(Crown Publishing Group)
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book may have you shaking your head and chuckling, albeit grimly and under your breath. In the groundbreaking Silent Spring, Rachel Carson denounced the idea of the “control of nature,” unfortunately, this convenient approach to our environment continued, helping to create a new era, the Anthropocene, a period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. And now, as Kolbert explores, we are faced with attempting to wrest control of the control of nature, an “effort begins with a planet remade and spirals back on itself… First you reverse a river. Then you electrify it.” That last is an actual ecological engineering project Kolbert investigates, many of which begin and end with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The book has three sections, each detailing processes, both implemented and in development, to reverse damage to water, earth and air, as we try to engineer our way out of disastrous climatic change. You will learn about biological efforts gone awry (Asian carp and Cane toads), the land-loss crisis in Louisiana, genetic “rescue,” carbon dioxide turned to stone. The sheer scale of these attempts is astounding making this book a must-read.
— Reviewed by Jenny Lyons of The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury.
 

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