Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Orbit (New York, 2020). 1st edition, 1st printing. 576 pages. $28.00.
Description
"From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Kim Stanley Robinson is one of contemporary science fiction's most acclaimed writers, and with this new novel, he once again turns his eye to themes of climate change, technology, politics, and the human behaviors that drive these forces. But his setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world--rather, he imagines a more hopeful future, one where humanity has managed to overcome our challenges and thrive. It is a novel both immediate and impactful, perfect for his many fans and for readers who crave powerful and thought-provoking sci-fi stories"--
Media reviews
Robinson is a writer who believes fiction can make a difference to the world. His latest is a bold docu-fictional extrapolation of how humanity might tackle the climate crisis, blending practical ideas and information with vivid prose – the astonishing opening chapter, in which a heatwave kills
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millions, will stay with me for a very long time. Robinson knows we can’t be saved by a single heroic flourish but by difficult, drawn-out and, above all, collective labour. A crucial book for our time. Show Less
Robinson shows that an ambitious systems novel about global heating must in fact be an ambitious systems novel about modern civilisation too, because everything is so interdependent. Luckily, when he opens one of his discursive interludes with the claim “Taxes are interesting”, he makes good on
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it within two pages. There is no shortage of sardonic humour here, a cosmopolitan range of sympathies, and a steely, visionary optimism. Show Less
This detail-heavy near-future novel offers a window onto the apocalypse looming just behind our present dystopia [...] High-minded, well-intentioned, and in love with what Earth’s future could be but somewhat lacking in narrative drive
User reviews
LibraryThing member dukedom_enough
The latest novel from science fiction's most prominent utopian is a clear-eyed look at our most dystopian problem, climate change. The book starts off with a bang in 2025, as an extreme heat wave kills twenty million people in northern India - in a single week. We experience the event with Frank
In Zurich, Switzerland the parties to the Paris Climate Accords set up a small agency charged with representing everyone not yet born. The Ministry for the Future is headed by Mary Murphy, the principal viewpoint character. Can her people reverse the ever-increasing greenhouse warming?
Mary's and Frank's stories supply through-lines, but this big book about a big subject takes a collage approach, with 106 chapters showing a wide range of viewpoints, usually of unnamed characters, many of whom appear just once. The Earth's people work to slow Antarctic-glacier loss, expand wildlife habitats, preserve fresh water, find homes for refugees, and reduce CO2 production. They are "inventing the parachute after leaping off the cliff," and fighting psychological denial more than physical forces. The readers see only bits of the entire story, maybe not even the most important bits. There are lots of infodumps. The book is also a tour guide to Switzerland, especially Zurich, where Robinson has lived at times.
Robinson employs his usual spare prose, free of obvious flourishes, even when depicting the worst of events. It's up to the reader to feel the awfulness of plain lines like "All the children were dead, all the old people were dead."
Writing at a grim moment, Robinson still dares to hope. Over several decades, the planet's arc bends in a somewhat better direction, the economy redesigned to value life over greed. The change is not driven by a few great men, but by all of us. I teared up at chapter 85, a four-page alphabetical listing of organizations introducing themselves at a meeting, each working on some aspect of saving the planet, the whole having the effect of some swelling chorus of inspiriting music. These groups don't exist now - but they could, right? Robinson is as unlike a 1920s sense-of-wonder, superscience SF writer as he could be, but the book still feels to me like one of those old, optimistic stories: immense difficulties overcome on the way to saving the universe.
One turning point occurs when the world's central bankers become convinced that they could not maintain the stability of their national currencies - their main job - after human extinction. They save the world to save the money. Robinson's idea is so absurd that I believe it, here in 2020. Terrorism also becomes important, though - some of the ultra-rich die in attacks on their airplanes and yachts, and most of them then decide cooperation beats death. Robinson asks whether nonviolence will be enough. Not a pleasant prospect, and one that, here in 2020, we may still hope to avoid.
The book is dense with ideas, programs, and organizations, some of which exist today. Here, an appendix of sources and links is missing and would be welcome. Works for Peter Watts, why not Robinson? A quick search doesn't turn up anything online.
Twenty years from now, we will wonder why we ever thought about anything but climate in the early 21st century. Will Robinson's hope be justified? I write this the weekend before the 2020 US election.
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May, an aid worker who becomes one of the few to survive temperature and humidity that exceed human endurance. The rest of Frank's life is darkened by post-traumatic symptoms from this horrific experience.In Zurich, Switzerland the parties to the Paris Climate Accords set up a small agency charged with representing everyone not yet born. The Ministry for the Future is headed by Mary Murphy, the principal viewpoint character. Can her people reverse the ever-increasing greenhouse warming?
Mary's and Frank's stories supply through-lines, but this big book about a big subject takes a collage approach, with 106 chapters showing a wide range of viewpoints, usually of unnamed characters, many of whom appear just once. The Earth's people work to slow Antarctic-glacier loss, expand wildlife habitats, preserve fresh water, find homes for refugees, and reduce CO2 production. They are "inventing the parachute after leaping off the cliff," and fighting psychological denial more than physical forces. The readers see only bits of the entire story, maybe not even the most important bits. There are lots of infodumps. The book is also a tour guide to Switzerland, especially Zurich, where Robinson has lived at times.
Robinson employs his usual spare prose, free of obvious flourishes, even when depicting the worst of events. It's up to the reader to feel the awfulness of plain lines like "All the children were dead, all the old people were dead."
Writing at a grim moment, Robinson still dares to hope. Over several decades, the planet's arc bends in a somewhat better direction, the economy redesigned to value life over greed. The change is not driven by a few great men, but by all of us. I teared up at chapter 85, a four-page alphabetical listing of organizations introducing themselves at a meeting, each working on some aspect of saving the planet, the whole having the effect of some swelling chorus of inspiriting music. These groups don't exist now - but they could, right? Robinson is as unlike a 1920s sense-of-wonder, superscience SF writer as he could be, but the book still feels to me like one of those old, optimistic stories: immense difficulties overcome on the way to saving the universe.
