Notes
Down the River
1
“the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter”: Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, reprint ed. (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001), 54.
“Going up that river”: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer, reprint ed. (New York: Signet Classics, 1950), 102.
Water in Chicago River: The New York Times (Jan. 14, 1900), 14.
became known as the Chicago School of Earth Moving: Libby Hill, The Chicago River: A Natural and Unnatural History (Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 2000), 127.
an island more than fifty feet high and a mile square: Cited in Hill, The Chicago River, 133.
transformed more than half the ice-free land on earth: Roger LeB. Hooke and José F. Martín-Duque, “Land Transformation by Humans: A Review,” GSA Today, 22 (2012), 4–10.
felt all the way in Des Moines: Katy Bergen, “Oklahoma Earthquake Felt in Kansas City, and as Far as Des Moines and Dallas,” The Kansas City Star (Sept. 3, 2016), kansascity.com/news/local/article99785512.html.
“humans and livestock outweigh all vertebrates combined”: Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo, “The Biomass Distribution on Earth,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (2018), 6506–6511.
to disguise the project’s true purpose: “Historical Vignette 113—Hide the Development of the Atomic Bomb,” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters, usace.army.mil/About/History/Historical-Vignettes/Military-Construction-Combat/113-Atomic-Bomb/.
The Corps considered more than a dozen: P. Moy, C. B. Shea, J. M. Dettmers, and I. Polls, “Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Aquatic Nuisance Species Dispersal Barriers,” report available for download at: glpf.org/funded-projects/aquatic-nuisance-species-dispersal-barrier-for-the-chicago-sanitary-and-ship-canal/.
“ruin our way of life”: Quoted in Thomas Just, “The Political and Economic Implications of the Asian Carp Invasion,” Pepperdine Policy Review, 4 (2011), digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/ppr/vol4/iss1/3.
“the first documented example of integrated polyculture”: Patrick M. Kočovský, Duane C. Chapman, and Song Qian, “ ‘Asian Carp’ Is Societally and Scientifically Problematic. Let’s Replace It,” Fisheries, 43 (2018), 311–316.
almost fifty billion pounds in 2015 alone: Figures from the China Fisheries Yearbook 2016, cited in Louis Harkell, “China Claims 69m Tons of Fish Produced in 2016,” Undercurrent News (Jan. 19, 2017), undercurrentnews.com/2017/01/19/ministry-of-agriculture-china-produced-69m-tons-of-fish-in-2016/.
whose working title was The Control of Nature: William Souder, On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson (New York: Crown, 2012), 280.
“The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance”: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 40th anniversary ed. (New York: Mariner, 2002), 297.
the first documented shipment of Asian carp: Andrew Mitchell and Anita M. Kelly, “The Public Sector Role in the Establishment of Grass Carp in the United States,” Fisheries, 31 (2006), 113–121.
the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission found a use: Anita M. Kelly, Carole R. Engle, Michael L. Armstrong, Mike Freeze, and Andrew J. Mitchell, “History of Introductions and Governmental Involvement in Promoting the Use of Grass, Silver, and Bighead Carps,” in Invasive Asian Carps in North America, Duane C. Chapman and Michael H. Hoff, eds. (Bethesda, Md.: American Fisheries Society, 2011), 163–174.
“Who hears the fishes when they cry?”: Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, reprint ed. (New York: Penguin, 1998), 31.
Bigheads can, on occasion, weigh as much as a hundred pounds: Duane C. Chapman, “Facts About Invasive Bighead and Silver Carps,” publication of the United States Geological Survey, available at: pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3033/pdf/FS2010-3033.pdf.
“Bighead and silver carp don’t just invade ecosystems”: Dan Egan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (New York: Norton, 2017), 156.
on some waterways the proportion is even higher: Dan Chapman, A War in the Water, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, southeast region (March 19, 2018), fws.gov/southeast/articles/a-war-in-the-water/.
The result was fifty-four thousand pounds of dead fish: Egan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, 177.
“no greater threat to the ecosystem of the Great Lakes”: Cited in Tom Henry, “Congressmen Urge Aggressive Action to Block Asian Carp,” The Blade (Dec. 21, 2009), toledoblade.com/local/2009/12/21/Congressmen-urge-aggressive-action-to-block-Asian-carp/stories/200912210014.
Michigan filed a lawsuit: “Lawsuit Against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Chicago Water District,” Department of the Michigan Attorney General, michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-359-82915_82919_82129_82135-447414--,00.html.
According to the Corps’ assessment: The Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study, or GLMRIS report, is available at: glmris.anl.gov/glmris-report/.
On the Great Lakes side: A list of the (at last count) 187 invasive species established in the Great Lakes is provided by NOAA at: glerl.noaa.gov/glansis/GLANSISposter.pdf.
A woman I read about: Phil Luciano, “Asian Carp More Than a Slap in the Face,” Peoria Journal Star (Oct. 21, 2003), pjstar.com/article/20031021/NEWS/310219999.
the China Daily ran an article: Doug Fangyu, “Asian Carp: Americans’ Poison, Chinese People’s Delicacy,” China Daily USA (Oct. 13, 2014), http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2014-10/13/content_18730596.htm.
2
officially retired thirty-one Plaquemines place names: Amy Wold, “Washed Away: Locations in Plaquemines Parish Disappear from Latest NOAA Charts,” The Advocate (Apr. 29, 2013), theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_f60d4d55-e26b-52c0-b9bb-bed2ae0b348c.html.
“We harnessed it, straightened it, regularized it, shackled it”: Cited in John McPhee, The Control of Nature (New York: Noonday, 1990), 26.
some four hundred million tons’ worth annually: Liviu Giosan and Angelina M. Freeman, “How Deltas Work: A Brief Look at the Mississippi River Delta in a Global Context,” in Perspectives on the Restoration of the Mississippi Delta, John W. Day, G. Paul Kemp, Angelina M. Freeman, and David P. Muth, eds. (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2014), 30.
had been assured by a Bayogoula guide: Christopher Morris, The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its Peoples from Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 42.
wading “mid-leg deep” to get to their cabins: Cited in Morris, The Big Muddy, 45.
“I do not see how settlers can be placed on this river”: Cited in Morris, The Big Muddy, 45.
“The site is drowned under half a foot of water”: Cited in Lawrence N. Powell, The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 49.
slave-built levees stretched along both banks: Morris, The Big Muddy, 61.
extended for more than a hundred and fifty miles: John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 40.
In 1735, a crevasse-induced flood: Donald W. Davis, “Historical Perspective on Crevasses, Levees, and the Mississippi River,” in Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs, Craig E. Colten, ed. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2000), 87.
observed “one sheet of water”: Cited in Richard Campanella, “Long before Hurricane Katrina, There Was Sauve’s Crevasse, One of the Worst Floods in New Orleans History,” nola.com (June 11, 2014), nola.com/entertainment_life/home_garden/article_ea927b6b-d1ab-5462-9756-ccb1acdf092e.html.
In 1858, forty-five crevasses opened up: For a full account of crevasses, 1773–1927, see Davis, “Historical Perspectives on Crevasses, Levees, and the Mississippi River,” 95.
two hundred and twenty-six crevasses were reported: Davis, “Historical Perspectives on Crevasses, Levees, and the Mississippi River,” 100.
caused an estimated $500 million worth of damage: Estimates of the damages caused by the Great Flood of 1927 vary widely; some are as high as a billion dollars, or almost $15 billion in today’s money.
the most important piece of water-related legislation: Cited in Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer, Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster (New York: New York University, 2014), 76.
within four years, it had added: D. O. Elliott, The Improvement of the Lower Mississippi River for Flood Control and Navigation: Vol. 2 (St. Louis: Mississippi River Commission, 1932), 172.
On average, the levees were raised by three feet: Elliott, The Improvement of the Lower Mississippi River: Vol. 2, 326.
A poem commemorating the Corps’ efforts: The excerpt comes from Michael C. Robinson, The Mississippi River Commission: An American Epic (Vicksburg, Miss.: Mississippi River Commission, 1989).
“The Mississippi River was controlled; land was lost”: Davis, “Historical Perspectives on Crevasses, Levees, and the Mississippi River,” 85.
The authority had taken them anyway: John Snell, “State Takes Soil Samples at Site of Largest Coastal Restoration Project, Despite Plaquemines Parish Opposition,” Fox8live (last updated Aug. 23, 2018), fox8live.com/story/38615453/state-takes-soil-samples-at-site-of-largest-coastal-restoration-project-despite-plaquemines-parish-opposition/.
dropping by almost half a foot a decade: Cathleen E. Jones et al., “Anthropogenic and Geologic Influences on Subsidence in the Vicinity of New Orleans, Louisiana,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 121 (2016), 3867–3887.
“New Orleans’ drainage problem is a terrible one”: Thomas Ewing Dabney, “New Orleans Builds Own Underground River,” New Orleans Item (May 2, 1920), 1.
The Case Against Rebuilding the Sunken City of New Orleans: Jack Shafer, “Don’t Refloat: The Case against Rebuilding the Sunken City of New Orleans,” Slate (Sept. 7, 2005), slate.com/news-and-politics/2005/09/the-case-against-rebuilding-the-sunken-city-of-new-orleans.html.
“It is time to face up to some geological realities”: Klaus Jacob, “Time for a Tough Question: Why Rebuild?” The Washington Post (Sept. 6, 2005).
An advisory group appointed by New Orleans’s mayor: Reports of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, appointed by Mayor Ray Nagin, are archived at: columbia.edu/itc/journalism/cases/katrina/city_of_new_orleans_bnobc.html.
twelve thousand cubic feet of water per second: Mark Schleifstein, “Price of Now-Completed Pump Stations at New Orleans Outfall Canals Rises by $33.2 Million,” New Orleans Times-Picayune (last updated July 12, 2019), nola.com/news/environment/article_7734dae6-c1c9-559b-8b94-7a9cef8bb6d8.html.
twenty miles closer to the Gulf: Klein and Zellmer, Mississippi River Tragedies, 144.
for every three miles a storm has to travel: How much wetlands buffer storm surges is a much-debated topic. This estimate is cited in Klein and Zellmer, Mississippi River Tragedies, 141.
Jean Marie’s children, in turn, married descendants: The history of the Isle de Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe, as well as the latest on the resettlement plan, can be found at isledejeancharles.com.
the project’s billion-dollar price tag: The price of the Morganza to the Gulf project keeps changing. These figures come from the late 1990s, when the Corps decided not to include Isle de Jean Charles inside the levees.
“The Corps of Engineers can make the Mississippi River go”: McPhee, The Control of Nature, 50.
“The word will now come to mind”: McPhee, The Control of Nature, 69.
Into the Wild
1
not far from Mount Stirling: In Manly’s day, the mountain had not been officially named; his location is reckoned in Richard E. Lingenfelter, Death Valley & the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion (Berkeley: University of California, 1986), 42.
a “bounteous stock of bread and beans”: William L. Manly, Death Valley in ’49: The Autobiography of a Pioneer, reprint ed. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: The Narrative Press, 2001), 105.
Most of the members of Manly’s group: Lingenfelter, Death Valley & the Amargosa, 34–35.
a bloody liquid “resembling corruption”: Manly, Death Valley in ’49, 106.
asked him please to shut up: Manly, Death Valley in ’49, 99.
“Creator’s dumping place”: The account of this exchange comes from Manly, Death Valley in ’49, 113.
“enjoyed an extremely refreshing bath”: Cited in James E. Deacon and Cynthia Deacon Williams, “Ash Meadows and the Legacy of the Devils Hole Pupfish, in Battle Against Extinction: Native Fish Management in the American West, W. L. Minckley and James E. Deacon, eds. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991), 69.
“not much more than an inch long”: Manly, Death Valley in ’49, 107.
a “beautiful enigma”: Christopher J. Norment, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in a Desert World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2014), 110.
fuzzy shots of two feet walking: The surveillance video was posted with a story by Veronica Rocha, “3 Men Face Felony Charges in Killing of Endangered Pupfish in Death Valley,” Los Angeles Times (May 13, 2016), latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pupfish-charges-20160513-snap-story.html.
described him as potbellied and stern: Paige Blankenbuehler, “How a Tiny Endangered Species Put a Man in Prison,” High Country News (Apr. 15, 2019).
weighed in at about a hundred grams: This calculation is based on figures from Norment, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea, 120.
“suitable for either ball or shot”: Manly, Death Valley in ’49, 13.
“the finest kind of food, fit for an epicure”: Manly, Death Valley in ’49, 64.
“Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature”: Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau’s Journals, Vol. 20 (entry from March 23, 1856), transcript available at: http://thoreau.library.ucsb.edu/writings_journals20.html.
took place in 1882: Joel Greenberg, A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 152–155.
“It would have been as easy to count”: William T. Hornaday, The Extermination of the American Bison with a Sketch of Its Discovery and Life History (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 387.
“hardly a bone will remain above ground”: Hornaday, The Extermination of the American Bison, 525.
“For one species to mourn the death of another”: Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, reprint ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1970), 117.
Extinction rates are now hundreds: Anthony D. Barnosky et al., “Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?” Nature, 471 (2011) 51–57.
a list of “common birds in steep decline”: The list, compiled by the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative, is available at: allaboutbirds.org/news/state-of-the-birds-2014-common-birds-in-steep-decline-list/.
Even among insects: Caspar A. Hallmann et al., “More than 75 Percent Decline over 27 Years in Total Flying Insect Biomass in Protected Areas,” PLoS ONE, 12 (2017), journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809.
The tests left behind a more or less permanent marker: C. N. Waters et al., “Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Anthropocene Series: Where and How to Look for Potential Candidates,” Earth-Science Reviews, 178 (2018), 379–429.
“peculiar race of desert fish”: Proclamation 2961, 17 Fed. Reg. 691 (Jan. 23, 1952).
That spring, the Department of Defense: For a full list of nuclear tests by date, see U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Safety Administration Nevada Field Office, United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992 (Alexandria, Va.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2015), nnss.gov/docs/docs_LibraryPublications/DOE_NV-209_Rev16.pdf.
His plan was to construct from scratch: This plan is described in Kevin C. Brown, Recovering the Devils Hole Pupfish: An Environmental History (National Park Service, 2017), 315. An electronic copy of the history was generously provided by the author.
By the end of 1970: Brown, Recovering the Devils Hole Pupfish, 142.
the National Park Service rigged up a bank: Brown, Recovering the Devils Hole Pupfish, 145.
Some went to Saline Valley: Brown, Recovering the Devils Hole Pupfish, 139.
Then rival stickers appeared: Brown, Recovering the Devils Hole Pupfish, 303.
“Water, water, water”: Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, reprint ed. (New York: Touchstone, 1990), 126.
“All living things on earth are kindred”: Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 21.
“To watch a small school of pupfish”: Norment, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea, 3–4.
dubbed “misanthropic synanthropes”: Stanley D. Gehrt, Justin L. Brown, and Chris Anchor, “Is the Urban Coyote a Misanthropic Synanthrope: The Case from Chicago,” Cities and the Environment, 4 (2011), digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol4/iss1/3/.
currently listed as “possibly extinct”: For the latest on the IUCN’s list of “possibly extinct” animals, see: iucnredlist.org/statistics.
