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The Ministry for the Future
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.
From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us—and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us—and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
563 pages, Hardcover
First published October 6, 2020
10.4k people are currently reading
79.5k people want to read
About the author
Kim Stanley Robinson
253 books7,265 followersKim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He has published 22 novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,899 reviews
October 24, 2020
A short guide on how to enjoy reading The Ministry for the Future:
1. Be aware that it occupies a peculiar spot between fiction and non-fiction. The book features individuals, it even drives home a powerful point about individual engagement, but it is not focused on personal stories. While some chapters do go on at length about personal trauma, others are literally meeting minutes. Reams of fictional near-future history. Details on geoengineering techniques. The infamous infodump. If it is an aquired taste, it's a taste well worth aquiring.
2. Do not expect a scientifically rigid proposal for solving the climate crisis. KSR is an amazingly informed and engaged author and there are a number of intriguing and well-researched ideas in this book, touching on geoengineering, policy work, economics and more. Some might even work - while others would be picked apart by a domain expert. Personally I err on the hopeful side, plus they're fun to read. However, that doesn't really matter. Whatever its ultimate realism, the book fosters an understanding that solutions (plural) to climate change and global inequity are possible, that they can be imagined, that--look--this could be one way it plays out, however unlikely, that, yes, there are unknowns, but we can't really afford to let that paralyze us.
3. Do not mistake it for a dystopian novel. It starts out sobering, then proceeds with a grim determination that turns into determined hopefulness. Not utopian either; there's no starry eyed insistence on the ensured triumph of rationality and enlightenment (and if such is possible, it will be hard-earned). But despite the cautionary mention that humans usually believe they will be alright all the way to the end, KSR ultimately commits to optimism.
4. Do consider it a rallying cry. One among the many-but-not-yet-enough. I hope it finds its target in spite of considerable cynicism.
1. Be aware that it occupies a peculiar spot between fiction and non-fiction. The book features individuals, it even drives home a powerful point about individual engagement, but it is not focused on personal stories. While some chapters do go on at length about personal trauma, others are literally meeting minutes. Reams of fictional near-future history. Details on geoengineering techniques. The infamous infodump. If it is an aquired taste, it's a taste well worth aquiring.
2. Do not expect a scientifically rigid proposal for solving the climate crisis. KSR is an amazingly informed and engaged author and there are a number of intriguing and well-researched ideas in this book, touching on geoengineering, policy work, economics and more. Some might even work - while others would be picked apart by a domain expert. Personally I err on the hopeful side, plus they're fun to read. However, that doesn't really matter. Whatever its ultimate realism, the book fosters an understanding that solutions (plural) to climate change and global inequity are possible, that they can be imagined, that--look--this could be one way it plays out, however unlikely, that, yes, there are unknowns, but we can't really afford to let that paralyze us.
3. Do not mistake it for a dystopian novel. It starts out sobering, then proceeds with a grim determination that turns into determined hopefulness. Not utopian either; there's no starry eyed insistence on the ensured triumph of rationality and enlightenment (and if such is possible, it will be hard-earned). But despite the cautionary mention that humans usually believe they will be alright all the way to the end, KSR ultimately commits to optimism.
4. Do consider it a rallying cry. One among the many-but-not-yet-enough. I hope it finds its target in spite of considerable cynicism.
September 4, 2020
Tl;dr: I want to believe. But I find KSR’s answers to the challenge of global warming vague and unconvincing, so much so that this attempt at a hopeful, needle-threading future has left me more worried about the next century than when I started reading it.
—————
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sci-fi writer in possession of a utopian plotline must be in want of that quote about the end of the world being easier to imagine than the end of capitalism. I think KSR gets a good 5% of the way in before he paraphrases it here. And sure, a bit of a cliche, but it could be a great declaration of intent, a signpost that this novel won’t just indulge in apocalyptic visions (which he summons to terrifying and moving effect in the opening chapter) but try to chart a course between Scylla and Charybdis towards a better future.
The problem is that KSR doesn’t actually have a very good idea for how we get there, so he cheats. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. Remorselessly. Scylla actually has an allergy to ships, you see, and Charybdis is definitely super-scary but needs to wash its hair when the protagonists come by so we’re all good. It’s the equivalent of reading a right-on but fundamentally incoherent editorial in The Guardian — I really sympathise with the author’s politics and aspirations, but this isn’t the argument to be made for them.
Now, before I lean in to technical nitpicking and complaining about heavy-handed authorial shenanigans, a quick word about The Ministry for the Future’s literary quality. Which is often good, sometimes great, but wildly, spectacularly uneven. There are moments — the harrowing opening chapter “somewhere near Lucknow”, a majestic description of the sun as godlike creator-destroyer, a fraught late-night traverse across an Alpine glacier — that are compelling and even transcendent. And there's a solid if slightly less spectacular novel buried in there about a traumatised disaster survivor trying to cope with a chaotic new century without losing his humanity. But these elements stand tall above a sea of infodumps barely disguised as lectures or bureaucratic notes, a lightly-sketched-in protagonist with inexplicable persuasive abilities (more on that later), and frankly jarring interludes where we hear from the personifications of photons, blockchain, history, the economy, and a carbon atom, amongst others. Some are OK. Some are not. It turns out carbon atoms are hyperactive, ditzy, and into molecular threesomes! Who knew? You do now, reader.
But on to the plausibility issues. In the style of the infodumps above, I’m just going to list some of them out here. There’s a new global carbon e-currency which is guaranteed to increase in value but doesn’t create deflation or liquidity issues because, I dunno, blockchain? (At some point the monetary trilemma and all other macroeconomic concerns are memorably hand-waved away as [Žižek sniff] pure ideology, even if we end up majoring on MMT which I guess is fine). Unstoppable Mach 2 swarm missiles with seemingly unlimited range are used by shadowy extra-state actors but don’t problematically destabilise geopolitics in a way we need to hear about. An open-source replacement for all social media immediately overcomes the network effects of incumbents in about a week, effortlessly circumvents most of the Great Firewall, and doesn’t seemingly require armies of half-traumatised mods and admins to police its content. A UN agency undertaking a weeklong abduction of every single person in Davos isn’t discovered by national intelligence agencies even years later. Wholly unspecified carbon air capture technologies are ready and scalable in the next twenty years. Microwave power transmission is happening from space by the 2030s, which likely means those satellites are being designed and funded…about now?
There’s a case study to be had in one of KSR’s coolest ideas, pumping meltwater out from under glaciers to re-ground them. Just drill a hole, and then pump the water out with minimal energy input because the weight of the glaciers means the water rises up almost all the way to the surface! But would it? Well, a) even contained reservoirs don’t bear all the pressure of their overburdens, so probably no, and b) if the meltwater is venting to the sea what pressure there is should be largely relieved by the flow, so double nope. And that’s just the surface-level problem with the idea. For instance, are meltwater pools even connected on a useful scale? What about channelisation under the ice? Is runoff even all that important in affecting glacial velocities? What’s the relative impact of (effectively unpumpable) warm sea water in driving changes in ice shelf pinning lines in Antartica versus (pumpable) surface meltwater runoff? It seems our current state of knowledge about all those questions isn't promising. At best, this seemingly nifty and concrete idea floats on a raft of best-case assumptions. And it’s one of the most superficially plausible and carefully discussed things in the book.
Beyond the technological nitpicks, however, there’s just a seeming desire to wish away the less pleasant realities of the last twenty years. Unprecedented floods of refugees and global depression, fine, very plausible, but the political backlash is contained to, uh, some right wing tough guys making trouble in a park, not, say, even more brutal versions of the Lega, Vox, BNP, and FN rising politically? We’re repeatedly told nationalism is back in a big way, but it’s strangely impotent on the page. Seven thousand travellers die in a single day in an ecoterrorist strike against airlines and states do absolutely nothing of relevance to the plot in response except meekly draw down airplane travel? (Though to be scrupulously fair, huge but ineffective counterterrorist operations are mentioned at one point and then utterly dropped from the narrative). Never mind when the same thing happens with micro-drones threatening swathes of the world population with BSE infection if they continue to eat beef, or power plants being systematically attacked around the world without apparent consequence or backlash. Libertarian ranchers in the US leap at the chance to abandon farms and rewild the prairies, except for unpopular militias easily defeated by a Wild West calvacade. China/US or China/India geopolitical rivalry don’t even get a look in. You get the idea.
What planet is this? Apparently one where the entire politics of reaction, cultural grievance and zero-sum realpolitik that have led to this moment no longer exist. One where the revolutions of 1848 weren’t crushed and replaced by 66 years of revanchism and brutal inequality ending in a catastrophic war. A better place, surely. One I’d like to live in. Just not, you know, the real world.
Instead of wrestling with why global warming is hard to solve, Green Lanternism is left to run riot here, from central bankers being convinced to upend the global monetary system by a Paddington-style Hard Stare to the Swiss government being convinced to try and buck the global power structure by a Hard Stare to a showdown with ecoterrorists who have Stepped Over The Line that is resolved by...you get the idea. All you have to have to save the planet is willpower, and apparently the psychic mojo of the Hypnotoad.
So where does this leave us? This is a painfully earnest, occasionally graceful book that will hopefully inspire like-minded people to action. Maybe even useful action! I suspect it'll be loved by many. And those are all good things. Just pray civilisation doesn’t need anything like the sequence of improbable coincidences, spectacular breakthroughs and authorial meddling KSR seems to think we do.
—————
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sci-fi writer in possession of a utopian plotline must be in want of that quote about the end of the world being easier to imagine than the end of capitalism. I think KSR gets a good 5% of the way in before he paraphrases it here. And sure, a bit of a cliche, but it could be a great declaration of intent, a signpost that this novel won’t just indulge in apocalyptic visions (which he summons to terrifying and moving effect in the opening chapter) but try to chart a course between Scylla and Charybdis towards a better future.
The problem is that KSR doesn’t actually have a very good idea for how we get there, so he cheats. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. Remorselessly. Scylla actually has an allergy to ships, you see, and Charybdis is definitely super-scary but needs to wash its hair when the protagonists come by so we’re all good. It’s the equivalent of reading a right-on but fundamentally incoherent editorial in The Guardian — I really sympathise with the author’s politics and aspirations, but this isn’t the argument to be made for them.
Now, before I lean in to technical nitpicking and complaining about heavy-handed authorial shenanigans, a quick word about The Ministry for the Future’s literary quality. Which is often good, sometimes great, but wildly, spectacularly uneven. There are moments — the harrowing opening chapter “somewhere near Lucknow”, a majestic description of the sun as godlike creator-destroyer, a fraught late-night traverse across an Alpine glacier — that are compelling and even transcendent. And there's a solid if slightly less spectacular novel buried in there about a traumatised disaster survivor trying to cope with a chaotic new century without losing his humanity. But these elements stand tall above a sea of infodumps barely disguised as lectures or bureaucratic notes, a lightly-sketched-in protagonist with inexplicable persuasive abilities (more on that later), and frankly jarring interludes where we hear from the personifications of photons, blockchain, history, the economy, and a carbon atom, amongst others. Some are OK. Some are not. It turns out carbon atoms are hyperactive, ditzy, and into molecular threesomes! Who knew? You do now, reader.
But on to the plausibility issues. In the style of the infodumps above, I’m just going to list some of them out here. There’s a new global carbon e-currency which is guaranteed to increase in value but doesn’t create deflation or liquidity issues because, I dunno, blockchain? (At some point the monetary trilemma and all other macroeconomic concerns are memorably hand-waved away as [Žižek sniff] pure ideology, even if we end up majoring on MMT which I guess is fine). Unstoppable Mach 2 swarm missiles with seemingly unlimited range are used by shadowy extra-state actors but don’t problematically destabilise geopolitics in a way we need to hear about. An open-source replacement for all social media immediately overcomes the network effects of incumbents in about a week, effortlessly circumvents most of the Great Firewall, and doesn’t seemingly require armies of half-traumatised mods and admins to police its content. A UN agency undertaking a weeklong abduction of every single person in Davos isn’t discovered by national intelligence agencies even years later. Wholly unspecified carbon air capture technologies are ready and scalable in the next twenty years. Microwave power transmission is happening from space by the 2030s, which likely means those satellites are being designed and funded…about now?
There’s a case study to be had in one of KSR’s coolest ideas, pumping meltwater out from under glaciers to re-ground them. Just drill a hole, and then pump the water out with minimal energy input because the weight of the glaciers means the water rises up almost all the way to the surface! But would it? Well, a) even contained reservoirs don’t bear all the pressure of their overburdens, so probably no, and b) if the meltwater is venting to the sea what pressure there is should be largely relieved by the flow, so double nope. And that’s just the surface-level problem with the idea. For instance, are meltwater pools even connected on a useful scale? What about channelisation under the ice? Is runoff even all that important in affecting glacial velocities? What’s the relative impact of (effectively unpumpable) warm sea water in driving changes in ice shelf pinning lines in Antartica versus (pumpable) surface meltwater runoff? It seems our current state of knowledge about all those questions isn't promising. At best, this seemingly nifty and concrete idea floats on a raft of best-case assumptions. And it’s one of the most superficially plausible and carefully discussed things in the book.
Beyond the technological nitpicks, however, there’s just a seeming desire to wish away the less pleasant realities of the last twenty years. Unprecedented floods of refugees and global depression, fine, very plausible, but the political backlash is contained to, uh, some right wing tough guys making trouble in a park, not, say, even more brutal versions of the Lega, Vox, BNP, and FN rising politically? We’re repeatedly told nationalism is back in a big way, but it’s strangely impotent on the page. Seven thousand travellers die in a single day in an ecoterrorist strike against airlines and states do absolutely nothing of relevance to the plot in response except meekly draw down airplane travel? (Though to be scrupulously fair, huge but ineffective counterterrorist operations are mentioned at one point and then utterly dropped from the narrative). Never mind when the same thing happens with micro-drones threatening swathes of the world population with BSE infection if they continue to eat beef, or power plants being systematically attacked around the world without apparent consequence or backlash. Libertarian ranchers in the US leap at the chance to abandon farms and rewild the prairies, except for unpopular militias easily defeated by a Wild West calvacade. China/US or China/India geopolitical rivalry don’t even get a look in. You get the idea.
What planet is this? Apparently one where the entire politics of reaction, cultural grievance and zero-sum realpolitik that have led to this moment no longer exist. One where the revolutions of 1848 weren’t crushed and replaced by 66 years of revanchism and brutal inequality ending in a catastrophic war. A better place, surely. One I’d like to live in. Just not, you know, the real world.
Instead of wrestling with why global warming is hard to solve, Green Lanternism is left to run riot here, from central bankers being convinced to upend the global monetary system by a Paddington-style Hard Stare to the Swiss government being convinced to try and buck the global power structure by a Hard Stare to a showdown with ecoterrorists who have Stepped Over The Line that is resolved by...you get the idea. All you have to have to save the planet is willpower, and apparently the psychic mojo of the Hypnotoad.
So where does this leave us? This is a painfully earnest, occasionally graceful book that will hopefully inspire like-minded people to action. Maybe even useful action! I suspect it'll be loved by many. And those are all good things. Just pray civilisation doesn’t need anything like the sequence of improbable coincidences, spectacular breakthroughs and authorial meddling KSR seems to think we do.
June 27, 2020
I don’t know what happened that I didn’t like his last two novels, New York 2140 and Red Moon, but this one is the KSR that I love: bold, intriguing, with surprising and daring ideas.
It’s in the spirit of Science in the Capital trilogy, but much better and more audacious in its purpose.