One turning point occurs when the world's central bankers become convinced that they could not maintain the stability of their national currencies - their main job - after human extinction. They save the world to save the money. Robinson's idea is so absurd that I believe it, here in 2020. Terrorism also becomes important, though - some of the ultra-rich die in attacks on their airplanes and yachts, and most of them then decide cooperation beats death. Robinson asks whether nonviolence will be enough. Not a pleasant prospect, and one that, here in 2020, we may still hope to avoid.
The book is dense with ideas, programs, and organizations, some of which exist today. Here, an appendix of sources and links is missing and would be welcome. Works for Peter Watts, why not Robinson? A quick search doesn't turn up anything online.
Twenty years from now, we will wonder why we ever thought about anything but climate in the early 21st century. Will Robinson's hope be justified? I write this the weekend before the 2020 US election.
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LibraryThing member entropydodge
Kim Stanley Robinson envisions how humanity might stick together and muddle through the coming decades, averting the climate crisis' worst case scenarios and leaving a jump-off point for an optimistic future.
No lazy - and scientifically untenable - doomsday fast climate collapse apocalypses here.
Amongst all the ideas, there is plenty of beautiful description of landscape and cities, along with tension and drama.
Credit to KSR for imagining the difficult next few decades and presenting as an engrossing and unusual read. It's an initial survey of the near future territory and a counter-narrative to doom. Most people will probably find things to disagree with in terms of the ideas, but there is now the shape of something on which to build further useful discourse.
No lazy - and scientifically untenable - doomsday fast climate collapse apocalypses here.
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No magically proficient techno-fixes that let everyone put their feet up, either. KSR has put in the hard yards. Starting with the harrowing first chapter, he imagines how climate disasters impact everyday people and are linked to other vast problems like inequality. He shows how the optimistic future would be won by combining many ideas and partial solutions from STEM, economics, law and politics and driving their implementation through institutions like the Ministry for the Future.Amongst all the ideas, there is plenty of beautiful description of landscape and cities, along with tension and drama.
Credit to KSR for imagining the difficult next few decades and presenting as an engrossing and unusual read. It's an initial survey of the near future territory and a counter-narrative to doom. Most people will probably find things to disagree with in terms of the ideas, but there is now the shape of something on which to build further useful discourse.
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LibraryThing member auntmarge64
As always, Robinson's work is both interesting and irritating, because although he has some of the most intriguing ideas about various issues of our time, he has very little talent for characterization and action. Still, it's must read for those who want to hear what he says, which is usually so
Robinson's Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars) is still his masterpiece, but this is a close second. Here a small international agency, poorly funded and with little power, brainstorms ways to get Earth's population and governments to cooperate so that global climate change is reversed. CO2 levels have reached the upper 400s (we ourselves are in the lower 400s, so this is most timely). The book opens a few years into our future as a record heatwave strikes parts of India. With power cut off and no running water, millions die within a couple of days. A westerner who runs a clinic in a city in the area tries his best to care for his patients when the heat hits, first in the clinic and then with all of them joining the city's other residents in submerging themselves in the local river. But the river is no cooler than their body temperatures, and the following morning everyone in the city is dead except the westerner, who had had a few cups of water stored at the clinic which he had drunk himself. Still, he is close to death when he is found, with the river full of dead bodies.
This first chapter colors the rest of the book. The westerner is never the same and tries to find ways to wake up the world or, in the extreme, join a group in India which starts targeted strikes against high producers of CO2. Gas-guzzling planes and private jets are brought down, specific individuals are assassinated, and so on. India itself is shaken out of business-as-usual, a new government is elected, and the country proceeds with massive changes, beginning with filling the atmosphere with a darkening substance they think will reduce heat in India, and eventually the whole planet, for at least a few years. They proceed regardless of international disapproval.
A group works to ground Antarctica's glaciers to slow them down. A new type of currency is invented to reward those who don't use carbon, and world bankers agree to support it. Wide swaths of land, some thousands of miles long, are put aside worldwide to let animals find their own niches after years of interference by humans. New ways of eating (less animal culture) and agriculture are explored. Blimps are re-imagined to take the place of fossil fuel in aircraft. Large ships start adding sail and solar power. The threat of more violence by the climate vigilantes, who prove immune to capture, combined with new technologies and signs of success, encourage these changes around the world.
As I said, there is little characterization, so the ideas themselves become main actors in the book. Chapters alternate between descriptions of human activities and essays on the science and history of the theories Robinson is laying out. Firmly based on science, his ideas are always thought-provoking and usually leave the reader with some hope. Personally, I don't expect us to make it as a species, but I guess it's always possible with creative minds like Robinson's at work.
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creative that it's very, very much worth the effort..Robinson's Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars) is still his masterpiece, but this is a close second. Here a small international agency, poorly funded and with little power, brainstorms ways to get Earth's population and governments to cooperate so that global climate change is reversed. CO2 levels have reached the upper 400s (we ourselves are in the lower 400s, so this is most timely). The book opens a few years into our future as a record heatwave strikes parts of India. With power cut off and no running water, millions die within a couple of days. A westerner who runs a clinic in a city in the area tries his best to care for his patients when the heat hits, first in the clinic and then with all of them joining the city's other residents in submerging themselves in the local river. But the river is no cooler than their body temperatures, and the following morning everyone in the city is dead except the westerner, who had had a few cups of water stored at the clinic which he had drunk himself. Still, he is close to death when he is found, with the river full of dead bodies.
This first chapter colors the rest of the book. The westerner is never the same and tries to find ways to wake up the world or, in the extreme, join a group in India which starts targeted strikes against high producers of CO2. Gas-guzzling planes and private jets are brought down, specific individuals are assassinated, and so on. India itself is shaken out of business-as-usual, a new government is elected, and the country proceeds with massive changes, beginning with filling the atmosphere with a darkening substance they think will reduce heat in India, and eventually the whole planet, for at least a few years. They proceed regardless of international disapproval.
A group works to ground Antarctica's glaciers to slow them down. A new type of currency is invented to reward those who don't use carbon, and world bankers agree to support it. Wide swaths of land, some thousands of miles long, are put aside worldwide to let animals find their own niches after years of interference by humans. New ways of eating (less animal culture) and agriculture are explored. Blimps are re-imagined to take the place of fossil fuel in aircraft. Large ships start adding sail and solar power. The threat of more violence by the climate vigilantes, who prove immune to capture, combined with new technologies and signs of success, encourage these changes around the world.
As I said, there is little characterization, so the ideas themselves become main actors in the book. Chapters alternate between descriptions of human activities and essays on the science and history of the theories Robinson is laying out. Firmly based on science, his ideas are always thought-provoking and usually leave the reader with some hope. Personally, I don't expect us to make it as a species, but I guess it's always possible with creative minds like Robinson's at work.
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LibraryThing member the.ken.petersen
When I started reading this book, my heart yelled, "Yes!!!" This is a book which shows that there are people in the USA who really understand the problem.
Kim Stanley Robinson really gets it. He understands climate change, in all its complex twists and turns so, I read hungrily.
The book loses one
I will cut Mr Robinson some slack because I suspect that this is one one those rare occasions upon which we Brits are ahead of our transatlantic cousins. They have lived through four years of Mr Trump telling them that climate change is a Chinese hoax! Britain, on the other hand, has really started to grasp the situation in which we find ourselves.
This book is the best entrance level to the problems facing the world. Well worth reading.
Kim Stanley Robinson really gets it. He understands climate change, in all its complex twists and turns so, I read hungrily.
The book loses one
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star for two reasons: firstly, everything ends happily ever after with minimal change to our lifestyle and secondly, he does have an annoying habit of presenting things that one just can't see governments accepting, as done.I will cut Mr Robinson some slack because I suspect that this is one one those rare occasions upon which we Brits are ahead of our transatlantic cousins. They have lived through four years of Mr Trump telling them that climate change is a Chinese hoax! Britain, on the other hand, has really started to grasp the situation in which we find ourselves.
This book is the best entrance level to the problems facing the world. Well worth reading.
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LibraryThing member BobVTReader
Kim Stanley Robinson is know as a science fiction author though, in reality he is a futurist. This is a big messy book as climate change is a big messy topic and the there is not one simple solution (well there is the one we are flying hell bent towards - total extermination of the human race).
It is in many ways a difficult book to read; however, in the end it is worth the effort.
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This book explores some of the options of how we are going to accomplish controlling climate change. The one takeaway from this fictional tail is that it is going to take centuries to right the ship and it going to take more than the reduction of burning fossil fuels. It is in many ways a difficult book to read; however, in the end it is worth the effort.
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LibraryThing member rocketjk
The Ministry for the Future is Robinson's massive science fiction novel about global warming set in the relatively near future. Climate change has progressed. Those blinded to anything but their own near-term pleasure and profits have become even more entrenched, while the rest of the world is
The whole novel adds up to a plausible look at how climate matters may well progress, and of individual components of the problem that many of us may not be specifically aware of, followed by a speculative and mostly hopeful view of how things might get turned around. Not all of the latter elements felt particularly likely to me, sad to say. The characters themselves are mostly razor thin. Robinson does make some attempt to deepen the characterization of Mary somewhat, giving her a personal side issue that at first is quite interesting but which eventually becomes (or at least became for me) mostly extraneous. A lot of this novel is quite good, although Robinson's scattershot approach can become wearing, and I got the feeling eventually that Robinson was simply determined to tell us everything he knew and force in every piece of research he'd done. Of course, the problems are global and massive, so in Robinson's defense we might agree that they needed a massive novel to do them justice. My paperback edition checked in at 563 pages. After page 400 or so, I was ready to be finished. But, as this was a selection of a member of my monthly reading group, I was obliged to carry on. Mostly I'm glad I read this novel, though I doubt I ever would have selected it on my own (which I guess is one chief value of book groups). I did learn a lot, assuming of course that Robinson knows what he's talking about.
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becoming more desperate. When a massive heat wave in India kills millions of people in India, a significant portion of the world begins finally to wake up. The global organization put in place by the Paris Accords creates a new sub-organization tasked with finding and driving scientific and economic solutions to the problem, an organization that is quickly dubbed the Ministry for the Future. The novel takes us through the efforts of the ministry's leader, an Irish woman named Mary, and her many officers and assistants, in their efforts to bring corporations and world banks to pivot their attention to keeping the world alive in the face of massive intransigence. We also helicopter around to visit many of the scientific efforts to address the issues directly, such as a massive attempt to pump prematurely water up from under the antarctic glaciers in order to settle the glaciers back down onto the rock below them and thus slow their progress to the sea. Sometimes Robinson just stops the action entirely to deliver two or three-page long explanations of particular scientific issues or economic theories. Sometimes we get chapters told in the voice of climate refugees or terrorists. Because as things grow more dire, some people get angrier and more desperate and begin taking matters into their own hands in the form of targeted murders and sabotage of polluters and polluting industries. The whole novel adds up to a plausible look at how climate matters may well progress, and of individual components of the problem that many of us may not be specifically aware of, followed by a speculative and mostly hopeful view of how things might get turned around. Not all of the latter elements felt particularly likely to me, sad to say. The characters themselves are mostly razor thin. Robinson does make some attempt to deepen the characterization of Mary somewhat, giving her a personal side issue that at first is quite interesting but which eventually becomes (or at least became for me) mostly extraneous. A lot of this novel is quite good, although Robinson's scattershot approach can become wearing, and I got the feeling eventually that Robinson was simply determined to tell us everything he knew and force in every piece of research he'd done. Of course, the problems are global and massive, so in Robinson's defense we might agree that they needed a massive novel to do them justice. My paperback edition checked in at 563 pages. After page 400 or so, I was ready to be finished. But, as this was a selection of a member of my monthly reading group, I was obliged to carry on. Mostly I'm glad I read this novel, though I doubt I ever would have selected it on my own (which I guess is one chief value of book groups). I did learn a lot, assuming of course that Robinson knows what he's talking about.
