The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth's Newest Age

by David Biello

Overview

A brilliant young environmental journalist argues that we must innovate and adapt to save planet Earth in this enlightening “trip around the world to meet people working out new ways for humanity to live as well as survive” (The New York Times Book Review).

With the historical perspective of The Song of the Dodo and the urgency of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, The Unnatural World chronicles a disparate band of unlikely heroes: an effervescent mad scientist who would fertilize the seas; a pigeon obsessive bent on bringing back the extinct; a low-level government functionary in China doing his best to clean up his city, and more. These scientists, billionaires, and ordinary people are all working toward saving the best home humanity is ever likely to have.

What is the threat? It is us. In a time when a species dies out every ten minutes, when summers are getting hotter, winters colder, and oceans higher, some people still deny mankind’s effect on the Earth. But all of our impacts on the planet have ushered in what qualifies as a new geologic epoch, thanks to global warming, mass extinction, and such technologies as nuclear weapons and plastics.

“A futurist ray of hope amid the usual denial and despair” (Esquire), The Unnatural World examines the world we have created and analyzes the glimmers of light emerging from the efforts of incredible individuals seeking to change our future. Instead of a world without us, this history of the future shows how to become good gardeners, helping people thrive along with an abundance of plants, animals, all the exuberant profusion of life on Earth—a better world with us. The current era of humans need not be the end of the world—and “Biello describes both what we have done to alter our planet and what we should do in the future to ensure its habitability” (Scientific American).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476743929
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	11/15/2016
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	957,110
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

David Biello is an award-winning journalist who has been reporting on the environment and energy since 1999. He is currently an editor at Scientific American, where he has been a contributor since 2005, and he also contributes frequently to the Los Angeles Review of Books, Yale e360, Nautilus, and Aeon. Biello has been a guest on radio shows, such as WNYC’s The Takeaway, NHPR’s Word of Mouth, and PRI’s The World. He hosts the ongoing duPont-Columbia award-winning documentary Beyond the Light Switch for PBS. The Unnatural World is his first book.

Table of Contents

The Overview 1

Part I Alter Earth 9

Chapter 1 Iron Rules 11

Chapter 2 Written in Stone 39

Part II Terra Incognita 67

Chapter 3 Ground Work 69

Chapter 4 Big Death 97

Chapter 5 The People's Epoch 131

Part III A Better Anthropocene 163

Chapter 6 City Folks 165

Chapter 7 The Long Thaw 201

Chapter 8 The Final Frontier 232

Afterword 267

Acknowledgments 277

Selected Notes and Further Reading 281

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

"Fascinating and wide-ranging, The Unnatural World offers an unflinching look at a planet increasingly under human control. Anyone who cares about the future will want to read it."
—Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

"An urgent, elegantly-told story of the Earth that humankind has made and, with effort, might yet save."
—Alan Burdick, author of Out of Eden

“Funny, thoughtful, often lyrical, The Unnatural World guides us through the frontiers of environmental innovation, from ecological survey drones to de-extinction, to Mars and back. These are stories of a humanity that is struggling to grow up, take responsibility for the planet that we have made, and be a force for good."
—Emma Marris, author of The Rambunctious Garden

“This is the book for our moment, laying out humanity’s situation in the Anthropocene very clearly, and all of it infused with Biello's good judgment and his eye for entertaining stories. Reading it is a pleasure as well as an orientation and a guide to action.”
—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Aurora, The Years of Rice and Salt, and 2312

“As David Biello shows with real power, we clearly live in a world where humans affect all that we once called ‘natural.’ He argues this means we need to assume the role of global managers; though I don’t completely agree, I think his insights and examples are a necessary part of a vital debate.”
—Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

“David Biello takes us on a wild ride—from South African political rallies to remote Chinese villages to a New York City party for Elon Musk—in his quest to understand this strange new era of the Anthropocene. The Unnatural World is a sensitive, disturbing, and, ultimately, hopeful view of humanity’s relentless drive to reshape nature—and the implications for all life on our troubled planet.”
—Andrew Lawler, author of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

"Biello’s absorbing work presents a hopeful alternative to the widespread media forecasts of planetary gloom and doom."
—Booklist

