Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

Describe how the Chicago River—and specifically, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal—serves as a metaphor for the unintended consequences of humanity’s attempts to control nature.

The book’s title, Under a White Sky, is a reference to a possible outcome of solar geoengineering. How could the use of this technology lead to a white sky? How does this relate to the theme of the unintended consequences of controlling nature?

The costs of modifying nature—who does the most backbreaking work, or who bears the worst consequences—are not distributed equally. Describe how these harms are disproportionately distributed, citing examples from the text.