Termination Shock (2021)
Neal Stephenson (1959)
708 pages
A recently released report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes disturbingly clear that nations have failed to take the actions necessary to address global warming, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres lamenting “a litany of broken climate promises.” Certainly, the debate in the United States over climate change has become so filled with rancor and bad faith arguments that little, if any, nuanced public – or political –discussion about it (or much else, it must be said) appears possible. Globally, while the question of the reality of climate change may be less divisive than in the US, the political will to act has been, for the most part, just as weak.
As a consequence, even as rising temperatures leave parts of the world increasingly inhospitable, and rising sea levels threaten ever more islands and coastal regions, Stephenson imagines countries leaving it to their populations to find ways to cope, particularly in the dogmatically free-market Western economies. The novel in fact turns on the idea that, in an environment of government inaction and free-market ideological dominance, some among the wealthy elite will decide to take matters into their own hands. Not surprisingly, they will justify their engagement by creating for themselves a narrative for action that deftly combines humanitarian concern over the global impacts of climate change with an opportunity to profit by addressing them.
Precisely such reasoning motivates the character T. R. Schmidt, an enterprising, in-your-face billionaire from Texas who’s made his money from “a vastly successful regional chain of family restaurants cum-mega-truck-stops.” (141) Schmidt decides to implement a geoengineering approach to countering the immediate effects of climate change while longer-term strategies for reducing CO2 emissions are developed. He unabashedly declares his motives as a mix of Somebody’s got to do something now! and the opportunity to maintain his profit margins by finding a way for people – especially in his part of the US – to continue a lifestyle of profligate energy use that supports his business interests.
The story opens as Schmidt pulls together a group of leaders whom he hopes will support his efforts out of a shared interest in avoiding sea level rise. Realizing he cannot engage government officials, hamstrung as they are by national political realities, he turns to powerful global elites who wield significant economic and political influence in places threatened by rising seas, such as The Netherlands, Venice, London and Singapore. He brings them together in southern Texas at the site of an operation he has built for executing his geoengineering plan, hoping that being present to view the initial launch of his project will convince them of its viability, and so to join him in expanding it world-wide.
Of course, altering the climate through geoengineering, despite being just as human-induced as the problem of climate change itself, leaves in place the fundamental dynamic that some will benefit while others suffer – it only shifts which parts of the world fall into each camp. And so, as TR spins up his efforts, he must contend with those who feel that they will be negatively impacted, and who will therefore go to great lengths to stop him. The story develops toward an inevitable confrontation as TR and his supporters contend with attacks from those arrayed against them.
In a similar way, the first two-thirds of Termination Shock set the stage for the inevitable conflict, which then plays out quickly. The entire story takes place over a period of a few years, several decades from now, and while it opens with a bang – a dramatic plane crash – it then becomes an odd mix of adventure and long, drawn out set-up. I found myself enjoying the story, but also constantly waiting for it to take off, in some sense; and, when it finally reaches its climactic moment, I found it a bit underwhelming given the long build up.
However, whereas in Stephenson’s story this results in a wealthy few implementing a particular geoengineering technology, Robinson portrays a world in which a broad variety of technical and economic approaches are explored by groups of all kinds, from governments to industries, private individuals to terrorist organizations, all of it largely uncoordinated and with mixed results. Appropriately, both stories end with the future uncertain; but the chaotic hodgepodge of climate related actions Robinson imagines in his story seem the more likely scenario as, in the face of climate related disasters, citizens of many countries not only take action themselves, but also finally force political institutions to act.
Nonetheless, Stephenson’s Termination Shock delivers readers action playing out on a global scale, while exploring the existential threat to civilization of climate change and the inherent challenges of using geoengineering approaches to address its impacts.
Other notes and information:
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
No comments:
Post a Comment