The term of art for such creatures is “conservation-reliant”: J. Michael Scott et al., “Recovery of Imperiled Species under the Endangered Species Act: The Need for a New Approach, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 3 (2005), 383–389.
“Old deeds for old people”: Henry David Thoreau, Walden, reprint ed. (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997), 10.
it is the “destiny of every considerable stream”: Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain, reprint ed. (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2015), 61.
Among those creatures that lasted long enough: Robert R. Miller, James D. Williams, and Jack E. Williams, “Extinctions of North American Fishes During the Past Century,” Fisheries, 14 (1989), 22–38.
“I distinctly remember being scared to death”: Edwin Philip Pister, “Species in a Bucket,” Natural History (January 1993), 18.
He managed to save thirty-two of them: C. Moon Reed, “Only You Can Save the Pahrump Poolfish,” Las Vegas Weekly (March 9, 2017), lasvegasweekly.com/news/2017/mar/09/pahrump-poolfish-lake-harriet-spring-mountain/.
“Men make their own biosphere”: J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (New York: Norton, 2000), 194.
2
something like half of the Caribbean’s coral cover disappeared: Richard B. Aronson and William F. Precht, “White-Band Disease and the Changing Face of Caribbean Coral Reefs,” Hydrobiologia, 460 (2001), 25–38.
In 1998, a so-called global bleaching event: Alexandra Witze, “Corals Worldwide Hit by Bleaching,” Nature (Oct. 8, 2015), nature.com/news/corals-worldwide-hit-by-bleaching-1.18527.
“stop growing and begin dissolving”: Jacob Silverman et al., “Coral Reefs May Start Dissolving When Atmospheric CO2 Doubles,” Geophysical Research Letters, 36 (2009), agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008GL036282.
“rapidly eroding rubble banks”: O. Hoegh-Guldberg et al., “Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification,” Science, 318 (2007), 1737–1742.
“curious rings of coral land”: Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (New York: P. F. Collier, 1909), 406.
“raised by myriads of tiny architects”: Darwin, Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary, Richard Darwin Keynes, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1988), 418.
“thirty-five folio pages of crabbed, elliptical scrawl”: Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging (New York: Knopf, 1995), 437.
“We see nothing of these slow changes”: Darwin, On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1964), 84.
“Beneath this laurel’s friendly pitying shade”: From an “Epitaph for a Favourite Tumbler Who Died Aged Twelve,” signed Columba, full poem available at: darwinspigeons.com/#/victorian-pigeon-poems/4535732923.
“retch awfully”: Darwin wrote this in a letter to his friend Thomas Eyton, cited in Browne, Charles Darwin, 525.
“I have kept every breed”: Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 20–21.
“If feeble man can do [so] much”: Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 109.
after The End of Nature: Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Random House, 1989).
more than ninety percent of the Great Barrier Reef: This figure comes from Neal Cantin, a research scientist I interviewed at the SeaSim (Nov. 15, 2019).
half its corals had perished: Robinson Meyer, “Since 2016, Half of All Coral in the Great Barrier Reef Has Died,” The Atlantic (Apr. 18, 2018), theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/since-2016-half-the-coral-in-the-great-barrier-reef-has-perished/558302/.
a “catastrophic” collapse: Terry P. Hughes et al., “Global Warming Transforms Coral Reef Assemblages,” Nature, 556 (2018), 492–496.
a healthy patch of reef: Mark D. Spalding, Corinna Ravilious, and Edmund P. Green, World Atlas of Coral Reefs (Berkeley: University of California, 2001), 27.
Researchers once picked apart: Spalding et al., World Atlas of Coral Reefs, 27.
Using genetic-sequencing techniques: Laetitia Plaisance et al., “The Diversity of Coral Reefs: What Are We Missing?” PLoS ONE, 6 (2011), journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0025026.
between one and nine million species: Nancy Knowlton, “The Future of Coral Reefs,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98 (2001), 5419–5425.
“In the coral city there is no waste”: Richard C. Murphy, Coral Reefs: Cities under the Sea (Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, 2002), 33.
“It will be slimy”: Roger Bradbury, “A World Without Coral Reefs,” The New York Times (July 13, 2012), A17.
The authority said that the reef’s long-term prospects: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2019 (Townsville, Aus.: GBRMPA, 2019), vi. The full report is available at: http://elibrary.gbrmpa.gov.au/jspui/handle/11017/3474/.
a gigantic new coal mine: “Adani Gets Final Environmental Approval for Carmichael Mine,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation News (last updated June 13, 2019), abc.net.au/news/2019-06-13/adani-carmichael-coal-mine-approved-water-management-galilee/11203208.
“The world’s most insane energy project”: Jeff Goodell, “The World’s Most Insane Energy Project Moves Ahead,” Rolling Stone (June 14, 2019), rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/adani-mine-australia-climate-change-848315/.
“entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds”: Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 489.
3
calls himself a “genetic designer”: Josiah Zayner, “How to Genetically Engineer a Human in Your Garage—Part I,” josiahzayner.com/2017/01/genetic-designer-part-i.html.
