Today, perhaps without even seeking to, humans dominate nature.
“We may be aware of it, we may not be, but each of us every day is participating in the project of transforming the world,” Elizabeth Kolbert told students on Tuesday night in the Heidi and Walter Stepan Grand Hall.
Kolbert — an award-winning environmental journalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and New Yorker staff writer — visited Bryant University on April 22 to discuss her book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future. The book was selected as the university’s Campus Read for the 2024-25 academic year and explores the pressing environmental challenges we face as well as the innovative, and sometimes controversial, solutions proposed. The text is meant to serve as a centerpiece for campus conversations and important issues connected to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which is the backbone of Bryant’s general education program.
Wishing the audience a happy Earth Day, Kolbert started the conversation with a bit of history on humans’ triumphant feelings toward actively attempting to tame nature. It wasn’t until books written by Rachel Carson and John McPhee came along in the mid- to late-1990s that people started to consider the control of nature in a darker light. Connecting those sentiments to today, Kolbert shared that humans have directly transformed approximately half of Earth’s ice-free land (27 million square miles) by building cities, suburbs, reservoirs, and cutting down forests. On top of this, people have indirectly transformed half of what remains by laying down things like pipelines.
“We've dammed or diverted most of the world's major rivers,” Kolbert said, adding that there are approximately 250 rivers on the planet that are 1,000 kilometers or longer. “A recent study published in Nature found that only a quarter of those now flow uninterrupted to the sea, and most of these are in very remote regions of the Arctic, Amazon, and Congo Basin.”
Nodding to CO2 levels, she showed undergrads, faculty, and staff an image of the Keeling Curve, which dates back to 1958 and records CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels have increased by 120 parts per million since the 1950s, and the world now sits at 430 parts per million. As Earth warms, Kobert noted that there's a danger that this rate of increase will accelerate because forests, soils, and oceans collectively absorb emissions and carbon sinks are going to start losing their absorptive capacity.
Kolbert said a logical response to all this has been to change the trend lines; however, that’s easier said than done.
“We just don't see a lot of evidence that we're scaling back, or willing to scale back,” Kolbert said. “On the contrary, trend lines are continuing up.”
Kolbert shared examples of massive engineering projects that sought to address problems but ultimately created new issues that needed fixing – such as the decision to reverse the flow of the Chicago River, which solved one sewage-related issue but created another issue that resulted in electrifying the water to make carp swim back toward the Mississippi River. Additionally, she spoke about proposals for aircrafts to spray reflective material within the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back to space, which would have a cooling effect on Earth. While this could work, potential threats include changes in weather patterns or even the color of the sky — which is how Kolbert got the title of her book.
“We’re attempting to control a nature that we helped bring into being,” Kolbert told attendees.
Giving a nod to Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben, who says, “With great power comes great responsibility,” Kolbert emphasized that our talents have extended in directions that earlier generations of scientists could hardly have imagined — whether it be sending probes to space or mapping the human genome.
“So far, unfortunately, we haven't exercised much in the way of responsibility,” Kolbert concluded. “We've acted as if there are no limits and as if new technologies will always come to the rescue.”