It’s year 2025. In January, a new organization is established with the purpose to ensure a safe climate for future generations. Less than two months later, a heat wave struck India and killed 20 million people.
Everything changed after that.
The story is told from multiple - more or less anonymous - points of view, eyewitnesses of the following events from all over the world, for the next 20 odd years. There are also a few page-short chapters told from the PoV of some totally unexpected onlookers . It also follows the path of Mary Murphy, the head of the The Ministry for the Future, the decisions she took to make sure the future will still be available for the next generations and Frank May, the sole survivor from the heat wave that struck Lucknow (oh, the irony…)
Being set so near to our present day, it does not read like a fiction. It expands on today’s political, economic, and social climate and follows a very plausible future path, from my point of view.
The eclectic mélange of narrations makes it even more realistic. There are chapters that literally gave me goose bumps and made me stop reading to ruminate upon. It will seriously make you think about the future, because until it gets better, will get worse. It may be tiresome from time to time, due to the extensive talks or info regarding economic tools, but I looked at them as lessons; not always pleasant, but useful and important.
I think it’s one of those books which should be read by everyone, because it tries to raise awareness about the climate change which is upon us. People, if not affected by something, tend to disregard the problem. Reading this it'll be impossible not to be affected or at least, to raise you some question marks: what if this will happen? Maybe not to this extent, but it will for sure to a certain degree.
It’s one of his best works, not to be missed.
>>> ARC received thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK / Orbit via NetGalley <<<
It’s in the spirit of Science in the Capital trilogy, but much better and more audacious in its purpose.
It’s year 2025. In January, a new organization is established with the purpose to ensure a safe climate for future generations. Less than two months later, a heat wave struck India and killed 20 million people.
Everything changed after that.
The story is told from multiple - more or less anonymous - points of view, eyewitnesses of the following events from all over the world, for the next 20 odd years. There are also a few page-short chapters told from the PoV of some totally unexpected onlookers . It also follows the path of Mary Murphy, the head of the The Ministry for the Future, the decisions she took to make sure the future will still be available for the next generations and Frank May, the sole survivor from the heat wave that struck Lucknow (oh, the irony…)
Being set so near to our present day, it does not read like a fiction. It expands on today’s political, economic, and social climate and follows a very plausible future path, from my point of view.
The eclectic mélange of narrations makes it even more realistic. There are chapters that literally gave me goose bumps and made me stop reading to ruminate upon. It will seriously make you think about the future, because until it gets better, will get worse. It may be tiresome from time to time, due to the extensive talks or info regarding economic tools, but I looked at them as lessons; not always pleasant, but useful and important.
I think it’s one of those books which should be read by everyone, because it tries to raise awareness about the climate change which is upon us. People, if not affected by something, tend to disregard the problem. Reading this it'll be impossible not to be affected or at least, to raise you some question marks: what if this will happen? Maybe not to this extent, but it will for sure to a certain degree.
It’s one of his best works, not to be missed.
>>> ARC received thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK / Orbit via NetGalley <<<
September 22, 2024
This might be about great big ideas, but without a decent narrative or memorable, well-developed characters I simply don‘t care. If I want to read essays about possible solutions for climate change, I do that. And if I want to dive into blockchain or speculate about economics and virtual currencies, I talk to my colleagues at work. Throwing in the odd chapter with minuscule plot and barely there characters doesn‘t make this a readable novel for me.
Mary and Frank were not bad and I liked the Antarctic setting, there just wasn‘t enough of all that. Hence, boredom. I started skimming a third into the book and finally DNFd at 56%. Not for me.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
Mary and Frank were not bad and I liked the Antarctic setting, there just wasn‘t enough of all that. Hence, boredom. I started skimming a third into the book and finally DNFd at 56%. Not for me.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
June 25, 2024
You know, the first time I saw the title and the cover, I thought this would be a far-future SF, not a near-future prediction. I'm happy to be wrong.
I'm even happier to have loved this novel from the first page to the last. Indeed, over the last 8 years of new novels, I've loved everything that KSR has written, being duly impressed about his improvement with characters and his truly fantastic grasp of science, politics, history, economics, and future speculation. Indeed, my only complaints have ever been about his characters who usually feel a bit more like vehicles for stories and especially IDEAS more than people, but for this book, it wasn't the case.
I was brought to tears several times.
However, I need to be very clear on this: KSR's strength is absolutely and utterly in ideas. I feel like I just read an accessible novel that outlines all of the biggest real-thought on climate change and possible solutions while having it all put through the meat-grinder of real-politics, real-people, and enormous ongoing tragedies.
The book starts out with millions dying of heat in India.
It picks up with angry people worldwide demanding change and butting heads, devolving into assassinations, new politics, massive setbacks, economic upheavals, MORE climate disasters hitting the affluent people, more chaos, new legislation, MORE political upheaval, more dead, and economic systems that are both familiar and much more complicated than most of us have ever really researched TODAY.
I mean, some of us have. Bitchains, UBIs, carbon monetary systems (not as in burning it, but drawing it out of the atmosphere), and the eventual re-greening of the Earth. And it's a lot more complicated and gloriously explored than anything I can get into with a simple review, but the BOOK does a fantastic job of outlining a gloriously chaotic near-future that would, in other times, be considered a bonafide classic.
The book, frankly, is rich, deserves immense respect, lots of thought, and public discourse.
Maybe most of us are burned out by the seeming impossibility of getting a New Green Deal, one where the new jobs come directly from creating a sustainable future.
But maybe what we really need are the ideas firmly planted in our heads, complete with plans, backup plans, backup-backup plans, and awareness of all the ways it could all go wrong (and will) so we're not blindsided when we lose four billion people (minimum) in the next 30 years.
This novel should be THAT talking point. For how tragic it is, it's FULL of great thought and, dare I say it, HOPE.
I'm even happier to have loved this novel from the first page to the last. Indeed, over the last 8 years of new novels, I've loved everything that KSR has written, being duly impressed about his improvement with characters and his truly fantastic grasp of science, politics, history, economics, and future speculation. Indeed, my only complaints have ever been about his characters who usually feel a bit more like vehicles for stories and especially IDEAS more than people, but for this book, it wasn't the case.
I was brought to tears several times.
However, I need to be very clear on this: KSR's strength is absolutely and utterly in ideas. I feel like I just read an accessible novel that outlines all of the biggest real-thought on climate change and possible solutions while having it all put through the meat-grinder of real-politics, real-people, and enormous ongoing tragedies.
The book starts out with millions dying of heat in India.
It picks up with angry people worldwide demanding change and butting heads, devolving into assassinations, new politics, massive setbacks, economic upheavals, MORE climate disasters hitting the affluent people, more chaos, new legislation, MORE political upheaval, more dead, and economic systems that are both familiar and much more complicated than most of us have ever really researched TODAY.
I mean, some of us have. Bitchains, UBIs, carbon monetary systems (not as in burning it, but drawing it out of the atmosphere), and the eventual re-greening of the Earth. And it's a lot more complicated and gloriously explored than anything I can get into with a simple review, but the BOOK does a fantastic job of outlining a gloriously chaotic near-future that would, in other times, be considered a bonafide classic.
The book, frankly, is rich, deserves immense respect, lots of thought, and public discourse.
Maybe most of us are burned out by the seeming impossibility of getting a New Green Deal, one where the new jobs come directly from creating a sustainable future.
But maybe what we really need are the ideas firmly planted in our heads, complete with plans, backup plans, backup-backup plans, and awareness of all the ways it could all go wrong (and will) so we're not blindsided when we lose four billion people (minimum) in the next 30 years.
This novel should be THAT talking point. For how tragic it is, it's FULL of great thought and, dare I say it, HOPE.
October 20, 2020
For half of this, I thought I'd rate this around 2.5 stars but around the 56% mark, I felt like the story hit its stride (or I acquiesced to it). I began enjoying it more and couldn't put it down. By the book's end it had me feeling so hopeful that I felt that for me, this was more a 4-star event. So strong 3-star for the whole thing.
I expect infodumps but found an excess of them, even for KSR. There are two main characters, Frank a survivor of the opening heat wave that kills 20 million people and Mary who is the head of the Ministry for the Future. Characterization is scant for others and it's serviceable at best for Frank and Mary. This is not a surprise but it just goes further to remind that I don't come to KSR's books for the characters. Because of the varying POVs in the chapters, this book often didn't feel much like a novel for a good bit. There was more economics than this reader was looking for, to the point of eye-crossing at times. On the upside, there's also some simply brilliant wit & voice displayed. My favourite, when a carbon atom narrates a chapter. And I definitely smiled when two characters discussed Maigret briefly.
I don't know that I'd recommend this to anyone unfamiliar with KSR's writing (admittedly this can be a slog for the initiated). I'm just glad I enjoyed this more than Red Moon. It starts off well, is a bit of a slog for a third but finishes very well.
Favourite quotes:
"Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
Favourite provocative passage:
"In the United States, the National Students’ Union website showed that thirty percent of the union members had now responded YES to the union website’s standing poll asking them if they were in so much financial distress caused by their student debt that they would like to see the union initiate a fiscal non-compliance strike, by not paying their next debt payment. On joining the union, members had agreed to join any strike requested by thirty percent of the membership, so now the union coordinators called for a strike vote to be sure, and got an eighty percent yes vote, with ninety percent participation. None of this was surprising; student food insecurity, meaning student hunger, was widespread, also student homelessness. So the strike began.
Student debt was a trillion-dollar annual income stream for the banks, so this coordinated default meant that the banks were suddenly in cash-flow hell. And they were so over-leveraged, and thus dependent on all incoming payments being made to them on time to be able to keep paying their own debts, that this fiscal strike threw them immediately into a liquidity crisis reminiscent of the 2008 and 2020 and 2034 crashes, except this time people had defaulted on purpose, and precisely to bring the banks down. The banks all rushed to the Federal Reserve, which went to Congress to explain the situation and ask for another giant bail-out to keep liquidity and thus confidence in the financial system itself. There were calls from many in Congress to bail out the banks, as being essential to the economy, and too connected for any of the big ones to be allowed to fail. But this time the Fed asked Congress to authorize their bailing out the banks in exchange for ownership shares in every bank that took the offer. This was either nationalizing finance or financializing the nation, in that now it was clearer than ever that the country was in effect run by the Fed. And since Congress ran the Fed, and people voted in members of Congress, maybe it was all beginning to work, somehow, because of this strike. Definancialization of a sort. End of neoliberalism.
Favourite hopeful passage:
"That there is no other home for us than here. That we will cope no matter how stupid things get. That all couples are odd couples. That the only catastrophe that can’t be undone is extinction. That we can make a good place. That people can take their fate in their hands. That there is no such thing as fate.'
I expect infodumps but found an excess of them, even for KSR. There are two main characters, Frank a survivor of the opening heat wave that kills 20 million people and Mary who is the head of the Ministry for the Future. Characterization is scant for others and it's serviceable at best for Frank and Mary. This is not a surprise but it just goes further to remind that I don't come to KSR's books for the characters. Because of the varying POVs in the chapters, this book often didn't feel much like a novel for a good bit. There was more economics than this reader was looking for, to the point of eye-crossing at times. On the upside, there's also some simply brilliant wit & voice displayed. My favourite, when a carbon atom narrates a chapter. And I definitely smiled when two characters discussed Maigret briefly.
I don't know that I'd recommend this to anyone unfamiliar with KSR's writing (admittedly this can be a slog for the initiated). I'm just glad I enjoyed this more than Red Moon. It starts off well, is a bit of a slog for a third but finishes very well.
Favourite quotes:
"Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
Favourite provocative passage:
"In the United States, the National Students’ Union website showed that thirty percent of the union members had now responded YES to the union website’s standing poll asking them if they were in so much financial distress caused by their student debt that they would like to see the union initiate a fiscal non-compliance strike, by not paying their next debt payment. On joining the union, members had agreed to join any strike requested by thirty percent of the membership, so now the union coordinators called for a strike vote to be sure, and got an eighty percent yes vote, with ninety percent participation. None of this was surprising; student food insecurity, meaning student hunger, was widespread, also student homelessness. So the strike began.
Student debt was a trillion-dollar annual income stream for the banks, so this coordinated default meant that the banks were suddenly in cash-flow hell. And they were so over-leveraged, and thus dependent on all incoming payments being made to them on time to be able to keep paying their own debts, that this fiscal strike threw them immediately into a liquidity crisis reminiscent of the 2008 and 2020 and 2034 crashes, except this time people had defaulted on purpose, and precisely to bring the banks down. The banks all rushed to the Federal Reserve, which went to Congress to explain the situation and ask for another giant bail-out to keep liquidity and thus confidence in the financial system itself. There were calls from many in Congress to bail out the banks, as being essential to the economy, and too connected for any of the big ones to be allowed to fail. But this time the Fed asked Congress to authorize their bailing out the banks in exchange for ownership shares in every bank that took the offer. This was either nationalizing finance or financializing the nation, in that now it was clearer than ever that the country was in effect run by the Fed. And since Congress ran the Fed, and people voted in members of Congress, maybe it was all beginning to work, somehow, because of this strike. Definancialization of a sort. End of neoliberalism.
Favourite hopeful passage:
"That there is no other home for us than here. That we will cope no matter how stupid things get. That all couples are odd couples. That the only catastrophe that can’t be undone is extinction. That we can make a good place. That people can take their fate in their hands. That there is no such thing as fate.'
December 30, 2024
Speculative Fiction on surviving our ecological crises have a long way to go, but this is a start...
Preamble:
--Let’s consider the various methods of using books to popularize the big picture structures (Thinking in Systems: A Primer) of climate/ecological crises in the age of Anthropocene/Capitalocene (“There Is No Alternative”/“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”):
a) Fiction, featuring nonfiction:
--This book; KSR's writing-style features what we can best describe as nonfiction rants, which I consider glorious given my nonfiction bias.
--In this book, KSR's characters use top-down politics (“Ministry”), similar to Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures. For characters using bottom-up politics (civilian direct action), see KSR's New York 2140.
b) Nonfiction, but readable without textbook writing style:
--Critiquing fiction: the eloquent novelist Amitav Ghosh unpacks why the character-driven novel format has struggled with communicating systems-level issues like climate crises: The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
--Dressed as fiction: can we map out real-world alternatives to capitalism (although less on environment), narrated through speculative fiction characters? See Varoufakis' Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
--Journalistic story-telling: Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate and On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal
--Auto-biographical story-telling: Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
--Popularizing research:
-Hickel's Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
-Raworth's Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
-Ajl's A People’s Green New Deal
-The Red Nation's The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth
-Varoufakis' Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
-collections: The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions and Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change
…Ideally, read them all! Given the urgency, the more styles of delivery targeting diverse audiences the better. If you compare my reviews for the other books, this fiction is predictably less technical…
The Good:
--The first half was uncomfortable reading in the summer of 2021, as the Pacific Northwest was going through an unprecedented heat wave (where "heat dome" entered our vocabulary) to pair with our new norm of summer forest-fire haze (Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest) and flash floods. Despite my impatience with exploring new fiction, the main characters grew on me, although embarrassingly I lost track of what happened to one of the protagonists and had to re-read to find out…
--I read this along side Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, which expands on the fiction’s economic hints:
i) economic growth/degrowth: even better unpacked in Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
ii) reviving the Commons: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action)
iii) public money/public banks:
-see "Positive Money" lectures (UK equivalent to US-based “MMT” i.e. Modern Monetary Theory: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy)
-The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity
-The Bubble and Beyond
-Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis?
iv) de-dollarization:
--This fiction literally injects nonfiction encyclopedic definitions (what fiction talks about John Maynard Keynes’ “bancor” trade system design and “euthanasia of the rentier”?!), making it probably the most technical fiction I’ve read (while barely scratching the surface). Details:
-The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
-Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
The Questionable:
--Since there are numerous voices in fiction, it’s sometimes difficult to determine the author’s exact opinions:
1) On violence:
--The violent protests (including assassinations) in this book deserves a lot of discussion; elsewhere, the “debate” between Andreas Malm (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) vs. Extinction Rebellion (This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook) should really be a synthesis since the focus is actually on property damage/sabotage, as no side sees human violence as currently useful for the environmental movement. I suppose this is one advantage of speculative fiction, to play things out down the road (without committing to an opinion...).