“a way to rewrite the very molecules of life”: Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 119.
ants that can’t smell: Waring Trible et al, “orco Mutagenesis Causes Loss of Antennal Lobe Glomeruli and Impaired Social Behavior in Ants,” Cell, 170 (2017), 727–735.
macaques that suffer from sleep disorders: Peiyuan Qiu et al., “BMAL1 Knockout Macaque Monkeys Display Reduced Sleep and Psychiatric Disorders,” National Science Review, 6 (2019), 87–100.
Eadweard Muybridge’s famous series of photographs: Seth L. Shipman et al., “CRISPR-Cas Encoding of a Digital Movie into the Genomes of a Population of Living Bacteria,” Nature, 547 (2017), 345–349.
The Australian Animal Health Laboratory: Several months after I visited, the Australian Animal Health Laboratory was renamed the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness.
“an enormous, warty bufonid”: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Cane Toad (Rhinella marina) Ecological Risk Screening Summary,” web version (revised Apr. 5, 2018), fws.gov/fisheries/ans/erss/highrisk/ERSS-Rhinella-marina-final-April2018.pdf.
“Large individuals sitting on roadways”: L. A. Somma, “Rhinella marina (Linnaeus, 1758),” U.S. Geological Survey, Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database (revised Apr. 11, 2019), nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.aspx?SpeciesID=48.
A toad named Bette Davis: Rick Shine, Cane Toad Wars (Oakland: University of California, 2018), 7.
In the mid-1800s, they were imported to the Caribbean: Byron S. Wilson et al., “Cane Toads a Threat to West Indian Wildlife: Mortality of Jamaican Boas Attributable to Toad Ingestion,” Biological Invasions, 13 (2011), link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-010-9787-7.
they’d produced more than 1.5 million eggs: Shine, Cane Toad Wars, 21.
toads on the front lines had significantly longer legs: Benjamin L. Phillips et al., “Invasion and the Evolution of Speed in Toads,” Nature, 439 (2006), 803.
“It has invaded the Territory”: Karen Michelmore, “Super Toad,” Northern Territory News (Feb. 16, 2006), 1.
The list of species whose numbers have crashed: Shine, Cane Toad Wars, 4. See also: “The Biological Effects, Including Lethal Toxic Ingestion, Caused by Cane Toads (Bufo marinus): Advice to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage from the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) on Amendments to the List of Key Threatening Processes under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)” (Apr. 12, 2005), environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/key-threatening-processes/biological-effects-cane-toads.
the Australian government offer a bounty: House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy, Cane Toads on the March: Inquiry into Controlling the Spread of Cane Toads (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2019), 32.
amplifies the poison’s potency a hundredfold: Robert Capon, “Inquiry into Controlling the Spread of Cane Toads, Submission 8” (Feb. 2019). Available for download at: aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Environment_and_Energy/Canetoads/Submissions.
Feed them toad “sausages”: Naomi Indigo et al., “Not Such Silly Sausages: Evidence Suggests Northern Quolls Exhibit Aversion to Toads after Training with Toad Sausages,” Austral Ecology, 43 (2018), 592–601.
Some interfere with the replication of a rival gene: Austin Burt and Robert Trivers, Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2006), 4–5.
passed on more than ninety percent of the time: Burt and Trivers, Genes in Conflict, 3.
including mosquitoes, flour beetles, and lemmings: Burt and Trivers, Genes in Conflict, 13–14.
to create a synthetic gene drive in yeast: James E. DiCarlo et al., “Safeguarding CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Drives in Yeast,” Nature Biotechnology, 33 (2015), 1250–1255.
to create a synthetic gene drive in fruit flies: Valentino M. Gantz and Ethan Bier, “The Mutagenic Chain Reaction: A Method for Converting Heterozygous to Homozygous Mutations,” Science, 348 (2015), 442–444.
until yellow ruled: Doudna and Sternberg estimate that had the gene-drive fruit flies escaped, they could have spread the gene for yellow coloring to between a fifth and a half of all fruit flies worldwide. A Crack in Creation, 151.
“There is hope”: GBIRd website, geneticbiocontrol.org.
down to zero within a few years: Thomas A. A. Prowse, et al., “Dodging Silver Bullets: Good CRISPR Gene-Drive Design Is Critical for Eradicating Exotic Vertebrates,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284 (2017), royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0799.
claimed at least a thousand species of island birds: Richard P. Duncan, Alison G. Boyer, and Tim M. Blackburn, “Magnitude and Variation of Prehistoric Bird Extinctions in the Pacific,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110 (2013), 6436–6441.
Despite intensive efforts to save them: Elizabeth A. Bell, Brian D. Bell, and Don V. Merton, “The Legacy of Big South Cape: Rat Irruption to Rat Eradication,” New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 40 (2016), 212–218.
“Only humans are as adaptable”: Lee M. Silver, Mouse Genetics: Concepts and Applications (Oxford: Oxford University, 1995), adapted for the Web by Mouse Genome Informatics, The Jackson Laboratory (revised Jan. 2008), http://informatics.jax.org/silver/.