"Biello's stance and sympathies are quite clear, but he thankfully avoids polemics. His approach is unusually balanced; he is keen to show that every coin has a second face, not least the face of hope vs. despair....In this well-written, significant book, Biello insists that humans, the world's most successful invasive species, have the ability to engage in planetary protection and human survival, but it will require wisdom, innovation, and restraint. "
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A futurist ray of hope amid the usual denial and despair."
—Esquire

“Biello...makes an impassioned case for the proposed [Anthropocene] and describers both what we have done to alter our planet and what we should do in the future to ensure its habitability.”
—Scientific American

"A thoughtful analysis of how we might move toward a sustainable civilization...Recommended for readers who enjoyed Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe and for anyone who follows the latest developments in climate geoengineering.”
—Library Journal

“Leans toward the notion that the solution to our environmental challenges will come from technology, and in that sense it is most welcome.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Biello’s case is worth hearing out.”
—Outside

“A travelogue with that good human epoch [The Anthropocene] in mind, a trip around the world to meet people working out new ways for humanity to live as well as survive.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“A rigorous and readable investigation of human impacts...Highly significant...an unqualified success.”
—Charleston Post and Courier

From the Publisher

11/01/2016
The effects of steadily increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere seem to be everywhere: rapidly shrinking glaciers, warmer and more acidic oceans, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels, and higher temperatures. Journalist Biello (Scientific American and other publications) examines the viability of technologies for reducing carbon dioxide levels. These "technofixes" include ocean fertilization to create plankton blooms that suck up carbon dioxide, energy sources that don't burn fossil fuels (solar, wind, nuclear power), biodigesters (mechanical stomachs) that convert organic material into usable gas, carbon capture and storage technologies, and electric cars. Biello also explores the environmental costs of China's tremendous economic expansion and efforts to reduce its use of coal. Surprisingly, for a science book, there are no in-text author citations. While some content is based on author interviews, other material includes facts and statistics that are not general knowledge. VERDICT Despite the lack of references, this thoughtful analysis of how we might move toward a more sustainable civilization is recommended for readers who enjoyed Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe and for anyone who follows the latest developments in climate geoengineering.—Cynthia Lee Knight, Hunterdon Cty. Historical Soc., Flemington, NJ

Library Journal

Biello wrestles with the often disparate elements of the “Anthropocene,” the current geological age in which humans are the primary drivers of environmental change. He stitches together the apocalyptic tradition of climate-change journalism and the much more hopeful, but occasionally dark-edged, journalism of technological innovation. Peter Berkrot is an accomplished audiobook narrator. His pace is always good. His pronunciation—with the exception of a few Chinese place names—is carefully studied. His nasal delivery can be grating, but he always delivers the story clearly. Biello shifts back and forth between dire science and technological wizardry, from melting glaciers to Elon Musk. In doing so, he offers a broader narrative than most. F.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

MAY 2017 - AudioFile

★ 2016-09-17
In his first book, Scientific American editor Biello argues that it is not a lack of money or technology that prevents our addressing environmental and societal ills but rather a lack of motivation.The author, who hosts the ongoing PBS documentary Beyond the Light Switch, believes we are writing a new chapter in the history of the Earth, much of it composed in ignorance. We are terraforming our own world without conscious design, exerting global influence without the exercise of global responsibility. The linchpin of his book is the Anthropocene, the idea of a geologic epoch in which humankind represents the world-changing force of nature for the first time. Biello's stance and sympathies are quite clear, but he thankfully avoids polemics. His approach is unusually balanced; he is keen to show that every coin has a second face, not least the face of hope vs. despair. As the author notes, we must mature as a species, ditch short-term thinking, and recognize that we are now influencing outcomes in ways we can't foresee. It is our fatenot just the planet'sthat hangs in the balance. Biello advocates a fundamentally new perspective on where we live and how, assuring that we have the tools to address almost any challenge, if not yet the will. His book is also an expansive ecological history of past, present, and future. Exceptionally well-researched if occasionally repetitive, the book is crammed with astonishing facts and fascinating speculations. Biello examines the inefficiencies of our neo-fossil age, the nature and origins of the city, wildness (as opposed to wilderness), humanity's role in the pace of extinctions, the appalling lack of electricity and clean water in much of the world, a new space race, waste as the foundation of modern society, and varied concepts of geoengineering. In this well-written, significant book, Biello insists that humans, the world's most successful invasive species, have the ability to engage in planetary protection and human survival, but it will require wisdom, innovation, and restraint.

Kirkus Reviews