--I’m also sadly unconvinced by the relative absence of reactionary violence and state surveillance/violence; ex. the rise of Fascism to revive global capitalist production during the endless Great Depression: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
2) Western Imperialist assumptions?:
--Related to violence is the messy geopolitics. I would love for the state of India to correct their current trajectory, revert back to and exceed their Non-Aligned Movement era’s imagination (The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World) to lead the world in the revolution against capitalist climate catastrophe and structural unemployment (The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions) as the book speculates.
--However, it’s difficult to square:
i) “the world’s largest democracy”? Another character astutely mocks this as spectatorship “democracy”. Politics is just a political theatre, with puppet politicianslobbied bribed by money. Meanwhile, the capitalist market is ruled by one-dollar-one-vote plutocracy. This is in contrast to participatory democracy featuring consensus-building public assemblies, rather than divisive elections: The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
ii) The capitalist workplace is opt-out authoritarianism (see the video series “What is Politics?”), where workers who do the work are not participatory stakeholders (Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism). The actual major stakeholders are the richest absentee owners leeching the host via “passive income” (i.e. not working, just capitalist ownership rent-seeking): Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis
--Meanwhile, the story portrays China as just a "police state" caricature where the single party dominates, resulting in "rule without law" unlike the "rule of law" in (one-dollar-one-vote plutocracy) Hong Kong apparently...
…Even more-honest liberals (i.e. capitalist reformers supporting political “democracy” amidst economic aristocracy) can provide more critical comparisons of modern India/China, see the bottom of this review: Capitalism: A Ghost Story
…Consider Vijay Prashad (Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism):
-India/China: https://youtu.be/4hz5sXYiBo8
-China: https://youtu.be/8-m-DZHLNGs
-Imperialist ideological censorship: https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74
--Another highlight of Western imperialist assumptions is a reference to Edward O. Wilson’s “Half-Earth” idea, which in the typical armchair-technocracy manner speculates setting aside half the earth for wildlife and finds this a worthwhile project (Ecosocialist critique). If we can return to real-world conditions, can we imagine the nightmare of who will plan/enforce this, and the further dispossession of global indigenous/small producers (A People’s Green New Deal)?
...Note: an obvious source for socioecological story-telling is indigenous stories...
--This is another reason I’m unconvinced by the relative lack of reactionary violence, since this type of bland imperialist assumptions (see: Discourse on Colonialism) belongs in the spectrum of Malthusian “overpopulation” rhetoric pervasive in the technocracy of Western sciences. This bleeds into anti-immigration “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” and is one bad crisis away from eco-fascism: Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
Preamble:
--Let’s consider the various methods of using books to popularize the big picture structures (Thinking in Systems: A Primer) of climate/ecological crises in the age of Anthropocene/Capitalocene (“There Is No Alternative”/“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”):
a) Fiction, featuring nonfiction:
--This book; KSR's writing-style features what we can best describe as nonfiction rants, which I consider glorious given my nonfiction bias.
--In this book, KSR's characters use top-down politics (“Ministry”), similar to Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures. For characters using bottom-up politics (civilian direct action), see KSR's New York 2140.
b) Nonfiction, but readable without textbook writing style:
--Critiquing fiction: the eloquent novelist Amitav Ghosh unpacks why the character-driven novel format has struggled with communicating systems-level issues like climate crises: The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
--Dressed as fiction: can we map out real-world alternatives to capitalism (although less on environment), narrated through speculative fiction characters? See Varoufakis' Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
--Journalistic story-telling: Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate and On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal
--Auto-biographical story-telling: Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
--Popularizing research:
-Hickel's Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
-Raworth's Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
-Ajl's A People’s Green New Deal
-The Red Nation's The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth
-Varoufakis' Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
-collections: The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions and Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change
…Ideally, read them all! Given the urgency, the more styles of delivery targeting diverse audiences the better. If you compare my reviews for the other books, this fiction is predictably less technical…
The Good:
--The first half was uncomfortable reading in the summer of 2021, as the Pacific Northwest was going through an unprecedented heat wave (where "heat dome" entered our vocabulary) to pair with our new norm of summer forest-fire haze (Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest) and flash floods. Despite my impatience with exploring new fiction, the main characters grew on me, although embarrassingly I lost track of what happened to one of the protagonists and had to re-read to find out…
--I read this along side Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, which expands on the fiction’s economic hints:
i) economic growth/degrowth: even better unpacked in Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
ii) reviving the Commons: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action)
iii) public money/public banks:
-see "Positive Money" lectures (UK equivalent to US-based “MMT” i.e. Modern Monetary Theory: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy)
-The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity
-The Bubble and Beyond
-Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis?
iv) de-dollarization:
--This fiction literally injects nonfiction encyclopedic definitions (what fiction talks about John Maynard Keynes’ “bancor” trade system design and “euthanasia of the rentier”?!), making it probably the most technical fiction I’ve read (while barely scratching the surface). Details:
-The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
-Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
The Questionable:
--Since there are numerous voices in fiction, it’s sometimes difficult to determine the author’s exact opinions:
1) On violence:
--The violent protests (including assassinations) in this book deserves a lot of discussion; elsewhere, the “debate” between Andreas Malm (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) vs. Extinction Rebellion (This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook) should really be a synthesis since the focus is actually on property damage/sabotage, as no side sees human violence as currently useful for the environmental movement. I suppose this is one advantage of speculative fiction, to play things out down the road (without committing to an opinion...).
--I’m also sadly unconvinced by the relative absence of reactionary violence and state surveillance/violence; ex. the rise of Fascism to revive global capitalist production during the endless Great Depression: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
2) Western Imperialist assumptions?:
--Related to violence is the messy geopolitics. I would love for the state of India to correct their current trajectory, revert back to and exceed their Non-Aligned Movement era’s imagination (The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World) to lead the world in the revolution against capitalist climate catastrophe and structural unemployment (The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions) as the book speculates.
--However, it’s difficult to square:
i) “the world’s largest democracy”? Another character astutely mocks this as spectatorship “democracy”. Politics is just a political theatre, with puppet politicians
ii) The capitalist workplace is opt-out authoritarianism (see the video series “What is Politics?”), where workers who do the work are not participatory stakeholders (Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism). The actual major stakeholders are the richest absentee owners leeching the host via “passive income” (i.e. not working, just capitalist ownership rent-seeking): Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis
--Meanwhile, the story portrays China as just a "police state" caricature where the single party dominates, resulting in "rule without law" unlike the "rule of law" in (one-dollar-one-vote plutocracy) Hong Kong apparently...
…Even more-honest liberals (i.e. capitalist reformers supporting political “democracy” amidst economic aristocracy) can provide more critical comparisons of modern India/China, see the bottom of this review: Capitalism: A Ghost Story
…Consider Vijay Prashad (Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism):
-India/China: https://youtu.be/4hz5sXYiBo8
-China: https://youtu.be/8-m-DZHLNGs
-Imperialist ideological censorship: https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74
--Another highlight of Western imperialist assumptions is a reference to Edward O. Wilson’s “Half-Earth” idea, which in the typical armchair-technocracy manner speculates setting aside half the earth for wildlife and finds this a worthwhile project (Ecosocialist critique). If we can return to real-world conditions, can we imagine the nightmare of who will plan/enforce this, and the further dispossession of global indigenous/small producers (A People’s Green New Deal)?
...Note: an obvious source for socioecological story-telling is indigenous stories...
--This is another reason I’m unconvinced by the relative lack of reactionary violence, since this type of bland imperialist assumptions (see: Discourse on Colonialism) belongs in the spectrum of Malthusian “overpopulation” rhetoric pervasive in the technocracy of Western sciences. This bleeds into anti-immigration “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” and is one bad crisis away from eco-fascism: Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
December 1, 2024
Apparently, this is a favourite book of Obama – which seems strange to me as I struggle to believe he would agree with many of the solutions offered. I mean, he is the man who massively increased spending on nuclear weapons, who saved the bankers and then employed them in his team, who sent drones to murder people who ended up being terrified of sunny days, it is hard to see what it was about this book that he actually liked.
This book is set in the near future and it is told using multiple voices. There are a couple voices that are repeated throughout to provide a narrative structure, but sometimes a voice will only get a single chapter. A book I read recently said that India is likely to play an outsized role in tackling climate change – the author here runs with this idea. China and Russia also get starring roles, and the US doesn’t come out of it looking particularly good.
The book starts with one of the horrors of climate change that my son-in-law talks about – wet bulb temperature – and a mass extinction event caused by people’s bodies simply not being able to cool down. This is linked to the end of the BJP as the ruling party in India, an outcome much to be hoped for.
Some of the ‘solutions’ discussed here – direct action involving targeted assassinations and the destruction of planes of the very rich using increasingly available drone technology – seem increasingly likely to me. The problem is that, as we are seeing in Lebanon and Gaza, these technologies are more likely to be used against civilians than against the masters of war. Still, as the impacts of climate change become increasingly undeniable, it is hardly unlikely that people will not decide to take matters into their own hands. Especially since the rich and powerful have proven to be incapable to seeing beyond short-term profit. And people will increasingly have nothing left to lose. This book is about a peaceful revolution redirecting priorities – as such it is much more hopeful than I am. The election of Trump shows that when people are hurting they are just as likely to cut their nose off to spite their face than to stroll towards gradual change. I don’t think revolutions are always positive – but in societies as grossly and increasingly inequitable as ours are, perhaps the most unequal in human history – violence and irrational anger and chaos seem inevitable. Certainly, those benefiting from the current structure of society are doing nothing to calm the growing resentment that will surely one day turn against them.
This book is quite long and spends much time discussing possible technical solutions to reduce the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere and to redesign the world financial system to help tackle climate change. This could make the book seem likely to be dry, but the author keeps the storyline chugging along. The problem is that what is discussed isn’t particularly unbelievable. Even if it is set a couple of decades into the future.
I have to admit that I’ve been very naive about climate change. I’ve always just assumed that once it became clear that extinction was the most likely outcome from doing nothing, that we would see the error of our ways and mount a concerted effort to save ourselves and our planet. How foolish can I have been? The task ahead of us is exhausting to contemplate – and the longer we leave it, the greater a toll will be demanded. But we seem incapable of resisting those whose sole purpose in life is to accumulate yet another few billion dollars – either by extracting more fossil fuels or selling weapons whose impacts we don’t even currently count in our totals of carbon pollution – how much carbon has been pumped into the atmosphere in Gaza, as more than the total tonnage of explosives have been dropped on there than in the entire Second World War? Cement is also a carbon pollution nightmare – the rubble we have created in killing children should be a symbol of how much we have lost our way.
Whatever why you look at it, the days of radical free markets and their planet destroying externalities are coming to an end. We can only hope it doesn’t mean our end as well.
This book is set in the near future and it is told using multiple voices. There are a couple voices that are repeated throughout to provide a narrative structure, but sometimes a voice will only get a single chapter. A book I read recently said that India is likely to play an outsized role in tackling climate change – the author here runs with this idea. China and Russia also get starring roles, and the US doesn’t come out of it looking particularly good.
The book starts with one of the horrors of climate change that my son-in-law talks about – wet bulb temperature – and a mass extinction event caused by people’s bodies simply not being able to cool down. This is linked to the end of the BJP as the ruling party in India, an outcome much to be hoped for.
Some of the ‘solutions’ discussed here – direct action involving targeted assassinations and the destruction of planes of the very rich using increasingly available drone technology – seem increasingly likely to me. The problem is that, as we are seeing in Lebanon and Gaza, these technologies are more likely to be used against civilians than against the masters of war. Still, as the impacts of climate change become increasingly undeniable, it is hardly unlikely that people will not decide to take matters into their own hands. Especially since the rich and powerful have proven to be incapable to seeing beyond short-term profit. And people will increasingly have nothing left to lose. This book is about a peaceful revolution redirecting priorities – as such it is much more hopeful than I am. The election of Trump shows that when people are hurting they are just as likely to cut their nose off to spite their face than to stroll towards gradual change. I don’t think revolutions are always positive – but in societies as grossly and increasingly inequitable as ours are, perhaps the most unequal in human history – violence and irrational anger and chaos seem inevitable. Certainly, those benefiting from the current structure of society are doing nothing to calm the growing resentment that will surely one day turn against them.
This book is quite long and spends much time discussing possible technical solutions to reduce the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere and to redesign the world financial system to help tackle climate change. This could make the book seem likely to be dry, but the author keeps the storyline chugging along. The problem is that what is discussed isn’t particularly unbelievable. Even if it is set a couple of decades into the future.
I have to admit that I’ve been very naive about climate change. I’ve always just assumed that once it became clear that extinction was the most likely outcome from doing nothing, that we would see the error of our ways and mount a concerted effort to save ourselves and our planet. How foolish can I have been? The task ahead of us is exhausting to contemplate – and the longer we leave it, the greater a toll will be demanded. But we seem incapable of resisting those whose sole purpose in life is to accumulate yet another few billion dollars – either by extracting more fossil fuels or selling weapons whose impacts we don’t even currently count in our totals of carbon pollution – how much carbon has been pumped into the atmosphere in Gaza, as more than the total tonnage of explosives have been dropped on there than in the entire Second World War? Cement is also a carbon pollution nightmare – the rubble we have created in killing children should be a symbol of how much we have lost our way.
Whatever why you look at it, the days of radical free markets and their planet destroying externalities are coming to an end. We can only hope it doesn’t mean our end as well.
January 8, 2021
This book follows the progress of the titular Ministry of the Future established as a United Nation body with a mission to "speak for the future". It's told from the viewpoint of several characters in and around the organization as it moves from its initial rather ineffectual roots to being the driving force against climate change across the globe.
So this is a terrible book, and I'll get into why in a bit.
I just want to point out the first chapter though, because it's powerful and brilliant. What it is, is the account of an aid worker in Northern India during the first heat wave in recorded human history to hit a heavily populated area with a wet bulb temperature that is incompatible with human life. It's powerful because it's only fiction in that it hasn't happened yet. The current trajectory of climate change says this is inevitable by the end of the 21st century. (For more on this I strongly recommend The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses).
If only the rest of the novel matched the standard of its first chapter.
The rest of the book is the now very familiar future history that this author believes should and will happen. That history is towards a technocentric marxist green global government. The author's calls for this to happen get increasingly strident (desperate?) with each book. In this one he goes a bit further than previous books, advocating for lethal force against polluters and over-consumers. Government-sponsored ecoterrorism in places.
Generally speaking it comes off as unhinged, and requires that the reader forget how humans work. For instance, there's one memorable scene where a group of rural people sadly and quietly leave their small-town homes for the last time because all people who live a rural existence are being moved to high-intensity housing in cities, because that's better for the world in general.
What? Sadly and quietly? What!?