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LibraryThing member adzebill
KSR is like a bad boyfriend who just lets you down but who you keep giving one more chance. I enjoyed the Mars trilogy until they got bogged down in long turgid sections on writing a Martian constitution. This book has its share on constitution-writing, taxation policy, economics and so forth –
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like little potted lectures – but KSR keeps it sprightly and plies together 108 short vignettes, reportage, riddles, and yes primers on carbon currencies into a multistranded yarn that you follow to the end. Surprisingly moving in parts, ultimately both horrifying (beginning as it does with the death of 20 million people) and uplifting, as he plots a course through the next few turbulent decades that ends with hope. Show Less
LibraryThing member rivkat
Robinson’s usual great ecological detail/political theories and musings applied to climate change in the near future. Things aren’t great but he argues that there’s a path forward, essentially via socialism. Seems to me to understate the chances that the US will fuck it up for everyone, but
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if you want to read something that is moderately hopeful (despite depicting tens of millions of deaths in already-unavoidable disasters) about fixing the climate, this could do it. Show Less
LibraryThing member nmele
In his latest, Robinson takes a look at how the nations of the world might address and mitigate climate change enough to give humans a better, survivable climate and sustainable world. Certainly a more interesting read than the downer that was "Aurora", realistic as that book was.
LibraryThing member Shrike58
My relationship with KSR's books since the "Mars" Trilogy has been a mixed bag, and even with "Blue Mars" the didacticism of it all was starting to get to me. "Years of Salt and Rice" left me wondering what I had just read, and I just bounced off "2312" and "Red Moon." So, it was with a certain
Sure, all the issues that people have had with Robinson's writing are still in play, but in giving you a vision of how coping with world climate disaster might play out in a relatively positive way, while at the same time assuming the orneriness of events as a constant, this is the current gold standard for near-term science fiction and the most important issue facing human survival; apart from World War III. In that respect, the book might be a little too optimistic! I suspect that what makes this book work in the end is the character of Mary Murphy, a hard-headed international official who approaches her job as being the bearer of bad news and hard solutions with real vim and vigor.
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sense of grim determination that I approached this novel, but I figured that if anyone was going to tackle the "Long Emergency" in the depth it deserves it was going to be KSR, and, you know, the man didn't let me down.Sure, all the issues that people have had with Robinson's writing are still in play, but in giving you a vision of how coping with world climate disaster might play out in a relatively positive way, while at the same time assuming the orneriness of events as a constant, this is the current gold standard for near-term science fiction and the most important issue facing human survival; apart from World War III. In that respect, the book might be a little too optimistic! I suspect that what makes this book work in the end is the character of Mary Murphy, a hard-headed international official who approaches her job as being the bearer of bad news and hard solutions with real vim and vigor.
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LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I think the UN should immediately set up a Ministry for the Future and make Kim Stanley Robinson head of it. His vision for humankind's way out of the mess of climate disruption that we have caused seems to me like it would work. Something certainly needs to be done as the time for keeping global
The book opens with a disturbing few chapters about a heat wave that occurs in India. Frank May, an American working in a remote area of India, tries to help the people survive the hellish temperatures. As more and more people die he and the survivors head to the lake nearby but it is so hot that really isn't a solution. When some relief workers finally make it to the town about a week after the heat wave started Frank is the only person alive and he is just clinging to life. Although he physically gets better he suffers from severe PTSD. When he ends up living in Zurich where the newly established Ministry for the Future is headquartered he becomes convinced that they need to engage in some eco-terrorism. He kidnaps Mary Murphy, the head of the Minstry, and holds her in her apartment while he conveys his thoughts. Eventually, this being Switzerland, police arrive at Mary's door and arrest Frank. But his thoughts have given Mary something to think about and she asks Badim, her second-in-command, what he thinks only to find that there is a secret side of the Ministry overseen by Badim that has engaged in some activities like what Frank was espousing. There are many other arrows in the Ministry's quiver from economic incentives to keep fossil fuels in the ground to supporting research to stop Antarctica's and Greenland's glaciers melting to rewilding areas of the planet not suited to agriculture and so many more initiatives. The first big step though is to keep the fossil fuels in the ground. The idea of paying companies and states who own reserves to not drill or mine them seems revolutionary but Robinson sets the groundwork with economic lessons that even I could understand. Of course, the transition was not smooth and there were persons and entitities violently opposed. Tatiana, one of the top Ministry officials, was killed. Mary had to have round the clock protection herself. But the big story succeeds and, interspersed with the narrative, are little stories about ordinary people's lives being transformed.
One of the things this story shows is how interconnected people and countries are. The fight against climate change also has to be a fight against poverty and racism and oligarchies in order for anything to improve.
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warming in check is rapidly waning.The book opens with a disturbing few chapters about a heat wave that occurs in India. Frank May, an American working in a remote area of India, tries to help the people survive the hellish temperatures. As more and more people die he and the survivors head to the lake nearby but it is so hot that really isn't a solution. When some relief workers finally make it to the town about a week after the heat wave started Frank is the only person alive and he is just clinging to life. Although he physically gets better he suffers from severe PTSD. When he ends up living in Zurich where the newly established Ministry for the Future is headquartered he becomes convinced that they need to engage in some eco-terrorism. He kidnaps Mary Murphy, the head of the Minstry, and holds her in her apartment while he conveys his thoughts. Eventually, this being Switzerland, police arrive at Mary's door and arrest Frank. But his thoughts have given Mary something to think about and she asks Badim, her second-in-command, what he thinks only to find that there is a secret side of the Ministry overseen by Badim that has engaged in some activities like what Frank was espousing. There are many other arrows in the Ministry's quiver from economic incentives to keep fossil fuels in the ground to supporting research to stop Antarctica's and Greenland's glaciers melting to rewilding areas of the planet not suited to agriculture and so many more initiatives. The first big step though is to keep the fossil fuels in the ground. The idea of paying companies and states who own reserves to not drill or mine them seems revolutionary but Robinson sets the groundwork with economic lessons that even I could understand. Of course, the transition was not smooth and there were persons and entitities violently opposed. Tatiana, one of the top Ministry officials, was killed. Mary had to have round the clock protection herself. But the big story succeeds and, interspersed with the narrative, are little stories about ordinary people's lives being transformed.
