Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is a formidable tome, comprising 106 chapter over 563 pages, with shifting points of view and narrative approaches, but it is finely craft and tightly fitted, like dovetailed carpentry, and the reader is never lost in its complexity. The novel - and at is core, it is a compelling novel, albeit with many other layers - presents a model for how we - humanity - could actually survive the coming climate change disaster, which will be literally apocalyptic unless we do something. Robinson outlines the technological, political, and economic changes that would be necessary for us to mitigate and even reverse the degradation of the environment, and they are all completely plausible - with one big
if.
In the novel, forces are brought to bear to curb the currently unfettered greed of the oligarchs, robber barons, captains of industry - the 1%. Some incentive is given by carrot, but an awful lot by stick. So countering the hopefulness created by the discovery of a potential escape route is the overwhelming sense when the book is closed that the billionaire class will never let any of it come to be, preferring their fantasy of being able to bunker down and ride out the end of the world while only the little people suffer.
Here's hoping that I am wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment