Reviews and Praise
I just started reading an advance copy, and, so far, it’s every bit as fascinating as I’d hoped.
–Maggie Koerth-Baker, boingboing
“Hack the Planet is a superbly written and reported chronicle of a remarkable story. In just a few years ‘geoengineering’ fixes to climate change–simulating volcanoes, CO2-sucking, cloud-brightening–have gone from crackpot to considered ideas. Eli Kintisch’s book is boundlessly smarter and more deeply researched on this topic than Superfreakonomics. Expect to hear much more in coming years from the planet-hackers–and from Kintisch.”
—Eric Roston, author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat
“As climate change goes unmitigated and continues to worsen, it seems we can no longer avoid a public debate on the prospect of planetary geoengineering–doing something probably bad to the planet to avert something even worse. It will be an Earth-changing discussion, and no one should feel competent to participate without having first read Eli Kintisch’s Hack the Planet, an indispensable introduction to the topic. The scientific ideas he explains and characters he depicts are compelling and even riveting.”
—Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science and Unscientific America
“Anyone who considers themselves scientifically literate had better get versed in the new discipline of geo-engineering–or planethacking, as Eli Kintisch calls it in this nuanced and useful new account. This discussion is not going to go away anytime soon!”
—Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Eaarth: Making A Life on a Tough New Planet
“Hack the Planet reads like a sci-fi novel. But it’s all the scarier because it’s true.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, reporter, New Yorker and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change
“Loathe or love it, geoengineering has come in from the fringe. Is rewiring the atmosphere the riskiest weapon against global climate change or the only realistic one–or both? It’s hard to imagine a more thorough and accessible guide to the science, and the stakes, than Eli Kintisch has provided.”
—Jonathan Rauch, columnist, National Journal
“It’s great…Hack the Planet provides a thorough and nuanced portrait of the development of geoengineering. Through long acquaintance with the field’s biggest names, Kintisch, a staff writer for Science, paints a deep sociological portrait of a radical new scientific discipline bursting messily into the world.
He reminds us that even though the techniques may be wild and global, many of the people dreaming them up are regular scientists trying to deal rationally with a carbon problem that they don’t see society solving. Faced with a warming world, they are torn between watching nature die or trying to surgically kill it themselves.”
—Alexis Madrigal, Wired
“Enjoying the Reportin’ Details in Eli’s book. Some odd characters.”
—Dan Vergano, USA Today
“Engaging…jampacked with facts, details and inside gossip…for the Wired crowd.”
—Alexandra Witze, Dallas News
“[Kintisch's] fast-paced tours through the science of geoengineering will help inform growing debates about whether governments should fund large research projects into climatic cooling and about how the various methods might be tested.”
“Kintisch…digs deeper…into explaining the details of how geoengineering might work — and why it would be so difficult to do well.”
“Kintisch…takes an insider’s view in Hack the Planet…[writing] from firmly within the world of science, and for an audience who’s comfortable with science, too.”
“…Kintisch is sceptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet.”
—Mason Inman, Nature Reports Climate Change
