Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

At the conclusion of Under a White Sky, Kolbert sums up the book’s ambition: “This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems” (200). The inescapability of unintended consequences is therefore one of the central themes of the book, and throughout the text, Kolbert elucidates the serious unforeseen effects of human changes to the planet.

The unintended consequences of the control of nature are clearest in Louisiana. Coastal Louisiana is disappearing at a rapid rate, due to coastal erosion and land loss in places like Plaquemines Parish, at the most southeastern part of the state. This loss is a consequence of what was once thought of as “a marvel of engineering” (32)—the levees and flood walls built on the banks of the Mississippi River. Before humans set out to control it, the Mississippi carried huge amounts of sediment along its length. As the sediment built up, it would block the flow of the river, sending it in a new direction and leaving new land in its wake. Plaquemines, New Orleans, and other key locations in the state are the result of this process. Because this land flooded regularly, European settlers created levees on the river banks, protecting settlements from crevasses, or instances of the Mississippi bursting its banks. However, the levees created the even-more serious problem now facing the state: Much of Louisiana is disappearing. An attempt to protect communities has actually put them in greater peril, in turn, necessitating projects like BA-39, which drills sediment up from the bottom of the river, pipes it to a new location, and spread it around to create new marsh. Of course, the scale of such projects does not yet meet the need. Meanwhile, community members have concerns about reintroducing crevasses through artificial means, citing past negative outcomes from human intervention as the reason for their trepidation. The unintended consequences of meddling with nature are not only a feature of humanity’s past and present, but could be part of the future, as well.

The theme of unintended consequences recurs in Kolbert’s discussion of gene editing technology. Gene editing, and specifically, gene drives, introduce a genetic trait into a population in a way that guarantees it is handed down to the next generation, even if it is bad for survival. This allows controlling pest animal populations through, for instance, the introduction of genes that reduce an animal’s toxicity to predators, or a mutation that makes it impossible for eggs to be fertilized. This has made such technology appealing in the fight against invasive species, such as the cane toad, which has devastated Australian biodiversity since being intentionally introduced to the country in the 20th century. The toads were brought in to control cane grubs, a pest that attacked sugar cane, but quickly spread across the continent, where they poisoned many native species, such as freshwater crocodiles, snakes, and lizards. The story of the cane toad illustrates the theme of unintended consequences in two ways. It’s an example of the unforeseen impacts of human modifications; the toads were imported to control one pest, and became a much more serious invader in their own right. Now, the fear of unintended impacts, like the elimination of entire species, breeds resistance to attempts to control the toads. Still, the threat posed by invasive species is sufficiently serious that there may be no alternative but to use gene editing, with measures in place to mitigate unintended consequences. However, past examples of human-caused disruptions do not inspire confidence either in humanity’s ability to protect against negative outcomes, or in our ability to even understand all the complex results of modifying nature.