Why? Because they've been told by scientists what's best for them and the world, so they happily comply.
Readers of all genders, may I present the year 2020 as a counterargument?
This ridiculous piece of rose-tinted trash would be getting one star, and only gets two on the strength of the first chapter.
So this is a terrible book, and I'll get into why in a bit.
I just want to point out the first chapter though, because it's powerful and brilliant. What it is, is the account of an aid worker in Northern India during the first heat wave in recorded human history to hit a heavily populated area with a wet bulb temperature that is incompatible with human life. It's powerful because it's only fiction in that it hasn't happened yet. The current trajectory of climate change says this is inevitable by the end of the 21st century. (For more on this I strongly recommend The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses).
If only the rest of the novel matched the standard of its first chapter.
The rest of the book is the now very familiar future history that this author believes should and will happen. That history is towards a technocentric marxist green global government. The author's calls for this to happen get increasingly strident (desperate?) with each book. In this one he goes a bit further than previous books, advocating for lethal force against polluters and over-consumers. Government-sponsored ecoterrorism in places.
Generally speaking it comes off as unhinged, and requires that the reader forget how humans work. For instance, there's one memorable scene where a group of rural people sadly and quietly leave their small-town homes for the last time because all people who live a rural existence are being moved to high-intensity housing in cities, because that's better for the world in general.
What? Sadly and quietly? What!?
Why? Because they've been told by scientists what's best for them and the world, so they happily comply.
Readers of all genders, may I present the year 2020 as a counterargument?
This ridiculous piece of rose-tinted trash would be getting one star, and only gets two on the strength of the first chapter.
November 2, 2020
This is it. The final big KSR novel. I dreaded starting it, to be honest. Yet another climate book: don’t we know that story? His two previous ones were letdowns: New York 2140 was okay, but ultimately transparent, and Red Moon even formulaic: Stan seemed to have run out of steam.
I think Robinson’s decision to stop writing long novels liberated him. And so his final big one is both a synthesis and a departure, and most importantly: totally unapologetic KSR, and a feast as such. It’s also a paradox, a book that is “desperate and hopeful in equal measure”, as the dust jacket has it.
Some might think it not enough of a novel – a long essay perhaps. Some might think it boring, or preachy. I think none of that applies. I think it’s brave, fast-paced, and subdued. It’s a story for sure, and it builds on the legacy of that other great science fiction novel: 1930s Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. I loved The Ministry for the Future.
The only criticism I can muster might be that Robinson’s hope might be non-sequiturish, so to say. Aren’t we doomed anyway? Who knows? Who will tell? “There are many realities on a planet this big.”
In the remainder of this review – about 3000 words – I will elaborate on all of the above, backed up by quite a few fragments from various recent interviews with KSR. It’s a joy to have a writer being so open & explicit about his thought process.
(....)
Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It
I think Robinson’s decision to stop writing long novels liberated him. And so his final big one is both a synthesis and a departure, and most importantly: totally unapologetic KSR, and a feast as such. It’s also a paradox, a book that is “desperate and hopeful in equal measure”, as the dust jacket has it.
Some might think it not enough of a novel – a long essay perhaps. Some might think it boring, or preachy. I think none of that applies. I think it’s brave, fast-paced, and subdued. It’s a story for sure, and it builds on the legacy of that other great science fiction novel: 1930s Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. I loved The Ministry for the Future.
The only criticism I can muster might be that Robinson’s hope might be non-sequiturish, so to say. Aren’t we doomed anyway? Who knows? Who will tell? “There are many realities on a planet this big.”
In the remainder of this review – about 3000 words – I will elaborate on all of the above, backed up by quite a few fragments from various recent interviews with KSR. It’s a joy to have a writer being so open & explicit about his thought process.
(....)
Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It
December 17, 2021
In some ways a worthy successor to the techno-thriller mantle Michael Crichton used to wear, this book aims to be a draw-you-in page turner built on a foundation of current events and present-day science, extrapolated into a claustrophobic tale of human survival in a hostile environment. It mostly succeeds but falters a bit after a strong opening before settling into a mundane and exposition-heavy final act.
Robinson has explored at great length (probably too great - this could be shorter) the ramifications of climate policy in the near future and he delivers the tale in a satisfying vignette layout, shifting viewpoints between many different narrators to share component pieces of the story. It gave me a bit of a Grapes of Wrath vibe, what with the bleak landscapes and terse play-by-plays. But that's probably generous. Maybe World War Z is the better comparison, as we're not approaching Steinbeck levels of literary artwork here. Good story at heart, but once again it doesn't need to be this long. Robinson has an unfortunate habit of listing things, great honking chains of comma-strewn lists that often run ten to thirteen items long, depending on whether you count entries between commas but joined by "and" as a single item or two. This really gums up the works of what could be a tighter narrative. Cut that stuff down as well as the rehashing of cause/effect, scientific consensus, and finer policy points—the audience reading this book is already on board, man—and serve up more of the single character drama. And I mean drama, please, not policy speeches and pensive hikes through snowy mountain trails.
3 stars.
Robinson has explored at great length (probably too great - this could be shorter) the ramifications of climate policy in the near future and he delivers the tale in a satisfying vignette layout, shifting viewpoints between many different narrators to share component pieces of the story. It gave me a bit of a Grapes of Wrath vibe, what with the bleak landscapes and terse play-by-plays. But that's probably generous. Maybe World War Z is the better comparison, as we're not approaching Steinbeck levels of literary artwork here. Good story at heart, but once again it doesn't need to be this long. Robinson has an unfortunate habit of listing things, great honking chains of comma-strewn lists that often run ten to thirteen items long, depending on whether you count entries between commas but joined by "and" as a single item or two. This really gums up the works of what could be a tighter narrative. Cut that stuff down as well as the rehashing of cause/effect, scientific consensus, and finer policy points—the audience reading this book is already on board, man—and serve up more of the single character drama. And I mean drama, please, not policy speeches and pensive hikes through snowy mountain trails.
3 stars.
April 15, 2023
Siempre me pasa lo mismo con KSR, la premisa me encanta, el arranque es brutal pero, poco a poco, mi interés va decayendo, la historia se vuelve aburrida, el estilo de escritura aparece simple y hasta infantil o, incluso, lioso y sin sentido. Reconozco el valor del libro, aunque algunas ideas sean realmente estúpidas pero, aunque me empeñe, este autor no es para mí.
February 15, 2021
If the earth becomes hot enough then, the oceans will boil. That doesn't actually happen in the book, so I don't need a spoiler tag. I still feel a vague urge to put one on it.
It's got a strong start, but I was weary of it long before the end.
It's got a strong start, but I was weary of it long before the end.
May 30, 2022
Kim Stanley Robinson doesn’t understand central bank balance sheets. Like, not missing some nuances but complete and total ignorance of them. Normally I would not bring up an issue like this about a novelist, I suspect most of the novelists I read do not understand central bank balance sheets and are probably the better for it. But Kim Stanley Robinson has written a “nonfiction novel” that purports to be a highly accurate and detailed account of the near future, both the ways in which climate catastrophes play out and how the world responds to them and ultimately triumphs—after a lot of pain and suffering. And central banks plays a big role in this account—with the words “central bank” appearing 80 times as compared to a mere 18 times for the phrase “climate change”. (In fact, 30 percent of the time the word “carbon” appears in the book it as part of the phrase “carbon coin,” which Robinson invents as a new central bank currency.)
Given the novel claims to be a new form of detailed realism, more like a series of opeds than a novel, it seems reasonable to judge Ministry of the Future at least in large part based on the cogency of these opeds. And in making that assessment I’ll start with central banks.
The hero of the book repeatedly meets with central banks to get them to subsidize carbon reduction, with Robinson at one point writing, “When Mary reminded them that they had quantitatively eased trillions of pounds into existence when needed to save the banks, they nodded; their job was to save the banks. To quantitatively ease trillions of pounds into existence to save the world: not their job.”
A few problems with this: (1) quantitative easing entails buying interest paying bonds with interest paying reserves at market prices, it is not a giveaway or a net increase in the amount of wealth but a transaction that simultaneously expanded the assets and the liabilities of the central bank, (2) quantitative easing didn’t save the banks, in fact the banks generally opposed it because it lowered their profit margins by lowering the interest rates they got on loans ore than the interest they paid on deposits, and (3) if you want to buy carbon there is no reason at all the central bank would or should do it.
Robinson seems transfixed by central banks having some magic money ability that the fiscal authority does not have. And that this ability would allow the expenditure of enormous resources while sequestering other resources all while avoiding any inflation or other tradeoffs.
This is not a small issue in the book which has a number of genuinely small issues (Robinson misunderstanding discounting and infinite sums in a five page chapter solely devoted to the subject and confuses the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
All of this was as part of an intersectional approach to climate change that for reasons I did not fully understand included discussions of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), student loan debt relief, new social networks that make micropayments for your data, and a melange of other left issues that are either orthogonal to addressing climate change or even actually competing in resources or attention with addressing it.
I found an awful lot of that highly irritating (in case you didn’t notice), and it made me nervous that Robinson’s discussions of the consequences of climate change and geo-engineering were similarly inaccurate.
That said, I did find something intriguing about the book and the way it was constructed. A series of short chapters told from different perspectives in a nonfictional, historical report type of way, the polyphony of voices was engaging and moved along. The opening depiction of mass death due to heat in India was powerful. The emphasis on geoengineering is important because that should be part of our climate solution (he also has a strong emphasis on mitigation, through extremely abrupt and damaging reductions of carbon use, especially in transportation, but is much lighter on the third aspect to the solution—adaptation).
I’m not sure if I regret reading the book or would recommend to others, but it was unique and memorable—but it was also badly flawed and to the degree it is presented as an actual manifesto for policymakers it will send them down a bunch of rabbit holes related to central banking, student loan debt relief, social networks, and more that will not help solve this problem.
Given the novel claims to be a new form of detailed realism, more like a series of opeds than a novel, it seems reasonable to judge Ministry of the Future at least in large part based on the cogency of these opeds. And in making that assessment I’ll start with central banks.
The hero of the book repeatedly meets with central banks to get them to subsidize carbon reduction, with Robinson at one point writing, “When Mary reminded them that they had quantitatively eased trillions of pounds into existence when needed to save the banks, they nodded; their job was to save the banks. To quantitatively ease trillions of pounds into existence to save the world: not their job.”
A few problems with this: (1) quantitative easing entails buying interest paying bonds with interest paying reserves at market prices, it is not a giveaway or a net increase in the amount of wealth but a transaction that simultaneously expanded the assets and the liabilities of the central bank, (2) quantitative easing didn’t save the banks, in fact the banks generally opposed it because it lowered their profit margins by lowering the interest rates they got on loans ore than the interest they paid on deposits, and (3) if you want to buy carbon there is no reason at all the central bank would or should do it.
Robinson seems transfixed by central banks having some magic money ability that the fiscal authority does not have. And that this ability would allow the expenditure of enormous resources while sequestering other resources all while avoiding any inflation or other tradeoffs.
This is not a small issue in the book which has a number of genuinely small issues (Robinson misunderstanding discounting and infinite sums in a five page chapter solely devoted to the subject and confuses the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
All of this was as part of an intersectional approach to climate change that for reasons I did not fully understand included discussions of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), student loan debt relief, new social networks that make micropayments for your data, and a melange of other left issues that are either orthogonal to addressing climate change or even actually competing in resources or attention with addressing it.
I found an awful lot of that highly irritating (in case you didn’t notice), and it made me nervous that Robinson’s discussions of the consequences of climate change and geo-engineering were similarly inaccurate.
That said, I did find something intriguing about the book and the way it was constructed. A series of short chapters told from different perspectives in a nonfictional, historical report type of way, the polyphony of voices was engaging and moved along. The opening depiction of mass death due to heat in India was powerful. The emphasis on geoengineering is important because that should be part of our climate solution (he also has a strong emphasis on mitigation, through extremely abrupt and damaging reductions of carbon use, especially in transportation, but is much lighter on the third aspect to the solution—adaptation).
I’m not sure if I regret reading the book or would recommend to others, but it was unique and memorable—but it was also badly flawed and to the degree it is presented as an actual manifesto for policymakers it will send them down a bunch of rabbit holes related to central banking, student loan debt relief, social networks, and more that will not help solve this problem.
January 30, 2021
I have no idea who the intended audience of this book is, but it definitely wasn’t me. It is a rambling, disjointed technocrat/fintech bro wet dream that offers very little detail into the majority of the climate solutions while also giving us almost nothing in the way of plot or character development. I appreciate the attempted Utopic vision, but wish it came along with either an actually useful blueprint for how it can be achieved or compelling storytelling. Instead, it had neither.
September 15, 2021
*132nd Climate Book*
A few years I was working with a consultant to define a path towards decarbonization in our municipality, and there was a particular phrase he used when presenting his results to decision-makers and the public: "It's geophysically possible," he'd say, slowly and with emphasis. "I don't know if it's politically possible."
It's a phrase that sometimes gets my back up: it had damn well better be politically possible, or hundreds of millions of people will die and human civilization may not survive. Still. When reading this book, it came to mind over and over again.
KSR's pathway to climate salvation is, potentially, geophysically possible. I see comments in other reviews that portions of his prescription are not possible, from these reviewers' perspectives, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. But politically?
No fucking way. It's not even a maybe. I've been working in government for most of my adult life and nothing about this plot is even remotely conceivable.
Before I get into that in too much more detail, more about the novel proper:
I hadn't intended to read it, but Christiana Figueres recommended it on her podcast (Outrage and Optimism), and also it was on the currently-available-audiobooks list at my local library, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Figueres is the architect of the Paris Accords, which are constantly referenced in this novel as a turning point for humanity, and it's a story that seems broadly consistent with her message, so I'm not surprised at her recommendation. But I did not love it.
It is, first of all, a KSR novel. That is, it is very long, composed of many long passages of blatant exposition on scientific and technical matters thinly veiled in narrative conceits, with a bare bones plot spun out over many decades in between the exposition passages. It's a necessary construction for the kinds of stories KSR likes to tell, but it also appeals to a particular audience. If you like exposition, pull up a chair and pour yourself a cup of tea. If you like plot, look elsewhere.
Secondly, while he tried to make this a feminist story, he mostly failed, and in a way that felt to me utterly infuriating. His protagonist Mary, head of the Ministry for the entire novel which spans several decades, is painfully naive and ignorant. She must be schooled by all the men around her in just about everything, even the most basic functions of government and politics and climate science (you know, her job, which she presumably must have been very qualified for to be hired as the head). Even a random kidnapper sits her down and educates her about the severity of the situation, to which Mary can only repeatedly stammer, "we're doing what we can," while reacting to all of the kidnapper's facile suggestions with surprise. None of these were new or surprising; anyone employed at any level in any kind of environmental agency or organization has already heard all of them, and has almost certainly hotly debated them with colleagues. Yet Mary apparently knows none of them. Her subordinates must educate her about the basics of finance and economics as they pertain to carbon and fossil fuels. Every man she has a conversation with educates her about some novel or writer or artist or scientist she's never heard before. One might think that over the course of the novel this would be reversed somewhere, and Mary would educate them back, but no. Passive recipient she remains until the bitter end.
The writing itself is a passably serviceable science fiction style of plain, unobtrusive prose, and is fine. The voices of some of the secondary characters, particularly in the exposition sections, are often distinct and compelling. It takes a lot to hold one's interest over a 20 hour audiobook, particularly one composed largely of exposition, but it did; I listened to it over the course of a few days while working on another stitching project, and even the mini-chapters dedicated to photons and what-nots speaking for themselves kept me listening.
But back to my main point: if we indeed manage to decarbonize on a timescale that allows for the continuation of human civilization, this isn't how it will happen.
Climate change is barely present. There are a few mega-disasters to set the scene and make the point that Climate Change is Real and An Actual Problem, but otherwise, it never intrudes, and the situations in the novel rarely if ever intersect with any climate impacts. There are no unusually hot days in a Swiss winter making the characters uneasy, no plants growing or animals migrating outside of their typical season, no shortages of produce due to droughts in global food-growing regions, no expansion of disease vector ranges, no global conflicts over water or land. No one drowning in a flooded elevator or basement apartment. No one using medical devices dying due to power failures. Frank should be in a world where is in constant contact with other people suffering from climate PTSD; instead, he's the only one.
With few exceptions, all of the people in this novel are rational. When 20m people die in an Indian heat wave, India goes to war against climate change. It spurs a democratic transformation of India into global powerhouse of human rights and climate solutions. This reflects a common assumption that "once people start dying from climate impact they'll take it seriously and change." But there is no evidence of this in human nature. Look at Covid in the US: hundreds of thousands of people have died from covid; there is a free and effective vaccine widely available; yet there are mass protests against using this vaccine, some of which have led to violence. On climate, in Alberta for instance, even years after the fires that burned Fort McMurray to the ground, Albertans were largely resistant to even making their existing homes more fire-resistant; Alberta remains the province most committed to climate denial and most opposed to any climate action that risks the tar sands oil production. In BC, where historic heatwaves killed hundreds of people over a week this summer, the Conservatives--promising to reinstate the last Conservative government's carbon reduction targets of 30% by 2030, completely inadequate by scientific standards--are in a decisive lead over any party committed to climate action.
We like to think that eventually something so terrible will happen with the climate that there will be no deniers left and our governments can act decisively, but I don't think so. It's quite possible that it will get worse, not better; scared, angry people are more likely to vote Conservative, and conservative parties are less likely to support climate action. Moreover, scared, angry people are more likely to turn populist and fascist, with all the nasty consequences, including closed borders and increased conflict. The world passport idea was a nice narrative touch, but in a future marred by increasing climate crises, I can't see it happening.
Once progress is underway, there are no reversals. A 'carbon coin' is introduced globally, and amazingly, it stays. It isn't fought over for decades; there are no squabbles over minutiae of how it will work and who will administer it; no elections bring governments to power committed to opposing it. India goes to war against climate change, and stays there; no new governments are elected on a regressive platform. When Mary has one of her Significant Meetings, usually with bankers, the bankers are always of one common mind and she only has to convince them once as a group for a new policy to be implemented--and then stay implemented.
Again, I've been doing this work in these environments, though not at that level, for a long time. This is never how it works. You propose a decent measure at a meeting, and then spend the next five years arguing about it. Supporters leave to get new jobs in other companies; detractors come along slowly, and then take a different job where the policy no longer applies; key staff get sick, go on maternity leave, go back to school. A new government or Council is elected with new priorities and your committee or task force is scrapped and you have to start over. Your department is reorganized and you are now reporting to someone new who has no idea what you're talking about. Funding is cut and everyone is scared for their jobs and just keeps their head down for a while. You move a project along and hold the required public meeting and only opponents to the project show up, making it look hugely unpopular, and causing decision-makers to retract their support or water it down. You get to a decision-point and your contact in finance or procurement or communications changes, and you have to run everything by their replacement, and they want to change everything.
Scientific progress is much too convenient. The Indians try their hands at geo-engineering, and thank gods, there are no unpleasant consequences. Because.
There are no wars. None! There are already wars due to climate impacts; somehow in the future, with worsening consequences, that's all just over? How? Not one single country will, between now and the end of this century, elect a populist climate denier willing to mobilize their army to keep the oil wells flowing and the coal mines open? We have people staging violent riots over vaccines. Workers in climate fields are already subject to violent abuse online and in public; this is just going to ... go away? How? Current Canadian politicians championing climate action already receive constant death threats and need security details; somehow a UN Minister in charge of climate action for the whole world lives merrily and carefree as a private citizen for a decade or more before an assassination attempt lands her with a security detail.
[edited Sept 15 to add: today I read a recent report stating that 2020 was the most violent year ever for environmental advocates, with 227 globally killed for their activism. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/13/103657... And let's not forget assholes targeting Greta. An energy services company in Alberta sold bumper stickers threatening her with rape: https://globalnews.ca/news/6605199/al... Yet somehow the global spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Future is fine for years and only has two threats on her over decades?]
There are, however, eco-terrorists, who decisively target airplanes, guilty CEOs, and cattle farms; lots of people (and presumably cows) die, but it's ok because they were all bad people. And everyone around them just kind of rolls over and says, ok, huh, I guess oil really is over, yay solar! What? I mean ... what? You wipe out Exxon's CEO, and rather than hiring a new CEO who gets the president on the phone and demands support from the army, and then buys their own army to keep themselves and their families safe, while funding PR campaigns about how "we can't let the terrorists win, so buy a bigger car and use more gas," they just go into hiding. These guys have in real life already bought armies and killed activists in many countries. [eta: see above] Why does that stop this time?
Just Transition or no, this is not going to happen without some conflict. Smart policies will help, sure, and whatever groundwork can be laid to improve support now will mitigate and minimize that conflict. But this is going to be brutal.
The Ministry for the Future is less a novel and more a technical document outlining a possible transition pathway, modelled on a human-adjacent species with all of our convenient traits and none of our inconvenient ones.
In so much as it inspires hope or action, I'm all for it; my fear is that it will inspire apathy and complacency. Hurray! Regular people don't need to worry or do anything at all! We can just wait for a UN agency to have some difficult meetings with bankers, and a few climate tragedies to inspire a surprisingly effective and well-funded eco-terrorist campaign, and all will be well. We will still be having whisky on air flights, though not powered by jet fuel.
No one who has spent the last 18 months witnessing people bug out and turn violent when asked to wear a piece of cloth over their mouth while shopping for deodorant should be under any illusions that fundamentally rewiring the entire basis of global human society and economy will be straightforward or low-conflict.
That said, his intentions are good, and the technical side is pretty well done, so: 3 stars.
A few years I was working with a consultant to define a path towards decarbonization in our municipality, and there was a particular phrase he used when presenting his results to decision-makers and the public: "It's geophysically possible," he'd say, slowly and with emphasis. "I don't know if it's politically possible."
It's a phrase that sometimes gets my back up: it had damn well better be politically possible, or hundreds of millions of people will die and human civilization may not survive. Still. When reading this book, it came to mind over and over again.
KSR's pathway to climate salvation is, potentially, geophysically possible. I see comments in other reviews that portions of his prescription are not possible, from these reviewers' perspectives, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. But politically?
No fucking way. It's not even a maybe. I've been working in government for most of my adult life and nothing about this plot is even remotely conceivable.
Before I get into that in too much more detail, more about the novel proper:
I hadn't intended to read it, but Christiana Figueres recommended it on her podcast (Outrage and Optimism), and also it was on the currently-available-audiobooks list at my local library, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Figueres is the architect of the Paris Accords, which are constantly referenced in this novel as a turning point for humanity, and it's a story that seems broadly consistent with her message, so I'm not surprised at her recommendation. But I did not love it.
It is, first of all, a KSR novel. That is, it is very long, composed of many long passages of blatant exposition on scientific and technical matters thinly veiled in narrative conceits, with a bare bones plot spun out over many decades in between the exposition passages. It's a necessary construction for the kinds of stories KSR likes to tell, but it also appeals to a particular audience. If you like exposition, pull up a chair and pour yourself a cup of tea. If you like plot, look elsewhere.
Secondly, while he tried to make this a feminist story, he mostly failed, and in a way that felt to me utterly infuriating. His protagonist Mary, head of the Ministry for the entire novel which spans several decades, is painfully naive and ignorant. She must be schooled by all the men around her in just about everything, even the most basic functions of government and politics and climate science (you know, her job, which she presumably must have been very qualified for to be hired as the head). Even a random kidnapper sits her down and educates her about the severity of the situation, to which Mary can only repeatedly stammer, "we're doing what we can," while reacting to all of the kidnapper's facile suggestions with surprise. None of these were new or surprising; anyone employed at any level in any kind of environmental agency or organization has already heard all of them, and has almost certainly hotly debated them with colleagues. Yet Mary apparently knows none of them. Her subordinates must educate her about the basics of finance and economics as they pertain to carbon and fossil fuels. Every man she has a conversation with educates her about some novel or writer or artist or scientist she's never heard before. One might think that over the course of the novel this would be reversed somewhere, and Mary would educate them back, but no. Passive recipient she remains until the bitter end.
The writing itself is a passably serviceable science fiction style of plain, unobtrusive prose, and is fine. The voices of some of the secondary characters, particularly in the exposition sections, are often distinct and compelling. It takes a lot to hold one's interest over a 20 hour audiobook, particularly one composed largely of exposition, but it did; I listened to it over the course of a few days while working on another stitching project, and even the mini-chapters dedicated to photons and what-nots speaking for themselves kept me listening.
But back to my main point: if we indeed manage to decarbonize on a timescale that allows for the continuation of human civilization, this isn't how it will happen.
Climate change is barely present. There are a few mega-disasters to set the scene and make the point that Climate Change is Real and An Actual Problem, but otherwise, it never intrudes, and the situations in the novel rarely if ever intersect with any climate impacts. There are no unusually hot days in a Swiss winter making the characters uneasy, no plants growing or animals migrating outside of their typical season, no shortages of produce due to droughts in global food-growing regions, no expansion of disease vector ranges, no global conflicts over water or land. No one drowning in a flooded elevator or basement apartment. No one using medical devices dying due to power failures. Frank should be in a world where is in constant contact with other people suffering from climate PTSD; instead, he's the only one.
With few exceptions, all of the people in this novel are rational. When 20m people die in an Indian heat wave, India goes to war against climate change. It spurs a democratic transformation of India into global powerhouse of human rights and climate solutions. This reflects a common assumption that "once people start dying from climate impact they'll take it seriously and change." But there is no evidence of this in human nature. Look at Covid in the US: hundreds of thousands of people have died from covid; there is a free and effective vaccine widely available; yet there are mass protests against using this vaccine, some of which have led to violence. On climate, in Alberta for instance, even years after the fires that burned Fort McMurray to the ground, Albertans were largely resistant to even making their existing homes more fire-resistant; Alberta remains the province most committed to climate denial and most opposed to any climate action that risks the tar sands oil production. In BC, where historic heatwaves killed hundreds of people over a week this summer, the Conservatives--promising to reinstate the last Conservative government's carbon reduction targets of 30% by 2030, completely inadequate by scientific standards--are in a decisive lead over any party committed to climate action.
We like to think that eventually something so terrible will happen with the climate that there will be no deniers left and our governments can act decisively, but I don't think so. It's quite possible that it will get worse, not better; scared, angry people are more likely to vote Conservative, and conservative parties are less likely to support climate action. Moreover, scared, angry people are more likely to turn populist and fascist, with all the nasty consequences, including closed borders and increased conflict. The world passport idea was a nice narrative touch, but in a future marred by increasing climate crises, I can't see it happening.
Once progress is underway, there are no reversals. A 'carbon coin' is introduced globally, and amazingly, it stays. It isn't fought over for decades; there are no squabbles over minutiae of how it will work and who will administer it; no elections bring governments to power committed to opposing it. India goes to war against climate change, and stays there; no new governments are elected on a regressive platform. When Mary has one of her Significant Meetings, usually with bankers, the bankers are always of one common mind and she only has to convince them once as a group for a new policy to be implemented--and then stay implemented.
Again, I've been doing this work in these environments, though not at that level, for a long time. This is never how it works. You propose a decent measure at a meeting, and then spend the next five years arguing about it. Supporters leave to get new jobs in other companies; detractors come along slowly, and then take a different job where the policy no longer applies; key staff get sick, go on maternity leave, go back to school. A new government or Council is elected with new priorities and your committee or task force is scrapped and you have to start over. Your department is reorganized and you are now reporting to someone new who has no idea what you're talking about. Funding is cut and everyone is scared for their jobs and just keeps their head down for a while. You move a project along and hold the required public meeting and only opponents to the project show up, making it look hugely unpopular, and causing decision-makers to retract their support or water it down. You get to a decision-point and your contact in finance or procurement or communications changes, and you have to run everything by their replacement, and they want to change everything.
Scientific progress is much too convenient. The Indians try their hands at geo-engineering, and thank gods, there are no unpleasant consequences. Because.
There are no wars. None! There are already wars due to climate impacts; somehow in the future, with worsening consequences, that's all just over? How? Not one single country will, between now and the end of this century, elect a populist climate denier willing to mobilize their army to keep the oil wells flowing and the coal mines open? We have people staging violent riots over vaccines. Workers in climate fields are already subject to violent abuse online and in public; this is just going to ... go away? How? Current Canadian politicians championing climate action already receive constant death threats and need security details; somehow a UN Minister in charge of climate action for the whole world lives merrily and carefree as a private citizen for a decade or more before an assassination attempt lands her with a security detail.
[edited Sept 15 to add: today I read a recent report stating that 2020 was the most violent year ever for environmental advocates, with 227 globally killed for their activism. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/13/103657... And let's not forget assholes targeting Greta. An energy services company in Alberta sold bumper stickers threatening her with rape: https://globalnews.ca/news/6605199/al... Yet somehow the global spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Future is fine for years and only has two threats on her over decades?]
There are, however, eco-terrorists, who decisively target airplanes, guilty CEOs, and cattle farms; lots of people (and presumably cows) die, but it's ok because they were all bad people. And everyone around them just kind of rolls over and says, ok, huh, I guess oil really is over, yay solar! What? I mean ... what? You wipe out Exxon's CEO, and rather than hiring a new CEO who gets the president on the phone and demands support from the army, and then buys their own army to keep themselves and their families safe, while funding PR campaigns about how "we can't let the terrorists win, so buy a bigger car and use more gas," they just go into hiding. These guys have in real life already bought armies and killed activists in many countries. [eta: see above] Why does that stop this time?
Just Transition or no, this is not going to happen without some conflict. Smart policies will help, sure, and whatever groundwork can be laid to improve support now will mitigate and minimize that conflict. But this is going to be brutal.
The Ministry for the Future is less a novel and more a technical document outlining a possible transition pathway, modelled on a human-adjacent species with all of our convenient traits and none of our inconvenient ones.
In so much as it inspires hope or action, I'm all for it; my fear is that it will inspire apathy and complacency. Hurray! Regular people don't need to worry or do anything at all! We can just wait for a UN agency to have some difficult meetings with bankers, and a few climate tragedies to inspire a surprisingly effective and well-funded eco-terrorist campaign, and all will be well. We will still be having whisky on air flights, though not powered by jet fuel.
No one who has spent the last 18 months witnessing people bug out and turn violent when asked to wear a piece of cloth over their mouth while shopping for deodorant should be under any illusions that fundamentally rewiring the entire basis of global human society and economy will be straightforward or low-conflict.
That said, his intentions are good, and the technical side is pretty well done, so: 3 stars.
October 8, 2020
Synopsis: It’s 2025, the founding year of the Ministry of the Future which is an agency established in Zürich, Switzerland, to ensure health and safety for the generations to come. A heat wave crawls over rural India just before the yearly monsoon, killing twenty million people, and everything changes.