“like working in an ornithological trauma center”: Alex Bond, “Mice Wreak Havoc for South Atlantic Seabirds,” British Ornithologists’ Union, bou.org.uk/blog-bond-gough-island-mice-seabirds/.
compared to Kurt Vonnegut’s ice-nine: Rowan Jacobsen, “Deleting a Species,” Pacific Standard (June–July 2018, updated Sept. 7, 2018), psmag.com/magazine/deleting-a-species-genetically-engineering-an-extinction.
with names like “killer-rescue”: Jaye Sudweeks et al., “Locally Fixed Alleles: A Method to Localize Gene Drive to Island Populations,” Scientific Reports, 9 (2019), doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51994-0.
featuring a so-called CATCHA sequence: Bing Wu, Liqun Luo, and Xiaojing J. Gao, “Cas9-Triggered Chain Ablation of Cas9 as Gene Drive Brake,” Nature Biotechnology, 34 (2016), 137–138.
“new techniques of genetic rescue”: Revive & Restore website, reviverestore.org/projects/.
“Do you know how he did it?”: Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (New York: Beginner Books, 1958), 16.
“an extinction avalanche”: Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Vintage, 2002), 53.
“We are not as gods”: Wilson, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (New York: Liveright, 2016), 51.
“We are as gods, but we have failed to get good at it”: Paul Kingsnorth, “Life Versus the Machine,” Orion (Winter 2018), 28–33.
Up in the Air
1
“The start of the switchover”: William F. Ruddiman, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2005), 4.
humans emitted some fifteen million tons of CO2: Historical emissions data come from Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” Our World in Data (last revised Aug. 2020), ourworldindata.org/CO2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
Droughts are growing deeper: Benjamin Cook, “Climate Change Is Already Making Droughts Worse,” CarbonBrief (May 14, 2018), carbonbrief.org/guest-post-climate-change-is-already-making-droughts-worse.
storms fiercer: Kieran T. Bhatia et al., “Recent Increases in Tropical Cyclone Intensification Rates,” Nature Communications, 10 (2019), doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08471-z.
Wildfire season is getting longer: W. Matt Jolly et al., “Climate-Induced Variations in Global Wildfire Danger from 1979 to 2013,” Nature Communications, 6 (2015), doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8537.
melt off of Antarctica has increased threefold: A. Shepherd et al., “Mass Balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017,” Nature, 558 (2018), 219–222.
most atolls will, in another few decades: Curt D. Storlazzi et al., “Most Atolls Will Be Uninhabitable by the Mid-21st Century Because of Sea-Level Rise Exacerbating Wave-Driven Flooding,” Science Advances, 25 (2018), advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/4/eaap9741.
“holding the increase in the global average temperature”: The full text of the Paris Agreement in English is available at: unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf.
To stave off 1.5°C: There are many ways to calculate how much CO2 can still be emitted if the world is to stay below 1.5° or 2°C; I am using the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change’s “remaining carbon budget” figures, available at: mcc-berlin.net/en/research/CO2-budget.html.
“smaller than many deserts”: K. S. Lackner and C. H. Wendt, “Exponential Growth of Large Self-Reproducing Machine Systems,” Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 21 (1995), 55–81.
as “adventure capital”: Wallace S. Broecker and Robert Kunzig, Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat—and How to Counter It (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008), 205.
“Rewarding people for going to the bathroom less”: Klaus S. Lackner and Christophe Jospe, “Climate Change Is a Waste Management Problem,” Issues in Science and Technology, 33 (2017), issues.org/climate-change-is-a-waste-management-problem/.
“Such a moral stance”: Lackner and Jospe, “Climate Change Is a Waste Management Problem.”
global CO2 emissions were down: Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis, and John Muyskens, “Global Emissions Plunged an Unprecedented 17 Percent during the Coronavirus Pandemic,” The Washington Post (May 19, 2020), washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/05/19/greenhouse-emissions-coronavirus/?arc404=true.
How long, exactly, is a complicated question: Individual carbon molecules are constantly cycling between atmosphere and oceans and between both of these and the world’s vegetation. However, CO2 levels in the atmosphere are governed by much slower processes. For a fuller discussion, see Doug Mackie, “CO2 Emissions Change Our Atmosphere for Centuries,” Skeptical Science (last updated July 5, 2015), skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=1&t=77&&a=80.
the United States is responsible: All figures on aggregate emissions are taken from Hannah Ritchie, “Who Has Contributed Most to Global CO2 Emissions?” Our World in Data (Oct. 1, 2019), ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-CO2.
a hundred and one involved negative emissions: Sabine Fuss et al., “Betting on Negative Emissions,” Nature Climate Change, 4 (2014), 850–852.
All of the scenarios consistent with that goal: J. Rogelj et al., “Mitigation Pathways Compatible with 1.5°C in the Context of Sustainable Development,” in Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report, V. Masson-Delmotte et al., eds., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Oct. 8, 2018), ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter2_Low_Res.pdf.
I used up my allotment: Calculating the emissions from air travel is complicated, and different groups offer different estimates for the same trip. I am relying on the flight carbon calculator at myclimate.org.
A recent study by Swiss researchers: Jean-Francois Bastin et al., “The Global Tree Restoration Potential,” Science, 364 (2019), 76–79.
Other researchers argued: Katarina Zimmer, “Researchers Find Flaws in High-Profile Study on Trees and Climate,” The Scientist (Oct. 17, 2019), the-scientist.com/news-opinion/researchers-find-flaws-in-high-profile-study-on-trees-and-climate--66587. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay7976.
was “still substantial”: Joseph W. Veldman et al., “Comment on ‘The Global Tree Restoration Potential,’ ” Science, 366 (2019), science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6463/eaay7976.