One of the things this story shows is how interconnected people and countries are. The fight against climate change also has to be a fight against poverty and racism and oligarchies in order for anything to improve.
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LibraryThing member DanTarlin
Endless and boring. I picked this up because it's being read as part of a podcast I listen to, Space the Nation, and I wanted to read it before the episode airs. The book is set in the near future, and is about the world's response to climate change. Robinson imagines happenings on many fronts-
There are two main characters- Mary, the leader of the Ministry, and Frank, an aid worker who is caught in an Indian heat wave that kills millions of people and inspires India to take the lead in starting to battle climate change. The book is boring because Mary and Frank's personal stories aren't that compelling and are interrupted by dozens of forays into the technical changes being made in many realms.
Robinson imagines socialism saving us- I find his musings really naive and implausible. I'm pretty left wing politically myself, but this guy is practically an unreconstructed communist.
This novel was recommended by Barack Obama in some list he does annually. I'm never taking one of his recs again.
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geo-engineering, economics, carbon coins, and a healthy dose of terrorism by the good guys and huge economic disruption that helps the Earth solve the problem of climate change. There are two main characters- Mary, the leader of the Ministry, and Frank, an aid worker who is caught in an Indian heat wave that kills millions of people and inspires India to take the lead in starting to battle climate change. The book is boring because Mary and Frank's personal stories aren't that compelling and are interrupted by dozens of forays into the technical changes being made in many realms.
Robinson imagines socialism saving us- I find his musings really naive and implausible. I'm pretty left wing politically myself, but this guy is practically an unreconstructed communist.
This novel was recommended by Barack Obama in some list he does annually. I'm never taking one of his recs again.
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LibraryThing member stellarexplorer
Robinson is prolific, having written 21 novels and numerous essays and short stories. His works are varied in style, some with nontraditional narrative structures. All of them are meticulously researched with Robinson’s characteristic scientific fluency. Many are what might be termed “near
So KSR has been thinking deeply about climate for a long time. The Ministry for the Future feels like the culmination of this body of work. But it's the culmination from a particular point of view. A fictional Ministry for the Future works out of Zurich, established by the Paris Climate Accords. Its responsibility is to advocate for future generations who are not yet present to advocate for themselves. As such, this is KSR’s vision of climate mitigation, and he tosses the kitchen sink at the problem. Not for the purpose of promiscuously unburdening himself from every idea in his head, but with the idea that if we are to survive the coming catastrophe, every possible approach is worth trying and may play a role.
It’s hard not to admire the research that went into this novel, and to consider that he’s on to something. The scope is vast, from pumping glacier melt and refreezing it in Antarctica, to establishing habitat corridors for animal conservation, establishing a globally-accepted carbon coin that financially incentivizes keeping carbon in the ground, to contending with the increasing violence of ecoterrorism.
Should you read this for its novelistic charm? Not necessarily. But he’s so remarkably thorough in his imagining of how we might approach climate change, that it seems that everyone might profitably read this if only not to be so demoralized. It's a tonic for the paralyzed. All is not yet lost.
Robinson is an optimist. Let’s get started.
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future science fiction”, focusing on his concerns about the course of future human challenges. Among these, a subset could be called “climate fiction”, and these include his mid-2000s Science in the Capital trilogy, starting with Forty Signs of Rain, set in the intersection between climate and policy in Washington. He followed these a decade later with New York 2140, a story of resilience in a partially submerged Manhattan - Venice-like - that owes much to the spirit of Dos Passos.So KSR has been thinking deeply about climate for a long time. The Ministry for the Future feels like the culmination of this body of work. But it's the culmination from a particular point of view. A fictional Ministry for the Future works out of Zurich, established by the Paris Climate Accords. Its responsibility is to advocate for future generations who are not yet present to advocate for themselves. As such, this is KSR’s vision of climate mitigation, and he tosses the kitchen sink at the problem. Not for the purpose of promiscuously unburdening himself from every idea in his head, but with the idea that if we are to survive the coming catastrophe, every possible approach is worth trying and may play a role.
It’s hard not to admire the research that went into this novel, and to consider that he’s on to something. The scope is vast, from pumping glacier melt and refreezing it in Antarctica, to establishing habitat corridors for animal conservation, establishing a globally-accepted carbon coin that financially incentivizes keeping carbon in the ground, to contending with the increasing violence of ecoterrorism.
Should you read this for its novelistic charm? Not necessarily. But he’s so remarkably thorough in his imagining of how we might approach climate change, that it seems that everyone might profitably read this if only not to be so demoralized. It's a tonic for the paralyzed. All is not yet lost.
Robinson is an optimist. Let’s get started.