The story follows Mary Murphy, head of the new ministry, and tells her troubles founding the ministry, bringing banks and governments to political agreements over climate issues, and her long way to retirement. Her live is interleaved with that of Frank May, the sole survivor of the heat wave.
Review: This clifi is a very typical Kim Stanley Robinson novel: Less of a plot, more of a speculative extrapolation. Where his New York 2140 featured the rising sea level, his new novel focuses initially more on the direct impact of higher temperatures with the dire killing of people who cannot flee into cooled buildings, because there are none. This is not the only place which KSR lets the reader visit, but also beloved Antarctica with updated climatic implications since his great novel of 1997.
Another central showplace is the city of Zürich. As I lived there for a year, I can assess, that KSR’s lovely descriptions of the town are top notch, and I once again fell in love with this place.
The author wouldn’t be himself if he wouldn’t introduce some radical protagonists into his story who try to change the way our capitalistic world works. In this case, the trauma of the heat wave radicalized Indians who call themselve the “Children of Kali”, a Hindu goddess of Destruction. He envisions them to destroy the whole aircraft business by bringing planes down using an army of small drones directed into the flight paths of the planes. The message is obvious: stop flying, and the industry follows. But they don’t stop there.
Robinson offers an optimistic view into the further future, one where humanity can overcome the climatic change using terraforming technologies, a reformed capitalism disempowering the connection between banks and governments by issuing a blockchain certified carbon coin, and wiping away crappy Facebook by implementing a people owned and operated new Internet.
He finds many angles which are needed to save our children’s world, some may be naive, others could be counterargued. But together they form a holistic view that could work – something that I’m missing in so many dystopian clifis of these days.
I can fully recommend this Near Future Hard SF for everyone who doesn’t focus on plot or character but wants to see a solution oriented future of climatic change.
The story follows Mary Murphy, head of the new ministry, and tells her troubles founding the ministry, bringing banks and governments to political agreements over climate issues, and her long way to retirement. Her live is interleaved with that of Frank May, the sole survivor of the heat wave.
Review: This clifi is a very typical Kim Stanley Robinson novel: Less of a plot, more of a speculative extrapolation. Where his New York 2140 featured the rising sea level, his new novel focuses initially more on the direct impact of higher temperatures with the dire killing of people who cannot flee into cooled buildings, because there are none. This is not the only place which KSR lets the reader visit, but also beloved Antarctica with updated climatic implications since his great novel of 1997.
Another central showplace is the city of Zürich. As I lived there for a year, I can assess, that KSR’s lovely descriptions of the town are top notch, and I once again fell in love with this place.
The author wouldn’t be himself if he wouldn’t introduce some radical protagonists into his story who try to change the way our capitalistic world works. In this case, the trauma of the heat wave radicalized Indians who call themselve the “Children of Kali”, a Hindu goddess of Destruction. He envisions them to destroy the whole aircraft business by bringing planes down using an army of small drones directed into the flight paths of the planes. The message is obvious: stop flying, and the industry follows. But they don’t stop there.
Robinson offers an optimistic view into the further future, one where humanity can overcome the climatic change using terraforming technologies, a reformed capitalism disempowering the connection between banks and governments by issuing a blockchain certified carbon coin, and wiping away crappy Facebook by implementing a people owned and operated new Internet.
He finds many angles which are needed to save our children’s world, some may be naive, others could be counterargued. But together they form a holistic view that could work – something that I’m missing in so many dystopian clifis of these days.
I can fully recommend this Near Future Hard SF for everyone who doesn’t focus on plot or character but wants to see a solution oriented future of climatic change.
October 24, 2024
A panoramic thought experiment on how we could overcome the challenges of the climate crisis. The potential solutions are fascinating but the prism of Mary, the minister for the future, is not the most ideal way to tell the story
It’s only when things fall apart that you realise it can happen to you
From photons to arctic explorers, lawyers, refugees, government officials and aid workers, the author takes a panoramic view on what the future could be.
Solutions to the climate crisis involve geo-engineering, central bank fueled incentives to sequester carbon, terrorism against fossil fuel intensive industries and legal frameworks. Climate change is a many headed dragon of a problem so the notion that we need a variety of solutions to combat it, is well executed by Robinson.
I didn’t love the Mary/Frank main arc running through the book all that much (which is essentially the human story carrying the broader narrative presented by Kim Stanley Robinson), and beside heatwaves in India and floodings in LA the human cost of climate crisis is often far removed from the reader, who mainly spends time in conference rooms or traversing Zurich.
We all need help is an observation at the start of the book, which becomes very clear when deadly heatwaves in India, leading to power outages and 20 million dead, start of the book.
No one is safe till we all are secure is easily forgotten when geo engineering initiatives are taken unilaterally.
After all it is Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism and it is also very true that You pay for being the victim not the criminal.
Interesting the economy does not seem to suffer overly, since the job as meatpacker that a PTSD traumatized person has lead him to travel to India and Tanzania.
There are green activists trying to stop fishing and curb emissions by targeting rich people. Also cooling the earth by pumping up water underneath gletsjers and let it freeze at the surface, making the gletsjer less prone to melting, are initiatives taken. We have carbon coins being floated and central banks taking an active role.
7.000 people are killed by drones targeted on private jets and business travels on “crash day”, leading to airships and biofuel jets becoming more popular.
Diesel container ships being torpedoed to form new coral reefs and drones used to spread mad cows illness to reduce the popularity of beef.
Carrot and sticks, with focussing on carrots is exactly counter to behavioral economics, is piloted by the Ministry of the Future, which is an UN agency fighting climate change.
Mary, the head of this agency, is not a hundred percent successful character in my view, how she talks to Central Bank presidents or the Swiss government counsel is rather cringe, and I am not sure how her role is not overseen and frustrated by UN countries. Also ideas like Saudi Arabia’s government toppled and compensated with carbon credits of several trillions, feel rather improbable. as does Blockchain replacing fiat money and making tax havens impossible; rather techno-utopian.
Still an interesting book on the daunting task ahead, albeit it having flaws in terms of storytelling and characterisation in my view.
Quotes and interesting ideas
Not good enough. Nothing is ever good enough but we make due
Mass extinction now going on being reversed potentially by evolution in 20 million years
Future generations being richer and more powerful to solve problems we create being proved false
It’s only when things fall apart that you realise it can happen to you.
Money was useless without civilisation to back it
The future needs to succeed
Saudi Arabia’s government toppled and compensated with carbon credits of several trillions
Africa for the Africans, 1 billion workers rising up in China, collective student debt default
Carbon reckoning, to determine how much carbon is sequestered
The chaos between dynasties
Mondragon social Basque system, very interesting
Government as employer of last resort and global passports for refugees? Like those issued after WO II
Gaia day as an international day to celebrate that carbon is falling
Who can tell the riddle of their own true self?
Free language lessons for refugees
Colouring the ocean with synthetic dye to increase albido
It’s only when things fall apart that you realise it can happen to you
From photons to arctic explorers, lawyers, refugees, government officials and aid workers, the author takes a panoramic view on what the future could be.
Solutions to the climate crisis involve geo-engineering, central bank fueled incentives to sequester carbon, terrorism against fossil fuel intensive industries and legal frameworks. Climate change is a many headed dragon of a problem so the notion that we need a variety of solutions to combat it, is well executed by Robinson.
I didn’t love the Mary/Frank main arc running through the book all that much (which is essentially the human story carrying the broader narrative presented by Kim Stanley Robinson), and beside heatwaves in India and floodings in LA the human cost of climate crisis is often far removed from the reader, who mainly spends time in conference rooms or traversing Zurich.
We all need help is an observation at the start of the book, which becomes very clear when deadly heatwaves in India, leading to power outages and 20 million dead, start of the book.
No one is safe till we all are secure is easily forgotten when geo engineering initiatives are taken unilaterally.
After all it is Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism and it is also very true that You pay for being the victim not the criminal.
Interesting the economy does not seem to suffer overly, since the job as meatpacker that a PTSD traumatized person has lead him to travel to India and Tanzania.
There are green activists trying to stop fishing and curb emissions by targeting rich people. Also cooling the earth by pumping up water underneath gletsjers and let it freeze at the surface, making the gletsjer less prone to melting, are initiatives taken. We have carbon coins being floated and central banks taking an active role.
7.000 people are killed by drones targeted on private jets and business travels on “crash day”, leading to airships and biofuel jets becoming more popular.
Diesel container ships being torpedoed to form new coral reefs and drones used to spread mad cows illness to reduce the popularity of beef.
Carrot and sticks, with focussing on carrots is exactly counter to behavioral economics, is piloted by the Ministry of the Future, which is an UN agency fighting climate change.
Mary, the head of this agency, is not a hundred percent successful character in my view, how she talks to Central Bank presidents or the Swiss government counsel is rather cringe, and I am not sure how her role is not overseen and frustrated by UN countries. Also ideas like Saudi Arabia’s government toppled and compensated with carbon credits of several trillions, feel rather improbable. as does Blockchain replacing fiat money and making tax havens impossible; rather techno-utopian.
Still an interesting book on the daunting task ahead, albeit it having flaws in terms of storytelling and characterisation in my view.
Quotes and interesting ideas
Not good enough. Nothing is ever good enough but we make due
Mass extinction now going on being reversed potentially by evolution in 20 million years
Future generations being richer and more powerful to solve problems we create being proved false
It’s only when things fall apart that you realise it can happen to you.
Money was useless without civilisation to back it
The future needs to succeed
Saudi Arabia’s government toppled and compensated with carbon credits of several trillions
Africa for the Africans, 1 billion workers rising up in China, collective student debt default
Carbon reckoning, to determine how much carbon is sequestered
The chaos between dynasties
Mondragon social Basque system, very interesting
Government as employer of last resort and global passports for refugees? Like those issued after WO II
Gaia day as an international day to celebrate that carbon is falling
Who can tell the riddle of their own true self?
Free language lessons for refugees
Colouring the ocean with synthetic dye to increase albido
April 5, 2024
4.0 Stars
Video Review https://youtu.be/sCk5I9fP7Z0
As someone who loves “cli fi”, this was a novel I really wanted to read. I enjoyed the premise of this one and particularly relished in the sections that explored ways to counteract the potential future we face. This book starts out rather grim but holds enough hope and optimism to make it an enjoyable read. I still prefer New York 2140, but I would still recommend this one.
Video Review https://youtu.be/sCk5I9fP7Z0
As someone who loves “cli fi”, this was a novel I really wanted to read. I enjoyed the premise of this one and particularly relished in the sections that explored ways to counteract the potential future we face. This book starts out rather grim but holds enough hope and optimism to make it an enjoyable read. I still prefer New York 2140, but I would still recommend this one.
November 20, 2020
I hate to say it, but everyone should read this book. I give it one star because I really hated it. Nevertheless, I think everyone should read this book.
No, it is not about time travel, which is what I was hoping for. It's about climate change. I almost didn't make it through. It's really depressing. I was going to stop at about 30%, but then completed it by skipping LOTS of paragraphs. Eventually, it gets somewhat hopeful, but I don't see that happening IRL. Even at the end, though, there's stuff that's depressing.
It's not really even a novel. It is a bunch of short stories, technical discussions, overlong setting descriptions, and ideological harangues, which are strung together by means of two longer stories. The two people in the stories eventually meet but don't really interact that much even after that.
One, Frank, we meet on the first page, and I got really interested in him. He's the only character I cared about the whole way through. (Caring about characters is necessary for me liking a book, and there weren't really any in this book for me to care about.) But I didn't get a real feel for Frank until much later on. I thought he was
Also, I really thought that the author would eventually reveal that Frank's
Another problem with this book is that it is SO much telling instead of showing. Even when the characters interact or give their opinions or there is discussion of their work, it's mostly telling instead of showing. Frank's part, starting on the first page, was really engaging. Though , it got me interested in the character and kept me reading.
Alas, that level of writing rarely returned except in some of the chapter-long short stories. The one in LA. was particularly good. But the short stories were also confusing because it was often hard tell from their beginnings if there were a separate little story, or if they were about people we had met before, because the characters were written in first person and sometimes it was hard to tell for a couple of pages that this was going to be a little self-contained story and impossible to tell if we had met them before, like some of the stories.
Anyway, I'm really sorry I read this book. What a downer! But I think everyone should read this book. Overall, it has made me more depressed about climate change Which is why everyone should read this book. Maybe it can spur us to action, which is I'm sure his rationale for writing it.
But as usual, reading Robinson's writing is just SO much WORK! If he really wants to sell his thoughts to engage people--to thereby sell his ideas/solutions to climate change, then he needs to write a more engaging book. This is NOT a bestseller!
I did find my favorite new word, though. Kleptocrat. Go look it up.
No, it is not about time travel, which is what I was hoping for. It's about climate change. I almost didn't make it through. It's really depressing. I was going to stop at about 30%, but then completed it by skipping LOTS of paragraphs. Eventually, it gets somewhat hopeful, but I don't see that happening IRL. Even at the end, though, there's stuff that's depressing.
It's not really even a novel. It is a bunch of short stories, technical discussions, overlong setting descriptions, and ideological harangues, which are strung together by means of two longer stories. The two people in the stories eventually meet but don't really interact that much even after that.
One, Frank, we meet on the first page, and I got really interested in him. He's the only character I cared about the whole way through. (Caring about characters is necessary for me liking a book, and there weren't really any in this book for me to care about.) But I didn't get a real feel for Frank until much later on. I thought he was
Also, I really thought that the author would eventually reveal that Frank's
Another problem with this book is that it is SO much telling instead of showing. Even when the characters interact or give their opinions or there is discussion of their work, it's mostly telling instead of showing. Frank's part, starting on the first page, was really engaging. Though , it got me interested in the character and kept me reading.
Alas, that level of writing rarely returned except in some of the chapter-long short stories. The one in LA. was particularly good. But the short stories were also confusing because it was often hard tell from their beginnings if there were a separate little story, or if they were about people we had met before, because the characters were written in first person and sometimes it was hard to tell for a couple of pages that this was going to be a little self-contained story and impossible to tell if we had met them before, like some of the stories.
Anyway, I'm really sorry I read this book. What a downer! But I think everyone should read this book. Overall, it has made me more depressed about climate change Which is why everyone should read this book. Maybe it can spur us to action, which is I'm sure his rationale for writing it.
But as usual, reading Robinson's writing is just SO much WORK! If he really wants to sell his thoughts to engage people--to thereby sell his ideas/solutions to climate change, then he needs to write a more engaging book. This is NOT a bestseller!
I did find my favorite new word, though. Kleptocrat. Go look it up.
January 30, 2021
I've been thinking a lot recently about the need to construct a narrative of recovery from disaster, in order to have any hope for the future. My thoughts centred upon the pandemic and how normality as we knew it will never return, but perhaps we can move from emergency into rebuilding something different. The first step towards doing the latter is imagining it as a possibility and envisaging one day not being afraid to leave my home. I am thus attempting to avoid despair despite the truly disastrous state of the UK in January 2021. Racked by the new turbo-covid variant, hospitals overwhelmed, more than a hundred thousand dead in the pandemic and another thousand every day, the worst death rate in the world, in lockdown for the third time, economically crippled by brexit, ruled by a bunch of useless Tory goons who are responsible for it all. As I find Kim Stanley Robinson's books among the most hopeful I've ever read, 'The Ministry for the Future' seemed like it might help.
