfish has experienced many threats to its survival from human activity. As a result, biologists from national and state agencies go through extravagant means to try to preserve the fish.

On one hand, Kolbert says, the artificial means used to save conservation-reliant species, such as supplemental feeding, enclosures, hand-pollination, and artificial insemination, are saving thousands of species. This is critical considering the biodiversity crisis, or high rate of extinction, that began in the 19th century and has worsened significantly to the present time. The losses exist in every continent and ocean and across all groups of organisms. On the other hand, human intervention creates a “new class of animals,” those that we have “pushed to the edge and then yanked back.” As Kolbert says at the beginning of Under a White Sky, humans are now managing a nature that can’t exist apart from humans.

In Under a White Sky, how are assisted evolution and genetic engineering used to help to conserve and control species?

Assisted evolution involves breeding animals so that they evolve into species that can withstand stressful conditions created by climate change. Elizabeth Kolbert introduces the term as she discusses the work of marine scientist Madeleine van Oppen, who is experimenting with creating corals that can survive rising water temperatures and the acidification of the seas, by-products of climate change. Van Oppen is raising a variety of the types of algae that live in the cells of corals. She plans to crossbreed different corals to create hardier ones. The scientist sees such assisted evolution as a way to “bridge the gap” between current conditions and a future in which the carbon emissions leading to climate change are reduced.

Genetic engineering works in a similar way, but instead of using breeding to change a species over time, scientists directly manipulate the DNA that regulates an animal’s characteristics and behaviors. Scientist Mark Tizard is experimenting with editing the DNA of the highly poisonous cane toad to make it less toxic. Genetic engineering has already been done with malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and one group of scientists is experimenting with using it to control populations of rodent pests. Like assisted evolution, genetic engineering assumes that further intervention with a species is justified since their environment has already been modified.

As presented in Under a White Sky, how is cutting emissions both essential for addressing climate change and not enough?

Kolbert explains that cutting carbon emissions is essential for addressing climate change because of the drastic effects humans are already experiencing. With a third of the molecules of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere human-made, average global temperatures have risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The effects range from worsened droughts to storms, heat waves, fires, rising sea levels, and melting ice sheets. Just to stay under what is called the “threshold of catastrophe,” an average global rise of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, people would have to cut global emissions to nearly zero within the next several decades.

At the same time, cutting emissions is not enough to address climate change by itself because once carbon dioxide (CO₂) is in the air, it remains there. Elizabeth Kolbert makes the point that even if the world cut emissions by half, levels would just rise at a slower rate; they wouldn’t drop. Furthermore, she says, there is no way to cut emissions in a way that would be fair to different nations. Kolbert contrasts the examples of the United States, which creates nearly 30% of emissions but has 4% of the world’s population, and India, soon the most populous nation in the world but with just 3% of emissions. This is why it is so important for scientists and engineers to create methods for removing CO₂ from the air. Kolbert quotes Harvard professor David Keith as saying the best way forward is to “do everything”: cut emissions and remove them.

Who is responsible for solving the climate crisis according to Under a White Sky?

Several of the scientists dealing with the impact of climate change whom Elizabeth Kolbert interviews openly express a feeling of responsibility for helping to solve the climate crisis. Marine scientist Madeleine van Oppen, for instance, says, “We need to intervene and help” coral reefs. Physicist Klaus Lackner says, “Humanity . . . [is] going to have to find a way to pull carbon out of the air.” Chemist Frank Keutsch discusses the pressure he feels to “do something fast” to lower global temperatures through solar geoengineering. He worries that geoengineering might be the only tool at hand when people “demand [that] decision-makers” take immediate action on carbon emissions.

However, Elizabeth Kolbert makes the point that while scientists can make recommendations, ultimately the solutions for the climate crisis will be implemented by the real decision makers—that is, by politicians and governments. She doesn’t have much hope that political figures will make the right decisions. In the United States, for example, the result of burning fossil fuels was brought to the attention of President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, yet decisions about climate change remain elusive. She says she can only hope that political decisions about the crisis will be made with respect to current and future generations of humans and other species.

Is there cause for optimism regarding the climate crisis in Under a White Sky?

Elizabeth Kolbert states in her afterword that she would like to wrap up her book with the “additional three pages” showing why there is reason for optimism about environmental issues caused by climate change. She says that she can’t do so, in part because she is seeing the effects of the COVID pandemic, which in many ways is similar to the human-made natural disasters she describes in Under a White Sky. Similarities include the failure to contain COVID after it was first discovered and the rush to find a “techno-fix” for the virus in the form of a vaccine. The author does say there are some things people can do to “make a real difference” and that political action, including protest, is very important.

More optimism can be found in Kolbert’s interviews with the scientists working to diminish the effects of the climate crisis. The late marine scientist Ruth Gates, for instance, describes herself as a “glass half full sort of person.” A common thread in their expressions of optimism is acceptance that nature has already changed irreparably. Gates described herself as a “futurist” in this respect. Klaus Lackner believes that problems of scale in cutting global emissions can be overcome. His mindset is that humans need to accept that emissions are not “bad.” Rather, they are something that needs to be dealt with and that can be dealt with because “people are ingenious.”