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LibraryThing member macha
i loved this. loosely, an novel of environmental sf, built around the implementation of a set of blueprints for dealing with climate change across the next forty years or so, set into motion here by a deadly heat disaster in India in 2025. it's passionate, it's filled with ideas, and it never loses
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focus - or hope. Robinson's clear-sighted views on the urgency of climate change, a feature of his long career, are tempered by his humanist outlook and his kind of heartwarming confidence that real change is yet possible even at this point in time. it involves changing the culture, the world economy, the political climate, and the harnessing of applied science, but he makes it feel not only possible but actually doable, instead of yielding to the inevitability of a massively dystopian result. Show Less
LibraryThing member fpagan
The masterful fiction writer who in his earlier book _2312_ posited that overcoming climate change and related problems would not be completed until 2160 now seems to think that substantial progress can be made by a time well before the end of the twenty hundreds. Among the many ideas in this new
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novel are glacier stabilization, reining in neoliberal capitalism, a digital currency called carbon coins, gradually lowering the human population and increasing the numbers of other animals, and the charms of Zurich. Show Less
LibraryThing member davidroche
I have had the audiobook of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (Hachette Audio) bubbling under in the background for a couple of weeks or more now. It focuses on the climate crisis with a big bang introduction where wet bulb temperatures reach 35 in India, the temperature at which
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humans start dropping dead. A foreign journalist survives and their story interlinks with others who are involved in actions designed to force action, and the Ministry for the Future considers what lengths it should go to in order to effect that change. Should it have a black ops division designed to take out the half dozen or so most guilty billionaire abusers, or should air travel and eco unfriendly power sources be targeted? As planes start falling out of the sky and airships thrive, is there a cell already in place that the head of the Ministry knows nothing about? The action is interspersed with science and exploration of the operations that might make a difference, from pumping water from underneath glaciers and on top of the Arctic ice, to carbon capture and solar geo-engineering. Not sure how accurate the science is but it’s intriguing to examine the impact in a fictional form. I’m about halfway through and it’s a good addition to the holiday, though Test Match Special competes strongly when available. Show Less
LibraryThing member sarcher
KSR is one of my favorite authors, but someone accidentally picked up a folder of jumbled loose leaf notes off of the author's desk and published it.
LibraryThing member LamontCranston
I have enjoyed Robinsons other recent works dealing with Global Warming, but this one I found a bit too autodidactic and it also glossed over the enormous effort+money that is pumped into denial and resisting mitigation/emission reduction and the conspiracism that now surrounds this false belief -
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by ignoring these two major stumbling blocks in the way of dealing with this crisis it winds up being kinda utopian and without conflict except for the interpersonal. Show Less
LibraryThing member jpe9
This is a must read.
LibraryThing member willszal
This is my third KSR book, having begun with "New York 2140" the year I launched my crypto startup, proceeded by "Red Moon," and culminating with this book. Given this collection, I feel as though KSR is getting closer and closer to the present.
"Ministry for the Future" plays out over the next
As comes across in KSR's interview with Jacobin, he is more of a socialist than anarchist (and certainly not libertarian). That means that this book focuses more on international projects with at least some degree of institutional and economic buy-in (as opposed to, say, a municipalist revolution. Additionally, KSR isn't particularly spiritually inclined—meaning that, although there are continual references to a "Church of Gaia," and potential animist cultural evolutions, this is not something that is elaborated upon in the story.
The strength of this book is its palpability. It is hardly "utopian" in that it describes mass climate death, and the ensuing mass ecoterrorism. To give a taste:
"It was not really a surprise when a day came that sixty passenger jets crashed in a matter of hours... Later it was shown that clouds of small drones had been directed into the flight paths of the planes involved, fouling their engines... One message was fairly obvious: stop flying... It was noticed that none of the experimental battery-powered planes had been brought down, and no biofuel-powered planes, also no blimps, dirigibles, or hot-air balloons." (pages 228-229)
At the same time, it speaks of the possible economic revolution around aligning economics with carbon drawdown:
"He inherited the butt end of his father's property, two hectares... We heard rumors that the district council would be giving out money for carbon retention... We got some trees and perennials planted... We grew most of what we ate... Who ever heard of growing a crop of dirt?... Finally came a time when the team from the district office was coming through again to check carbon levels... Twenty three carbon coins... One coin per ton of carbon captured. It comes to about seventy thousand [in your currency]... That was more than we spent per year on everything." (pages 399-401)
If you're into economics, this is the science fiction for you. Beyond carbon coin, KSR covers Jevon's Paradox, AI vs. markets, the tyranny of efficiency, the Tragedy of the Time Horizon (discount rates), the 2,000 Watt Club. He dubs his ecotorrorists "Children of Kali."
The saddest part of the book for me is about the "Half Earthers." This is a movement about depopulating the 50% of the earth's land mass that is least populous (it contains 2% of the world's population). In the book, this land is turned back into wilderness. Having grown up in a rural community, I'm not convinced that depopulating our wilderness areas is the way to go, although I do understanding the importance of uninterrupted habitat. A glaring omission is land reparations/land rematriation. I read an article today conflating regeneration with colonialism, and I'm sure that that critic would identify KSR as part of the problem. KSR didn't have the perspective that he might have gained during the Black Lives Matter push of 2020.
The one other notable mention project is YourLock, an encrypted social networking platform. In some ways, this seems like one of the least plausible scenarios (at the moment, carbon drawdown feels more plausible than Facebook losing its dominance, but all things fade, given enough time).
Overall, I would say that this is KSR's strongest book yet, and if you're looking for the will to turn the ship of civilization around before it falls of the waterfall of the Flat Earthers, this is your place to turn.
"Ministry for the Future" plays out over the next
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twenty five years. The premise: what if there were an international body to enforce Paris Climate Accord Commitments? The book reads as though it were a playing out of the themes expressed in Naomi Klein's 2014 "This Changes Everything" (and you can actually find a panel discussion hosted by Rutger's where they both discuss this topic).As comes across in KSR's interview with Jacobin, he is more of a socialist than anarchist (and certainly not libertarian). That means that this book focuses more on international projects with at least some degree of institutional and economic buy-in (as opposed to, say, a municipalist revolution. Additionally, KSR isn't particularly spiritually inclined—meaning that, although there are continual references to a "Church of Gaia," and potential animist cultural evolutions, this is not something that is elaborated upon in the story.
