2022-2023 Community Book Connection
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene.
In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.
One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
What is Community Book Connection?
The Community Book Connection (CBC) is a college-wide, interdisciplinary reading initiative dedicated to promoting a culture of dialogue, discussion, and debate at CCBC. We are committed to fostering student engagement and student success by developing stimulating and challenging classroom opportunities and co-curricular programs.Each year we democratically select a book that we recommend to the college community. We encourage faculty and staff from many different disciplines and program areas to adopt the book for use in their courses and initiatives; we offer workshops, trainings and grant-funded opportunities to help faculty develop as educators.
To further enrich our community learning experience, members of the CBC community organize an exciting array of co-curricular activities centering on the themes of the book. In conjunction with internal and external partners, the Community Book Connection sponsors keynote lectures, panel discussions, debates, poetry readings, field trips, workshops, student presentations, theatre performances, dance and musical performances, art exhibits, fundraisers, service learning initiatives, and other types of programs.
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