At first, it was just the opposite. In order to illustrate the horrors of climate change, the book opens with a truly terrifying account of a heatwave in India that kills twenty million people in a fortnight. I was thus punched in the face by my existential terror of climate change, which has been crowded to the side by my existential terror of the pandemic in recent times. It was not pleasant to be reminded that while covid dominates our lives, climate change continues to inexorably undermine the survival of human civilisation. It therefore took me a while to get through the first fifty pages, despite their undoubted readability. Once I'd reacquainted myself with this existential dread, and with the help of escapism in large doses, I found the rest of the book compulsive. I do not think it's science fiction, or at least doesn't read as such. Although there are characters and a narrative, as well as technological extrapolations, it felt more like Francis Spufford's elision of fiction and non-. Except Spufford recounts history with judicious use of fictionalisation, whereas Stanley Robinson gives readers a detailed recovery narrative of the future. In New York 2140 he spoke directly to the reader, and in 'The Ministry for the Future' he does so still more insistently. This book sits you down, takes you by the shoulders, and says earnestly, "Listen to me. We are not doomed by climate change. There is hope for a better world. Do not despair."
The title of the book refers to an agency set up in Zürich under the auspices of the Paris Agreement, with limited budget and no statutory powers, with the purpose of representing the interests of future generations. It is led by Mary Murphy, who uses the UN agency's soft power to influence governments, banks, and businesses. She is a powerful figure, but still essentially a figurehead and co-ordinator. Kim Stanley Robinson is absolutely the last author to intimate that one person can save the world. Her point of view allows the reader to see the many ways to tackle climate change: geoengineering, renewable energy, financial reform, rewilding, transformation of agriculture, transport decarbonisation, and postcapitalist economics. As ever in his novels, Kim Stanley Robinson has a very impressive grasp of the material, beyond any other author I've come across. I discussed this with a friend who is currently reading Blue Mars. He has the trick of extrapolating with considered conviction across an incredible range of disciplines in both the hard and social sciences. Presumably he draws upon a network of experts, identifying key concepts and explaining them with great clarity. I have studied and taught carbon emissions mitigation in academia, so do not praise this lightly. I've read plenty of novels with flimsy and unconvincing economics, in particular. Kim Stanley Robinson synthesises and summarises environmental economics with a succinct accuracy that I can't fault. My knowledge of hard science, engineering, and technology is more limited, but I found his extrapolations almost entirely convincing. I remain sceptical of blockchain, as there's so much baseless hype around it. Nonetheless, I am willing to entertain the possibility that it may be useful if set up and managed as public infrastructure rather than for shareholder returns.
While impressively systematic and convincing, the depiction of technological change and geoengineering are not what make 'The Ministry for the Future' memorable. Obviously I appreciated the economics and the reckoning with bankers. What set this apart for me, from Kim Stanley Robinson's other novels as well other climate change fiction, is his depiction of the violent rage against the hyper-rich elite letting the planet burn. Mary shares protagonist duties with Frank May, who barely survives the catastrophic Indian heatwave and suffers from severe PTSD. He is a fascinating character, the exact opposite of all the men in so-called climate change novels that annoyed me with their self involvement (cf Solar, The Lamentations of Zeno). Climate change has taken over his life and over decades the reader watches how this plays out. Unlike much climate change non-fiction (notably The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis), Kim Stanley Robinson acknowledges and reckons with probably the main impediments to tackling climate change: oil companies and the super-rich. Moreover, he examines the question, unmentioned in any climate change non-fiction I've read, of whether killing a few super-rich is morally right in order to preserve billions of people alive and unborn. The answer is not simple and this book doesn't pretend that it is. I found the intensity of Frank's anger very easy to sympathise with - I am constantly seething with murderous rage at the destruction wrought by billionaires. The role of violence and sabotage in turning the world away from climate disaster is carefully judged throughout. Violence is shown to not usually be justified, yet can be effective in desperate situations. Although the Children of Kali and their direct violent actions are only an occasional presence in the narrative, their inclusion is important.
I don't think 'The Ministry for the Future' works particularly well as a conventional novel, as it doesn't spend nearly as much time with its characters as New York 2140 or the Mars Trilogy. Although I found Mary and Frank interesting characters, their lives were entirely defined by climate change. This is absolutely not a complaint! The book works brilliantly as a manifesto, polemic, and a narrative of possibility. I cannot be the only person who is consumed by fear and despair about the future right now, and needs convincing, analytical, hopeful narratives to counter the blizzard of disasters that pass for current events. Unfortunately, even Kim Stanley Robinson's outstanding writing abilities cannot make much progress against my anxieties in 2021. New York 2140 definitely had a stronger positive impact on me back in 2017. Partly, it's the implication that his books are becoming more and more direct in their message because things are getting worse and worse. Will he write another like this but more so in a couple of years, if COP26 languishes? 'The Ministry for the Future' is adamant that there is still time to avoid runaway climate change and save civilisation. I would very much like to believe that, but am really struggling to at the moment. Lockdown life on Plague Island really doesn't lend itself to positivity. Still, I know that such narratives are important. Maybe I need to construct a personal narrative of becoming less anxious first, then I might be able to think about the climate change situation more clearly.
At first, it was just the opposite. In order to illustrate the horrors of climate change, the book opens with a truly terrifying account of a heatwave in India that kills twenty million people in a fortnight. I was thus punched in the face by my existential terror of climate change, which has been crowded to the side by my existential terror of the pandemic in recent times. It was not pleasant to be reminded that while covid dominates our lives, climate change continues to inexorably undermine the survival of human civilisation. It therefore took me a while to get through the first fifty pages, despite their undoubted readability. Once I'd reacquainted myself with this existential dread, and with the help of escapism in large doses, I found the rest of the book compulsive. I do not think it's science fiction, or at least doesn't read as such. Although there are characters and a narrative, as well as technological extrapolations, it felt more like Francis Spufford's elision of fiction and non-. Except Spufford recounts history with judicious use of fictionalisation, whereas Stanley Robinson gives readers a detailed recovery narrative of the future. In New York 2140 he spoke directly to the reader, and in 'The Ministry for the Future' he does so still more insistently. This book sits you down, takes you by the shoulders, and says earnestly, "Listen to me. We are not doomed by climate change. There is hope for a better world. Do not despair."
The title of the book refers to an agency set up in Zürich under the auspices of the Paris Agreement, with limited budget and no statutory powers, with the purpose of representing the interests of future generations. It is led by Mary Murphy, who uses the UN agency's soft power to influence governments, banks, and businesses. She is a powerful figure, but still essentially a figurehead and co-ordinator. Kim Stanley Robinson is absolutely the last author to intimate that one person can save the world. Her point of view allows the reader to see the many ways to tackle climate change: geoengineering, renewable energy, financial reform, rewilding, transformation of agriculture, transport decarbonisation, and postcapitalist economics. As ever in his novels, Kim Stanley Robinson has a very impressive grasp of the material, beyond any other author I've come across. I discussed this with a friend who is currently reading Blue Mars. He has the trick of extrapolating with considered conviction across an incredible range of disciplines in both the hard and social sciences. Presumably he draws upon a network of experts, identifying key concepts and explaining them with great clarity. I have studied and taught carbon emissions mitigation in academia, so do not praise this lightly. I've read plenty of novels with flimsy and unconvincing economics, in particular. Kim Stanley Robinson synthesises and summarises environmental economics with a succinct accuracy that I can't fault. My knowledge of hard science, engineering, and technology is more limited, but I found his extrapolations almost entirely convincing. I remain sceptical of blockchain, as there's so much baseless hype around it. Nonetheless, I am willing to entertain the possibility that it may be useful if set up and managed as public infrastructure rather than for shareholder returns.
While impressively systematic and convincing, the depiction of technological change and geoengineering are not what make 'The Ministry for the Future' memorable. Obviously I appreciated the economics and the reckoning with bankers. What set this apart for me, from Kim Stanley Robinson's other novels as well other climate change fiction, is his depiction of the violent rage against the hyper-rich elite letting the planet burn. Mary shares protagonist duties with Frank May, who barely survives the catastrophic Indian heatwave and suffers from severe PTSD. He is a fascinating character, the exact opposite of all the men in so-called climate change novels that annoyed me with their self involvement (cf Solar, The Lamentations of Zeno). Climate change has taken over his life and over decades the reader watches how this plays out. Unlike much climate change non-fiction (notably The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis), Kim Stanley Robinson acknowledges and reckons with probably the main impediments to tackling climate change: oil companies and the super-rich. Moreover, he examines the question, unmentioned in any climate change non-fiction I've read, of whether killing a few super-rich is morally right in order to preserve billions of people alive and unborn. The answer is not simple and this book doesn't pretend that it is. I found the intensity of Frank's anger very easy to sympathise with - I am constantly seething with murderous rage at the destruction wrought by billionaires. The role of violence and sabotage in turning the world away from climate disaster is carefully judged throughout. Violence is shown to not usually be justified, yet can be effective in desperate situations. Although the Children of Kali and their direct violent actions are only an occasional presence in the narrative, their inclusion is important.
I don't think 'The Ministry for the Future' works particularly well as a conventional novel, as it doesn't spend nearly as much time with its characters as New York 2140 or the Mars Trilogy. Although I found Mary and Frank interesting characters, their lives were entirely defined by climate change. This is absolutely not a complaint! The book works brilliantly as a manifesto, polemic, and a narrative of possibility. I cannot be the only person who is consumed by fear and despair about the future right now, and needs convincing, analytical, hopeful narratives to counter the blizzard of disasters that pass for current events. Unfortunately, even Kim Stanley Robinson's outstanding writing abilities cannot make much progress against my anxieties in 2021. New York 2140 definitely had a stronger positive impact on me back in 2017. Partly, it's the implication that his books are becoming more and more direct in their message because things are getting worse and worse. Will he write another like this but more so in a couple of years, if COP26 languishes? 'The Ministry for the Future' is adamant that there is still time to avoid runaway climate change and save civilisation. I would very much like to believe that, but am really struggling to at the moment. Lockdown life on Plague Island really doesn't lend itself to positivity. Still, I know that such narratives are important. Maybe I need to construct a personal narrative of becoming less anxious first, then I might be able to think about the climate change situation more clearly.
February 7, 2025
Incredible start. The book is better in theory than on the page.
May 5, 2023
It is a measure of our culture’s capacity for denial that facing reality has become the calling of science-fiction writers.
I love KSR, but man this was a slog. Yes, it soars towards the end when a protagonist takes an airship tour of earth’s greatest hits post-climate collapse. Why doesn’t KSR simply write about nature, which he does so passionately well and with such engagement and understanding? Then I realised that KSR has done exactly that, with Antarctica (1997) and his latest High Sierra: A Love Story (2022).
I automatically added an extra star onto my rating simply because of this section, because there is no other SF writer who can make Earth appear like a wondrous and totally miraculous planet, the fragility of which is contrasted against the immensity and (apparent) emptiness of the rest of the cosmos. Which also makes our treatment of our home planet even more abominable, especially when you consider we are the custodians of all life here, and not just our own species.
For someone who is such an avowed disciple of Fredric Jameson, KSR completely ignores the Global South, though India does get to play the role of international pariah and catalyst for global change. A huge fan of Scandinavian practicality and determination, it is perhaps no surprise that KSR’s titular ministry is developed, nurtured, and given a home by the Swiss. I suppose given the scale of the book it was inevitable that only a few countries and nationalities are represented. And anything with a non-American bias must be good, right?
I suppose the biggest question raised by this book, which at the end of the day does preach to the proverbial choir when it comes to the (inevitable) impact of climate change, is whether it can even be considered a novel at all. The main narrative strand is quite slim and focuses on two key characters; honestly the rest is filler, polemic and digression that is as exasperating to read as it is entertaining. So, I suppose, we have KSR on top form here. Though he is unlikely to win any literary merit awards.
I love KSR, but man this was a slog. Yes, it soars towards the end when a protagonist takes an airship tour of earth’s greatest hits post-climate collapse. Why doesn’t KSR simply write about nature, which he does so passionately well and with such engagement and understanding? Then I realised that KSR has done exactly that, with Antarctica (1997) and his latest High Sierra: A Love Story (2022).
I automatically added an extra star onto my rating simply because of this section, because there is no other SF writer who can make Earth appear like a wondrous and totally miraculous planet, the fragility of which is contrasted against the immensity and (apparent) emptiness of the rest of the cosmos. Which also makes our treatment of our home planet even more abominable, especially when you consider we are the custodians of all life here, and not just our own species.
For someone who is such an avowed disciple of Fredric Jameson, KSR completely ignores the Global South, though India does get to play the role of international pariah and catalyst for global change. A huge fan of Scandinavian practicality and determination, it is perhaps no surprise that KSR’s titular ministry is developed, nurtured, and given a home by the Swiss. I suppose given the scale of the book it was inevitable that only a few countries and nationalities are represented. And anything with a non-American bias must be good, right?
I suppose the biggest question raised by this book, which at the end of the day does preach to the proverbial choir when it comes to the (inevitable) impact of climate change, is whether it can even be considered a novel at all. The main narrative strand is quite slim and focuses on two key characters; honestly the rest is filler, polemic and digression that is as exasperating to read as it is entertaining. So, I suppose, we have KSR on top form here. Though he is unlikely to win any literary merit awards.
November 10, 2020
This is a fresh, 2020 cli-fi SF by Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR), which reads more like a manifesto than a fiction novel. I read is as a part of monthly reading for November 2020 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group.
The story starts with a great human-made catastrophe: it is mid-2020s, a heat wave hits India and kills more people than 4 years of the WW1, as well and animals and damages the biosphere. Among a few survivors is a foreign volunteer Frank, who sustains a psychological trauma due to the calamity. At the roughly the same time, in 2025, the Paris Agreement Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change decides to make a Subsidiary Body, a supranational agency charged with defending the environment and all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves. It was unofficially named “the Ministry for the Future” and it is headed by the other protagonist, Mary. The further story follows their lives (and many others) and their efforts to save the world.
The novel is ‘classic’ KSR, infodump-heavy story well known to funs by his earlier works, e.g. Red Mars. The info covers a broad range of topics, including but not limited to: economics, environment protection, natural habitats, monetary policy, socialism, saving polar caps, income redistribution, market failures, alternatives to air travel, etc. However, in this book his political activism took over his writer’s talent. Both protagonists aren’t very interesting characters and the story is a bit predictive – not even reading the book, I guess most people assume that ‘good guys’ will win and the danger of environmental collapse will be turned over. At the same time as a cookbook filled with possible solutions it definitely shines.
I have to admit, policies advocated by KSR are often too left-wing for me. I’m from the ex-USSR, I know the faults of socialism. I dislike his adoration of Russia and China, two quite aggressive authoritarian states. It maybe less profound than pro-Chinese Red Moon, but nevertheless saying ‘they are fine because the USA is not a paragon of virtue’ is wrong. Situations with Tibet, Yugurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan for China or with aggressions of Russia in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014) as well and internal suppression of ‘the other’ from LGBTQ+ to political opponents should make both regimes international pariahs, and their leaders, with their cults of personality – personas non-grata. Of course, some alt-right may accuse the author of selloff to authoritarians, but it is not so: he mentions 1989 Tiananmen Square and HK protests, which is enough not to get published in China, as well as after Putin Russia…
I’m an economist by trade and while I agree with some of his arguments in that sphere (as well as with the fact that environmental problems are very real and urgent), I think he gets quite a few points wrong. Say, for example, he mentions bancor proposed by Keynes on 1944 Bretton-Woods conference:
The story is true, but ‘keep countries from becoming either too poor or too wealthy’ is wrong – say the USA has trade deficit since 1976 – it hasn’t become poor in these 44 years… moreover, Keynes suggestion was made in a very specific situation, when private credit markets and economies in general were everywhere subordinated to the exigencies of war finance, while in his earlier works, written in what was much closer to our current globalized world he made quite different proposals.
