The Control of Nature

Three long articles originally published in The New Yorker.

1. If you do nothing, most of the Mississippi’s water flow would go into Atchafalaya. This would be bad for everyone near both rivers, and people have been controlling these water flows for more than a century.

2. If lava flows slowly, and it is close to a water source, and you have good pumps lying around, you can cool the lava enough to prevent it from flowing further and destroying your town and its bay. This has been done in 1973 on the island of Heimaey in Iceland.

3. If you live close to the San Gabriel mountains in Los Angeles, your house might get destroyed by a debris flow. You can dig a place for these flows to go into, but these places can turn out to be too small. And since many people move in and out, they are not ready: you couldn’t have seen that worst-in-20-years storm if you've only lived here for five years.