8 How to Turn Back the Sun

From the moment former vice president Al Gore stood on a stage with his laser pointer, his goofy graphs, and his somewhat wooden delivery for the documentary An Inconvenient Truth (2006), there has been a widespread recognition that climate change presents humanity with a massive economic and moral migraine. When humans alter the climate under which they live, something literally earth-shaping is going on. Every inch of the world is transformed. No longer simply “the domain of the gods,” the skies above us become something we have made. And when climate changes, everything changes.