Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

by Elizabeth Kolbert

This vast system, built to keep southern Louisiana dry, is the very reason the region is disintegrating, coming apart like an old shoe.

Prominently displayed on one of the walls of the center is a maxim attributed to Albert Einstein: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

I was struck, and not for the first time, by how much easier it is to ruin an ecosystem than to run one.

“The classic thing people say with molecular biology is: Are you playing God? Well, no. We are using our understanding of biological processes to see if we can benefit a system that is in trauma.”

“Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something. Sometimes it is the other way around.”

This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems.