The Ministry for the Future (2020)
Kim Stanley Robinson (1952)
563 pages
Although some progress has been made in recent years on reducing the rate of increase of greenhouse gas emissions, deeply entrenched economic interests – and the political representatives they bankroll – continue to slow-walk, if not largely stymie, measures to meaningfully reduce emissions. As if to highlight this reality, last year yet another summit labeled as the last, best chance to avoid the worst impacts of climate change produced little more than non-binding resolutions – the equivocating outcome of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) meeting of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow leaving little reason for optimism that countries can marshal the will to act decisively.
As a consequence, it remains difficult to envision how substantive progress can be achieved in time to avoid the ever more destructive impacts of climate change predicted to come. This can make it tempting to extrapolate our present direction as yielding a dystopian world, one in which a collapsing biosphere brings civilization to its knees. Certainly, such a dark vision of the future seems more plausible than an optimistic one.
Robinson opens his story with two events that could hardly be more dissimilar, but that together come to catalyze increasingly aggressive action on addressing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
Shortly after the agency’s founding comes a second critical event: a deadly heat wave in India that kills millions of people in the span of just a few days. This sudden, shockingly large loss of life transforms India socially and politically; most dramatically, it incites a militant movement of environmental activists committed to using any means necessary to force civilization away from its addiction to fossil fuels. The group operates in the shadows, undertaking increasingly deadly actions against a variety of industries with significant carbon footprints, forcing these businesses to accelerate their adoption of more sustainable products and services to survive.
The success of these attacks in accelerating the shift to a greener economy, together with increasingly dire climate catastrophes, lead the dedicated but initially cautious staff at the Ministry for the Future to begin pursuing more aggressive policies. One of the principal plot lines in the story follows the work of the agency head and her subordinates as they, in large part through trial and error, search for ways to achieve changes that will stem the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Through the work of the agency, as well as that of other organizations and individuals, Robinson explores potential paths forward on the issue of climate change. The variety of approaches he touches on – financial, technical and social – include both the realistic and the outlandish, and many in between. Some prove effective and others not, with most occupying a gray area of uncertain benefit; nearly all, however, lead to unforeseen consequences, whether environmentally, socially or otherwise.
The cover blurb on the edition I read captures perfectly the style Robinson has adopted in building his story around the pursuit of a sustainable future, describing the book as a “science fiction nonfiction novel.” Using short chapters of often just a few pages, Robinson alternates between forwarding the narrative plot, and presenting vignettes on different topics related to climate change. These latter include literary descriptions of nature and its processes, explorations of economic and technical solutions that could potentially reduce emissions or address climate impacts, and depictions by nameless individuals of the impact of climate change on their lives and their communities.
The whole comes to have a bit of the feel of a workshop or brainstorming session on climate change’s impact and potential solutions, with the broader conceit of a novel tying it all together. The fictional format frees Robinson from the burden of the rigor that would be necessary for a non-fiction treatment of such ideas, and gives him the ability to explore them in more intimate, human terms.
Not surprisingly, Robinson portrays the most consistent and consequential resistance to the implementation and success of these policies as coming from those with a vested interest in the status quo. And, in his telling, the key to overcoming such opposition and accelerating the shift to sustainability lies in the growing militancy of environmentalist groups so horrified by the deadly impacts of climate catastrophes that they feel justified in employing aggressive and even deadly acts. Their success then leads political agencies, such as the Ministry for the Future, to take a more forceful stand in pursuing policies, as opposed to simply relying on reasoned argument.
This depiction of not only the success of such deadly acts but also their necessity raises a question in relation to the real-world situation regarding climate change: we read in the media about groups that strike out against individuals or organizations that they, for whatever reason, feel deserve it – by doxing them, launching cyber-attacks, or even, as in the 1960’s, with bombings. But, why then haven’t we seen this kind of aggressiveness from those in the environmental community who view climate change as an existential threat, if not necessarily for humankind, then at least for civilization as we know it?
Perhaps the environmental community is simply made up largely of people for whom such militant measures are an anathema, or who continue to feel that changes can yet be made in time to avoid the worst of future climate disasters. Or it could be that, as Robinson imagines in his novel, such aggressive reactions are yet to come, in the wake of some truly devastating climate disaster, one that kills millions. At that point, as in the story, it may not even be environmentalists who reach for more aggressive tactics, but rather those directly impacted by the destruction and death, and who feel disenfranchised from any political ability to effect change.
Another issue that Robinson identifies, but somehow also sidesteps, is that while climate change is a global phenomenon, any particular impact occurs locally. Climate disasters can certainly occur at several different locations simultaneously, but each of these still has the feel of a local event. And, as he points out relative to such events in his story:
people had a very hard time imagining that catastrophe could happen to them, until it did. So until the climate was actually killing them, people had a tendency to deny it could happen. To others, yes; to them, no. This was a cognitive error that, like most cognitive errors, kept happening even when you knew of its existence and prevalence. (349)
This misunderstanding applies even for the dramatically impactful event that kills millions to open his story: as the rest of the world is shocked, but then goes back about their business.
And yet, in Robinson’s story, while the militant group that emerges from this local disaster begins by engaging politically against its home country government, it quickly shifts to a more global stance, arguing that the problem has largely been created by the leading Western industrial economies, over the past century and a half. For that reason, they recognize the need to act on a global scale, to carry out dramatic and deadly actions to get the response they seek. And Robinson portrays them as doing so successfully.
But the cognitive error described above could be expected to lead those in other countries to resist the pressure being brought by what would clearly be considered environmental terrorists, likely leading to a military response against them. Robinson, however, doesn’t portray countries as effectively countering the acts of this underground group. In part he links this to the development of the kinds of small, distributed, difficult-to-counter weaponry (such as dramatized here) that would allow such groups to successfully carry out attacks on a global scale by rendering traditional military operations relatively impotent. But ultimately, it’s somewhat unclear why the group doesn’t generate a more aggressive response against it.
It's a minor quibble, however, about an otherwise provocative and timely novel. In The Ministry for the Future, Robinson creates a vision of how the fight over climate change could play out over the next few decades, as increasingly dire climate disasters motivate those most impacted to strike out at those who continue to prosper from inaction. Into an engaging plot that follows the struggles of activists fighting to slow the rise of greenhouse gas emissions, Robinson weaves vignettes on climate change and its impacts, and on technical, economic and social approaches being brought to bear, making his novel an engaging mix of fictional and real-world drama.
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Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
