How will governments and society respond to a global climate disaster? Kim Stanley Robinson paints a vivid picture of what’s possible in a brilliant work of fiction that straddles science, economics, and politics. In The Ministry for the Future, Robinson takes the reader to a near future and lays out in impressive detail the impact of climate change at a global and personal level.
Though the book is a work of fiction, it’s grounded in sufficient reality to bring key issues close to home. Take the geopolitical challenges of climate change as an example. We are familiar with how difficult international relations can be in times of crisis. But with climate change, the dynamics will be incredibly harder. Here’s one area in the book where we see tensions flare up, with an Indian government official expressing anger at what’s happened to her country:
“What you need to know now is that we are scared here, and angry too. It was Europe and America and China who caused this heat wave, not us. I know we have burned a lot of coal in the last few decades, but it’s nothing compared to the West. And yet we signed the Agreement to do our part. Which we have done. But no one else is fulfilling commitments, no one is paying the developing nations, and now we have this heat wave.”
Another area of realism was the frantic attempts at geo-engineering. Messing with climate in this fashion could backfire in all sorts of ways. However, it’s realistic to imagine that it may be necessary if we don’t cut emissions and have no other choice but to try anything with a non-zero chance of success. With such bleak prospects the characters in the book can’t help but occasionally turn to humour. One passing thought near the end of the book exemplifies this well:
“Geoengineering? Yes. Ugly? Very much so. Dangerous? Possibly. Necessary? Yes. Or put it this way; the international community had decided through their international treaty system to do it. Yet another intervention, yet another experiment in managing the Earth system, in finessing Gaia. Geobegging.”
I can’t share more from the book without spoiling the story but I can leave you with the last thought I had after reading it. And that thought is this: The fossil fuel-driven economic growth of the last century may end up being the greatest and most harmful speculative bubble of all time. Which is to say, we’re enjoying an inflated sense of progress today that’s inconsistent with the unimaginable costs that could be due in the future. However, if the quasi-fictional planet in Robinson’s book is anything to go by, taking drastic measures today gives us a chance. But delayed action dooms us to failure.