The strength of this book is its palpability. It is hardly "utopian" in that it describes mass climate death, and the ensuing mass ecoterrorism. To give a taste:
"It was not really a surprise when a day came that sixty passenger jets crashed in a matter of hours... Later it was shown that clouds of small drones had been directed into the flight paths of the planes involved, fouling their engines... One message was fairly obvious: stop flying... It was noticed that none of the experimental battery-powered planes had been brought down, and no biofuel-powered planes, also no blimps, dirigibles, or hot-air balloons." (pages 228-229)
At the same time, it speaks of the possible economic revolution around aligning economics with carbon drawdown:
"He inherited the butt end of his father's property, two hectares... We heard rumors that the district council would be giving out money for carbon retention... We got some trees and perennials planted... We grew most of what we ate... Who ever heard of growing a crop of dirt?... Finally came a time when the team from the district office was coming through again to check carbon levels... Twenty three carbon coins... One coin per ton of carbon captured. It comes to about seventy thousand [in your currency]... That was more than we spent per year on everything." (pages 399-401)
If you're into economics, this is the science fiction for you. Beyond carbon coin, KSR covers Jevon's Paradox, AI vs. markets, the tyranny of efficiency, the Tragedy of the Time Horizon (discount rates), the 2,000 Watt Club. He dubs his ecotorrorists "Children of Kali."
The saddest part of the book for me is about the "Half Earthers." This is a movement about depopulating the 50% of the earth's land mass that is least populous (it contains 2% of the world's population). In the book, this land is turned back into wilderness. Having grown up in a rural community, I'm not convinced that depopulating our wilderness areas is the way to go, although I do understanding the importance of uninterrupted habitat. A glaring omission is land reparations/land rematriation. I read an article today conflating regeneration with colonialism, and I'm sure that that critic would identify KSR as part of the problem. KSR didn't have the perspective that he might have gained during the Black Lives Matter push of 2020.
The one other notable mention project is YourLock, an encrypted social networking platform. In some ways, this seems like one of the least plausible scenarios (at the moment, carbon drawdown feels more plausible than Facebook losing its dominance, but all things fade, given enough time).
Overall, I would say that this is KSR's strongest book yet, and if you're looking for the will to turn the ship of civilization around before it falls of the waterfall of the Flat Earthers, this is your place to turn.
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LibraryThing member antao
Is it fair to take Robinson’s point generally as an objection that 'setting up institutions or laws to protect the needs of future generations might not make any difference anyway'? Or would you go even further, to argue that 'there's no point doing anything about this'? If we assume the first of
There are lots of examples we could draw on, but I suppose we could then have a conversation about whether 'nudge' might work better; or only the long-haul of lasting cultural transformation. Or we could have a conversation about whether there's something about the idea of 'future generations' that makes laws or institutions or laws or policies *inherently* less likely to work.
On constitutional provisions, I don't have the answer myself, and neither does Robinson if we go by his latest “The Ministry for the Future” and I confess I'm getting tired with all the info dumps and technological and scientific inaccuracies. I was expecting a more detailed there are really detailed and not simply an anecdotal “fictional study” of the impact of constitutional provisions on environment/future generations. I was expecting Robinson would look at a wider range of legal and policy options for bringing long-termism and regard for future generations into law and constitutional change; fat chance!
Robinson tries hard, but he only talks about an idea that simply isn't the mainstream in most democracies - but has increasing urgency because of the (financial, environmental, social) situation we find ourselves in. So I'm not sure that lack of 'proof' from the (relatively few) existing models should be the ultimate clincher. When it comes to future generations, though, I'd just point out that there's a certain short-termism that comes from electoral cycles. Most of us have occasion to complain about that from time to time: we have electoral cycles for a very good (democratic) reason - accountability; but they have some downsides when it comes to taking account of the interests of needs of those who don't vote; or who haven't yet been born. And that's a big problem when it comes to issues like environmental protection - or social justice come to it.
We often hear these days that budget cuts are for the benefit of future generations; or rises in tuition fees; or freeing up land for development. But these claims are made without us having an opportunity to really engage in discussion of the trade-offs, at least not in terms of the competing needs of future generations. And the transparency and accountability of 'policy by speech and rhetoric alone' doesn't do very much to strengthen democracy. So yes, I think a real commitment to long-termism or regard for future generations would need to be reflected in the institutions through which we 'do' democracy.
Of course, the most lasting changes to equip democracy to have regard to the needs of future generations would probably come if that idea really chimed with our shared values. The opinion poll, which I find really heartening, suggests that those shared values might already exist. We shouldn't fall into the trap that our elected representatives so often do and create an entire world out of responses to 4 (opinion poll) questions. But as a “weak signal” they seem quite clear.
Robinson’s take is that he does not believe that institutions, laws and policies might just possibly provide us with a route to taking better account of future generations.
In my view “The Ministry for Future” should be committed to a kind of 'horizon shift' but Robinson does not really goes down that particular road because he hasn’t got the faintest idea on how to get there. There are some really tricky balancing acts involved in taking proper account of the needs of future generations. I think it has to be taken much more seriously than a rhetorical exercise like Robinson does. Just as with meeting the needs of present generations, there are trade-offs, and balancing acts, and choices but unfortunately Robinson did not want to go there. Scylla and Charybdis are screwed as well as their fictional future generations in the novel…
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those two options, we could have a conversation about when and where laws and institutions generally have had an impact on behaviour.... And whether and when laws and institutions can/should lead, versus following (and that's a tricky area, of course).There are lots of examples we could draw on, but I suppose we could then have a conversation about whether 'nudge' might work better; or only the long-haul of lasting cultural transformation. Or we could have a conversation about whether there's something about the idea of 'future generations' that makes laws or institutions or laws or policies *inherently* less likely to work.
On constitutional provisions, I don't have the answer myself, and neither does Robinson if we go by his latest “The Ministry for the Future” and I confess I'm getting tired with all the info dumps and technological and scientific inaccuracies. I was expecting a more detailed there are really detailed and not simply an anecdotal “fictional study” of the impact of constitutional provisions on environment/future generations. I was expecting Robinson would look at a wider range of legal and policy options for bringing long-termism and regard for future generations into law and constitutional change; fat chance!