One entails cutting down mature trees: Ning Zeng, “Carbon Sequestration Via Wood Burial,” Carbon Balance and Management, 3 (2008), doi.org/10.1186/1750-0680-3-1.
Another scheme involves collecting crop residues: Stuart E. Strand and Gregory Benford, “Ocean Sequestration of Crop Residue Carbon: Recycling Fossil Fuel Carbon Back to Deep Sediments,” Environmental Science and Technology, 43 (2009), 1000–1007.
“Assuming it takes a crew of ten people”: Zeng, “Carbon Sequestration Via Wood Burial.”
a recent study by a team of German scientists: Jessica Strefler et al., “Potential and Costs of Carbon Dioxide Removal by Enhanced Weathering of Rocks,” Environmental Research Letters (March 5, 2018), dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa9c4.
“two steps backward in justice”: 
O. Táíwò, “Climate Colonialism and Large-Scale Land Acquisitions,” C2G (Sept. 26, 2019), c2g2.net/climate-colonialism-and-large-scale-land-acquisitions/.
2
reached a height of twenty-five miles: Clive Oppenheimer, Eruptions that Shook the World (New York: Cambridge University, 2011), 299.
Ten thousand people were killed: Oppenheimer, Eruptions that Shook the World, 310.
“a body of liquid fire”: The account of the Rajah of Sanggar is cited in Oppenheimer, Eruptions that Shook the World, 299.
“It was impossible to see your hand”: This account, from the captain of a ship owned by the East India Company, is cited in Gillen D’Arcy Wood, Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2014), 21.
more than a hundred million tons of gas: South Dakota State University, “Undocumented Volcano Contributed to Extremely Cold Decade from 1810–1819,” ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2009), sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091205105844.htm.
“ruined figures, scarcely resembling men”: Cited in Oppenheimer, Eruptions that Shook the World, 314.
marching under the banner Bread or Blood: William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman, The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History (New York: St. Martin’s, 2013), 46.
some estimates put the figure in the millions: Wood, Tambora, 233.
“The very face of nature”: Cited in Klingaman and Klingaman, The Year Without Summer, 64.
On July 8, there was frost: Klingaman and Klingaman, The Year Without Summer, 104.
Chester Dewey, a professor at Williams College: Cited in Oppenheimer, Eruptions that Shook the World, 312.
“dangerous beyond belief”: James Rodger Fleming, Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control (New York: Columbia University, 2010), 2.
“a broad highway to hell”: This assessment comes from Tim Flannery, cited in Mark White, “The Crazy Climate Technofix,” SBS (May 27, 2016), sbs.com.au/topics/science/earth/feature/geoengineering-the-crazy-climate-technofix.
“unimaginably drastic”: Holly Jean Buck, After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration (London: Verso, 2019), 3.
and also as “inevitable”: Dave Levitan, “Geoengineering Is Inevitable,” Gizmodo (Oct. 9, 2018), earther.gizmodo.com/geoengineering-is-inevitable-1829623031.
a brief downturn in global temperatures: “Global Effects of Mount Pinatubo,” NASA Earth Observatory (June 15, 2001), earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1510/global-effects-of-mount-pinatubo.
In the tropics, ozone levels in the lower stratosphere: William B. Grant et al., “Aerosol-Associated Changes in Tropical Stratospheric Ozone Following the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 99 (1994), 8197–8211.
“Man is unwittingly conducting”: President’s Science Advisory Committee, Restoring the Quality of Our Environment: Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel (Washington, D.C.: The White House, 1965), 126.
“rise about four feet every ten years”: Restoring the Quality of Our Environment,123.
“Rough estimates indicate”: Restoring the Quality of Our Environment, 127.
sending aircraft to seed the clouds: H. E. Willoughby et al., “Project STORMFURY: A Scientific Chronicle 1962–1983,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 66 (1985), 505–514.
An astonishing twenty-six hundred seeding sorties: Fleming, Fixing the Sky, 180.
Other climate-modification plans pursued: National Research Council, Weather & Climate Modification: Problems and Progress (Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 1973), 9.
“What mankind needs is a war against cold”: Cited in Fleming, Fixing the Sky, 202.
Gorodsky believed this arrangement: Nikolai Rusin and Liya Flit, Man Versus Climate, Dorian Rottenberg, trans. (Moscow: Peace Publishers, 1962), 61–63.
“New projects for transforming nature”: Rusin and Flit, Man Versus Climate, 174.
Public concern about the environment: David W. Keith, “Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect,” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 25 (2000), 245–284.
“rockets and different types of missiles”: Mikhail Budyko, Climatic Changes, American Geophysical Union, trans. (Baltimore: Waverly, 1977), 241.
“climate modification will become necessary”: Budyko, Climatic Changes, 236.
“foremost proponent of geoengineering”: Joe Nocera, “Chemo for the Planet,” The New York Times (May 19, 2015), A25.