There are several more claims connected to the economics, which I find dubious. I still liked to read them discussed in some depths.
It is not a SF as much as environmental manifesto, a book on a very important topic but not an easy of smooth read. Nevertheless, it is actually an utopia, even if it doesn’t seem so at the start.
The story starts with a great human-made catastrophe: it is mid-2020s, a heat wave hits India and kills more people than 4 years of the WW1, as well and animals and damages the biosphere. Among a few survivors is a foreign volunteer Frank, who sustains a psychological trauma due to the calamity. At the roughly the same time, in 2025, the Paris Agreement Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change decides to make a Subsidiary Body, a supranational agency charged with defending the environment and all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves. It was unofficially named “the Ministry for the Future” and it is headed by the other protagonist, Mary. The further story follows their lives (and many others) and their efforts to save the world.
The novel is ‘classic’ KSR, infodump-heavy story well known to funs by his earlier works, e.g. Red Mars. The info covers a broad range of topics, including but not limited to: economics, environment protection, natural habitats, monetary policy, socialism, saving polar caps, income redistribution, market failures, alternatives to air travel, etc. However, in this book his political activism took over his writer’s talent. Both protagonists aren’t very interesting characters and the story is a bit predictive – not even reading the book, I guess most people assume that ‘good guys’ will win and the danger of environmental collapse will be turned over. At the same time as a cookbook filled with possible solutions it definitely shines.
I have to admit, policies advocated by KSR are often too left-wing for me. I’m from the ex-USSR, I know the faults of socialism. I dislike his adoration of Russia and China, two quite aggressive authoritarian states. It maybe less profound than pro-Chinese Red Moon, but nevertheless saying ‘they are fine because the USA is not a paragon of virtue’ is wrong. Situations with Tibet, Yugurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan for China or with aggressions of Russia in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014) as well and internal suppression of ‘the other’ from LGBTQ+ to political opponents should make both regimes international pariahs, and their leaders, with their cults of personality – personas non-grata. Of course, some alt-right may accuse the author of selloff to authoritarians, but it is not so: he mentions 1989 Tiananmen Square and HK protests, which is enough not to get published in China, as well as after Putin Russia…
I’m an economist by trade and while I agree with some of his arguments in that sphere (as well as with the fact that environmental problems are very real and urgent), I think he gets quite a few points wrong. Say, for example, he mentions bancor proposed by Keynes on 1944 Bretton-Woods conference:
John Maynard Keynes, the chief British negotiator, also suggested at Bretton Woods that they found an International Clearing Union, which would make use of a new unit of currency to be called a bancor. The purpose of the bancor would be to allow nations with trade deficits to be able to climb out of their debts by calling on an overdraft account with the ICU that would allow them to spend money to employ more citizens and thus create more exports. Nations making use of their overdraft would be charged 10 percent interest on these bancor loans, which could not be traded for ordinary currencies, or by individuals. Nations with large trade surpluses would also be charged 10 percent interest on these surpluses, and if their credit exceeded an allowed maximum at the end of the year, the excess would be confiscated by the ICU. Keynes thus hoped to create an international balance of trade credit which would keep countries from becoming either too poor or too wealthy.
The story is true, but ‘keep countries from becoming either too poor or too wealthy’ is wrong – say the USA has trade deficit since 1976 – it hasn’t become poor in these 44 years… moreover, Keynes suggestion was made in a very specific situation, when private credit markets and economies in general were everywhere subordinated to the exigencies of war finance, while in his earlier works, written in what was much closer to our current globalized world he made quite different proposals.
There are several more claims connected to the economics, which I find dubious. I still liked to read them discussed in some depths.
It is not a SF as much as environmental manifesto, a book on a very important topic but not an easy of smooth read. Nevertheless, it is actually an utopia, even if it doesn’t seem so at the start.
October 10, 2023
“it's the economy/technology/psychology/demography/power politics…, stupid!”
I know there are some snags to this book (see below) but I can already say that I found it quite impressive. I didn't know Kim Robinson (my bad?): he is a creditable science fiction author, but apparently he is at home in many more fields, as he proves here. Climate change is at the heart of this book and Robinson's great achievement, in my view, is that he gives a sense of the breadth of the challenges it poses to us and our planet.
It starts dramatically, with the evocation of an extreme heat wave in 2025 (so, again this is science fiction!) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh that killed millions of people. This sets in motion a train of radical measures and the creation of a Ministry for the Future that will put pressure on nation states and the international system on behalf of future generations. Robinson mainly follows the leadership of that institute, based in Zurich (that Swiss city gets a lot of touristic promotion), and in this way we get a picture of very diverse problems facing the world: not only the technological issue of reducing the CO2 level in the atmosphere and prevent the further melting of glaciers and Arctic ice, but also fiscal and monetary measures to encourage more environmentally conscious behavior, strategies to promote small-scale ecological approaches, and so on and so forth. The number of angles that Robinson provides is really impressive. And in particular he points to the pernicious influence of existing ideologies and religions, the opposition by nation states and vested interests, and the legacy of capitalism and post-colonialism. A truly kaleidoscopic approach.
Formally, Robinson has spread this over more than 100 relatively short chapters, sometimes following certain protagonists like the leaders of the Ministry of the Future but also refugees, activists and even ecoterrorists. But at other times the chapter just are passionate pamphlets, and even boring conference reports or didactic expositions. That demands quite something from the reader, especially because Robinson is clearly not a real literary writer. But he offers a lot of variety, and also interweaves enough fictional elements to make it completely digestible, especially through the story of the Irish Mary, the chairwoman of the Ministry for the Future, and Frank, an American who was traumatized by the heat wave in India and emerges as an eco-terrorist; the friendship that in time develops between the two is really nice. The evolution over time, from approximately 2025 to approximately 2050, also supports the narrative, fictional element.
The main issue is that this novel requires some suspension of disbelief, quite a lot frankly. I especially had a hard time with the aspect that the Ministry for the Future had a secret department that uses eco-terrorists to kill hundreds of top bankers, and magnates of oil and aircraft companies. And the biggest problem is that in this novel a significant drop in the CO2 content in the atmosphere already was noted after just over 20 years, as a result of the many measures. Scientifically, this is downright nonsense (and there are other, smaller scientific and factual errors in this book). This immediately brings us to the most crucial issue in the debate on the fight against global warming: can it be won just with technology and technical interventions? This book contains an essay that asks the question “is technology driving world history?”, and at first glance Robinson seems quite naïve to support that statement. But it is precisely through his very kaleidoscopic approach to the climate issue that he shows that only a very broad mix of measures and approaches in very different domains can provide relief. If this novel contributes anything to this extremely important debate, it is this very valuable message. Rating 3.5 stars.
I know there are some snags to this book (see below) but I can already say that I found it quite impressive. I didn't know Kim Robinson (my bad?): he is a creditable science fiction author, but apparently he is at home in many more fields, as he proves here. Climate change is at the heart of this book and Robinson's great achievement, in my view, is that he gives a sense of the breadth of the challenges it poses to us and our planet.
It starts dramatically, with the evocation of an extreme heat wave in 2025 (so, again this is science fiction!) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh that killed millions of people. This sets in motion a train of radical measures and the creation of a Ministry for the Future that will put pressure on nation states and the international system on behalf of future generations. Robinson mainly follows the leadership of that institute, based in Zurich (that Swiss city gets a lot of touristic promotion), and in this way we get a picture of very diverse problems facing the world: not only the technological issue of reducing the CO2 level in the atmosphere and prevent the further melting of glaciers and Arctic ice, but also fiscal and monetary measures to encourage more environmentally conscious behavior, strategies to promote small-scale ecological approaches, and so on and so forth. The number of angles that Robinson provides is really impressive. And in particular he points to the pernicious influence of existing ideologies and religions, the opposition by nation states and vested interests, and the legacy of capitalism and post-colonialism. A truly kaleidoscopic approach.
Formally, Robinson has spread this over more than 100 relatively short chapters, sometimes following certain protagonists like the leaders of the Ministry of the Future but also refugees, activists and even ecoterrorists. But at other times the chapter just are passionate pamphlets, and even boring conference reports or didactic expositions. That demands quite something from the reader, especially because Robinson is clearly not a real literary writer. But he offers a lot of variety, and also interweaves enough fictional elements to make it completely digestible, especially through the story of the Irish Mary, the chairwoman of the Ministry for the Future, and Frank, an American who was traumatized by the heat wave in India and emerges as an eco-terrorist; the friendship that in time develops between the two is really nice. The evolution over time, from approximately 2025 to approximately 2050, also supports the narrative, fictional element.
The main issue is that this novel requires some suspension of disbelief, quite a lot frankly. I especially had a hard time with the aspect that the Ministry for the Future had a secret department that uses eco-terrorists to kill hundreds of top bankers, and magnates of oil and aircraft companies. And the biggest problem is that in this novel a significant drop in the CO2 content in the atmosphere already was noted after just over 20 years, as a result of the many measures. Scientifically, this is downright nonsense (and there are other, smaller scientific and factual errors in this book). This immediately brings us to the most crucial issue in the debate on the fight against global warming: can it be won just with technology and technical interventions? This book contains an essay that asks the question “is technology driving world history?”, and at first glance Robinson seems quite naïve to support that statement. But it is precisely through his very kaleidoscopic approach to the climate issue that he shows that only a very broad mix of measures and approaches in very different domains can provide relief. If this novel contributes anything to this extremely important debate, it is this very valuable message. Rating 3.5 stars.
February 19, 2021
So I can’t decide if I’m just not hip enough to have enjoyed this, or if perhaps I’m too hip to have enjoyed it. At any rate, I just really did NOT appreciate the experience. I’m sure if I had had the energy I could have deconstructed the whole thing, looking for patterns in the chapter rotation, symbols in the obscure and allusions in the dialogue, but honestly, the structure was so chaotic and messy that it just didn’t feel worth the effort. Far too much pontificating and not enough storytelling for me.
Read for the intellectual gymnastics; avoid if you’re looking for a bit of mindless escape.
Read for the intellectual gymnastics; avoid if you’re looking for a bit of mindless escape.
September 9, 2022
a fantastic multivalent work that brings climate change into focus in all of its furious inevitabilities. It feels scarily true, however speculative. It moves like an agile drone from close third-person tragedy to bullet-point-like mini-essays about ethics, wet bulb temperatures, glaciers, economics, and some people may dislike it for this many-angled examination of the sixth extinction but it felt perfect, perfect for the task at hand. The only time I felt hopeful while reading was when I learned that after the coming climate catastrophe the biosphere will repopulate its niches and recover, albeit in a very changed way, in as little as 20 million years.
August 16, 2022
"The Invisible Hand never picks up the check." (pg 411)
• THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2020.
Robinson offers a near-future kaleidoscope of a world decimated by climate change and its ramifications. He constructs a 360° approach to getting un-fucked, utilizing a multi-pronged approach using science, economics, and general ingenuity.
KSR's identified spheres: finance/economics, policy/diplomacy, science/engineering, & humanitarian aid specifically to climate/resource refugees.
~600 pages cannot be summed up in this paltry post. The book follows a narrative progression with a few central characters, but would be best described as a mosaic of stories - chapters are short but plentiful, including transcripts of interviews, riddles, short vignettes of life affected by climate change, displacement, etc.
Synthesized points:
• Violence and revolution - at what point does the struggle turn violent for change to occur? Will change only come with bloodshed?
• Geo-Engineering / Scientific Advancement - turning this notion on its head & stating that we've been re-engineering the earth for a long time (detrimentally), can we switch to make sustainable outcomes? Explored here: glacier remediation and regeneration, wildlife corridors / rewilding land resources, human population consolidation in urban areas, alternative transport models such as dirigibles, hyperloops, and hydroplanes
• Policy - we share the same house, but nation-states make their own rules in each "room" of the house. Some locations are disproportionately affected. What if a country (in KSR's scenario, India with a "wet bulb" heat wave) unilaterally makes a decision to move forward with their own plans, since others continue in inaction. Asymmetrical policy - as we have now IRL.
• Late-Stage Capitalism death throes - I was most "out of my element" here with the discussion (did a lot of supplemental reading) of central banks, Keynesian economics, crypto and blockchain, and the creation of a public "carbon coin" that rewards sustainability + sequestration.
Capitalism has never been natural or rational, could this economic model be?
For the scientists, activists, wonks, armchair philosophers - there's just so much here.
Nutshell wrapup of a book I can't "unsee", but of course, SO much more to digest in this book.
Any recommendations of books, articles, podcasts, and experiences from personal and professional life welcome. Quite eager to learn more about everything I've discussed above, and related material.
• THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2020.
Robinson offers a near-future kaleidoscope of a world decimated by climate change and its ramifications. He constructs a 360° approach to getting un-fucked, utilizing a multi-pronged approach using science, economics, and general ingenuity.
KSR's identified spheres: finance/economics, policy/diplomacy, science/engineering, & humanitarian aid specifically to climate/resource refugees.
~600 pages cannot be summed up in this paltry post. The book follows a narrative progression with a few central characters, but would be best described as a mosaic of stories - chapters are short but plentiful, including transcripts of interviews, riddles, short vignettes of life affected by climate change, displacement, etc.
Synthesized points:
• Violence and revolution - at what point does the struggle turn violent for change to occur? Will change only come with bloodshed?
• Geo-Engineering / Scientific Advancement - turning this notion on its head & stating that we've been re-engineering the earth for a long time (detrimentally), can we switch to make sustainable outcomes? Explored here: glacier remediation and regeneration, wildlife corridors / rewilding land resources, human population consolidation in urban areas, alternative transport models such as dirigibles, hyperloops, and hydroplanes
• Policy - we share the same house, but nation-states make their own rules in each "room" of the house. Some locations are disproportionately affected. What if a country (in KSR's scenario, India with a "wet bulb" heat wave) unilaterally makes a decision to move forward with their own plans, since others continue in inaction. Asymmetrical policy - as we have now IRL.
• Late-Stage Capitalism death throes - I was most "out of my element" here with the discussion (did a lot of supplemental reading) of central banks, Keynesian economics, crypto and blockchain, and the creation of a public "carbon coin" that rewards sustainability + sequestration.
Capitalism has never been natural or rational, could this economic model be?
For the scientists, activists, wonks, armchair philosophers - there's just so much here.
Nutshell wrapup of a book I can't "unsee", but of course, SO much more to digest in this book.
Any recommendations of books, articles, podcasts, and experiences from personal and professional life welcome. Quite eager to learn more about everything I've discussed above, and related material.
December 12, 2020
Not really a coherent novel. More of a speculative climate policy white paper with fictional characters.
December 30, 2024
This climate crisis focused science fiction starts tense and fast paced. Later it is calmer and reflective.
Robinson is very good at building a book from tiny sections , each with their own voice and tone, contributing to one multifaceted story. He is a gifted writer and the book is carefully crafted.
Some parts of the book are extremely dark. However it ends with hope for humanity and our ecosystem here on earth.
Robinson is very good at building a book from tiny sections , each with their own voice and tone, contributing to one multifaceted story. He is a gifted writer and the book is carefully crafted.
Some parts of the book are extremely dark. However it ends with hope for humanity and our ecosystem here on earth.
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