Robinson tries hard, but he only talks about an idea that simply isn't the mainstream in most democracies - but has increasing urgency because of the (financial, environmental, social) situation we find ourselves in. So I'm not sure that lack of 'proof' from the (relatively few) existing models should be the ultimate clincher. When it comes to future generations, though, I'd just point out that there's a certain short-termism that comes from electoral cycles. Most of us have occasion to complain about that from time to time: we have electoral cycles for a very good (democratic) reason - accountability; but they have some downsides when it comes to taking account of the interests of needs of those who don't vote; or who haven't yet been born. And that's a big problem when it comes to issues like environmental protection - or social justice come to it.
We often hear these days that budget cuts are for the benefit of future generations; or rises in tuition fees; or freeing up land for development. But these claims are made without us having an opportunity to really engage in discussion of the trade-offs, at least not in terms of the competing needs of future generations. And the transparency and accountability of 'policy by speech and rhetoric alone' doesn't do very much to strengthen democracy. So yes, I think a real commitment to long-termism or regard for future generations would need to be reflected in the institutions through which we 'do' democracy.
Of course, the most lasting changes to equip democracy to have regard to the needs of future generations would probably come if that idea really chimed with our shared values. The opinion poll, which I find really heartening, suggests that those shared values might already exist. We shouldn't fall into the trap that our elected representatives so often do and create an entire world out of responses to 4 (opinion poll) questions. But as a “weak signal” they seem quite clear.
Robinson’s take is that he does not believe that institutions, laws and policies might just possibly provide us with a route to taking better account of future generations.
In my view “The Ministry for Future” should be committed to a kind of 'horizon shift' but Robinson does not really goes down that particular road because he hasn’t got the faintest idea on how to get there. There are some really tricky balancing acts involved in taking proper account of the needs of future generations. I think it has to be taken much more seriously than a rhetorical exercise like Robinson does. Just as with meeting the needs of present generations, there are trade-offs, and balancing acts, and choices but unfortunately Robinson did not want to go there. Scylla and Charybdis are screwed as well as their fictional future generations in the novel…
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LibraryThing member annbury
This book is a history of the next thirty years, centered on human efforts to reverse climate change and its increasingly catastrophic effects. This is put into the shell of a novel, focussed on many protagonists, but for most of the book the real drama lies in the politics, the economics, and the
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science. (Note: the first two chapters are profoundly dramatic in human terms). As a novel, it is not a winner: discursive, stuffed with large amounts of fictional non-fiction, and weakly characterized. But as a discussion of climate change and what might be done about it, it is very, very powerful. Show Less
LibraryThing member mmparker
Delirious and occasionally delusional, but it felt like a really important read for me right now. It didn't leave me feeling optimistic, but at least with a renewed sense that many things are possible, things can change fast, new generations can casually shrug off things that seemed ironclad to
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their parents, and so on. Lots of beautiful, gripping writing, but more uneven than the previous KSR books I've read. Show Less
LibraryThing member reading_fox
I generally like KSR, and he's always had a slow writing style with plenty of exposition. But this isn't really a novel at all, it's excerpts and feels more like a draft or an outline with a few fully written chapters and a lot of filler with the points he wants to make, but not quite fleshed out.
It is of course a climate change novel set over a few decades from now(ish) to approx 2050. There are two main characters, Frank (again why do all his books feature a frank it's very confusing) and Mary. Frank is an aid worker in an Indian charity, caught up the first really deadly heatwave the world has ever seen. Mary is the elected head of the Ministry for the Future, created as a response to this crisis, and partly as a sop to be seen to be doing something, but with increasing teeth as the worldwide conditions get worse.
Switching between Frank and Mary is fine, but in-between there are many cutaways to unnamed actors in various situations, and possibly although it's never really clear, an AI attempting the aid the Ministry, and learn a bit more to the world. I ended up skimming a lot these paragraphs. We never find out who has been acting against the Ministry, and indeed there is very little plot as such - a series of incidents, and then skips forward in time to the consequences of their resolution without any indication how or why anything came about.
Not recommended, but still interesting.
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It takes a lot of getting used to. It is of course a climate change novel set over a few decades from now(ish) to approx 2050. There are two main characters, Frank (again why do all his books feature a frank it's very confusing) and Mary. Frank is an aid worker in an Indian charity, caught up the first really deadly heatwave the world has ever seen. Mary is the elected head of the Ministry for the Future, created as a response to this crisis, and partly as a sop to be seen to be doing something, but with increasing teeth as the worldwide conditions get worse.
Switching between Frank and Mary is fine, but in-between there are many cutaways to unnamed actors in various situations, and possibly although it's never really clear, an AI attempting the aid the Ministry, and learn a bit more to the world. I ended up skimming a lot these paragraphs. We never find out who has been acting against the Ministry, and indeed there is very little plot as such - a series of incidents, and then skips forward in time to the consequences of their resolution without any indication how or why anything came about.
Not recommended, but still interesting.
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LibraryThing member SusanBraxton
Begins with a horrific scene, and (nearly) everything that happens after was interesting (to me). This will stick with me. Author seems to have faith in human pragmatism I'm not sure is warranted (hence 4 instead of 5 stars). Characterizations of nationalities and professions abound which seem
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potentially (but not obviously to me) problematic. I liked that the chapters advancing the plot were interspersed with chapters that were essentially essays on actual history, science, or other topics relevant to the plot. An example tidbit from these factoid chapters was that ocean heating reduces omega3 in fish, and that being necessary for human brain health means humans could lose intelligence as the trend continues. Show Less
Awards
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 2020)
The Kitschies (Finalist — 2020)
Dragon Award (Finalist — Science Fiction Novel — 2021)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2020-10-06
Physical description
563 p.; 9.55 inches
ISBN
9780316300133