“I’m a proponent of reality”: David Keith, Letter to the Editor, The New York Times (May 27, 2015), A22.
he describes himself as a “tinkerer”: David Keith, A Case for Climate Engineering (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2013), xiii.
development costs would run to about $2.5 billion: Wake Smith and Gernot Wagner, “Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Tactics and Costs in the First 15 Years of Deployment,” Environmental Research Letters, 13 (2018), doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae98d.
three hundred times that amount every year: It’s been estimated that global fossil-fuel subsidies totaled $5.2 trillion in 2017; see: David Coady et al., “Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large: An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates,” IMF (May 2, 2019), imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509.
“Dozens of countries would have both”: Smith and Wagner, “Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Tactics and Costs.”
the number of flights would ramp up accordingly: Smith and Wagner, “Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Tactics and Costs.”
determined it would change the appearance of the sky: Ben Kravitz, Douglas G. MacMartin, and Ken Caldeira, “Geoengineering: Whiter Skies?” Geophysical Research Letters, 39 (2012), doi.org/10.1029/2012GL051652.
the latest version has more than two dozen entries: Alan Robock, “Benefits and Risks of Stratospheric Solar Radiation Management for Climate Intervention (Geoengineering),” The Bridge (Spring 2020), 59–67.
“Ironically, such engineering efforts”: Dan Schrag, “Geobiology of the Anthropocene,” in Fundamentals of Geobiology, Andrew H. Knoll, Donald E. Canfield, and Kurt O. Konhauser, eds. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 434.
3
“Iceworm thus couples mobility”: Cited in Erik D. Weiss, “Cold War Under the Ice: The Army’s Bid for a Long-Range Nuclear Role, 1959–1963,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 3 (2001), 31–58.
“Camp Century is a symbol of man’s unceasing struggle”: The Story of Camp Century: The City Under Ice (U.S. Army film 1963, digitized version 2012).
two Boy Scouts—one American, one Danish: Ronald E. Doel, Kristine C. Harper, and Matthias Heymann, “Exploring Greenland’s Secrets: Science, Technology, Diplomacy, and Cold War Planning in Global Contexts,” in Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice, Ronald E. Doel, Kristine C. Harper, and Matthias Heymann, eds. (New York: Palgrave, 2016), 16.
Almost at once, the tunnels started to contract: Kristian H. Nielsen, Henry Nielsen, and Janet Martin-Nielsen, “City Under the Ice: The Closed World of Camp Century in Cold War Culture,” Science as Culture, 23 (2014), 443–464.
the annual general meeting of all the devils of hell: Willi Dansgaard, Frozen Annals: Greenland Ice Cap Research (Odder, Denmark: Narayana Press, 2004), 49.
more than a thousand in all: Jon Gertner, The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey Into Greenland’s Buried Past and Our Perilous Future (New York: Random House, 2019), 202.
didn’t seem to realize what a “gold mine” of data: Dansgaard, Frozen Annals, 55.
Dansgaard’s reading of the Camp Century core: W. Dansgaard et al., “One Thousand Centuries of Climatic Record from Camp Century on the Greenland Ice Sheet,” Science, 166 (1969), 377–380.
“a three-year-old who has just discovered a light switch”: Richard B. Alley, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future (Princeton: Princeton University, 2000), 120.
it was a doozy: Alley, The Two-Mile Time Machine, 114.
temperatures on the ice sheet: These figures come from Konrad Steffen, who tragically died in an accident on the ice sheet just as this book was going to press. They are cited in: Gertner, “In Greenland’s Melting Ice, A Warning on Hard Climate Choices,” e360 (June 27, 2019), e360.yale.edu/features/in-greenlands-melting-ice-a-warning-on-hard-climate-choices.
ice loss from Greenland has increased sevenfold: A. Shepherd et al., “Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2018,” Nature, 579 (2020), 233–239.
during an exceptionally warm couple of days: Marco Tedesco and Xavier Fettweis, “Unprecedented Atmospheric Conditions (1948–2019) Drive the 2019 Exceptional Melting Season over the Greenland Ice Sheet,” The Cryosphere, 14 (2020), 1209–1223.
Greenland shed almost six hundred billion tons of ice: Ingo Sasgen et al., “Return to Rapid Ice Loss in Greenland and Record Loss in 2019 Detected by GRACE-FO Satellites,” Communications Earth & Environment, 1 (2020), doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-0010-1.
“The current Arctic is experiencing rates”: Eystein Jansen et al., “Past Perspectives on the Present Era of Abrupt Arctic Climate Change,” Nature Climate Change, 10 (2020), 714–721.
An early cost estimate for the project: Peter Dockrill, “U.S. Army Weighs Up Proposal For Gigantic Sea Wall to Defend N.Y. from Future Floods,” ScienceAlert (Jan. 20, 2020), sciencealert.com/storm-brewing-over-giant-6-mile-sea-wall-to-defend-new-york-from-future-floods.
“We understand the hesitancy”: John C. Moore et al., “Geoengineer Polar Glaciers to Slow Sea-Level Rise,” Nature, 555 (2018), 303–305.
“We live in a world”: Andy Parker is quoted in Brian Kahn, “No, We Shouldn’t Just Block Out the Sun,” Gizmodo (Apr. 24, 2020), earther.gizmodo.com/no-we-shouldnt-just-block-out-the-sun-1843043812. I have undeleted the expletive.