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The Ministry for the Future: A Novel
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Original price was: $19.99.$11.99Current price is: $11.99.
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ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
“If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future.” —Ezra Klein (Vox)
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.
“One hopes that this book is read widely—that Robinson’s audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination.”―New York Review of Books
“If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late.” ―Polygon (Best of the Year)
“Masterly.” —New Yorker
“[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year … it’s terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It’s my book of the year.” —Locus
“Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom.” ―Bloomberg Green
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Categories: Best Books of 2024 So Far
Product name:
The Ministry for the Future: A Novel
Price:
Original price was: $19.99.$11.99Current price is: $11.99.
tasi –
This book is extremely interesting and engrossing. Even if you are not familiar or very interested in climate change the scenarios and characters Robinson includes in the book make it a very compelling story. The book is also incredibly well written, allowing all readers to understand any of the more technical economic or geoengineering components of the book.
JenniferB –
De pesadilla inicial a posibles soluciones al cambio climático que, aunque las presenta en forma de ficción, podrían ser viables de verdad. Ojalá todos los políticos y banqueros leyeran este libro.
Michael M. Berrow –
This book is a work of genius. I should declare immediately that I am a ‘doomer’. I consider that humanity is now too far down the road of climate altering action and general resource overshoot to make the effective U-turn that most fervently hope to be possible.
The book is constructed as a very clever series of mostly short chapters that both educate and keep the plot moving.
Some chapters follow the main characters as they struggle creatively and mightily to force the entrenched powers-that-be to take an increasingly more radical approach to the efforts needed to turn spaceship Earth around from unmitigated disaster. Other chapters provide haunting and jarring vignettes in the form of first-person accounts of events occurring around the world. Interleaved with the above are short, informative and insightful essays on various relevant topics such as capitalist economics, international politics. PTSD, geoengineering, climate refugees, species extinction and alternative economic mechanisms.
The titular organization which came to be known colloquially as ‘The Ministry for the Future’ is started as a quasi-independent spin-off from the United Nations. Its charter was to represent, on the world stage, the future generations of humans (current children included) as if they were a significant country and constituency. To give them a voice.
The book begins with Frank May, an aid worker in India, who is caught up in an extremely lethal heatwave. This event is quite traumatic, and it kills about twenty million people. The shock waves from this event set a lot of things in motion including a very bold and radical action taken unilaterally by India. Multiple geoengineering efforts are undertaken. A radical restructuring of the worlds deeply entrenched financial systems is both persuaded and forced with much pushback from financiers, central bankers, oligarchs and the wealthy elites.
Eventually more than 100 million refugees all over the world are on the move and bold solutions have to be found for them. Airships replace planes for air travel and solar/wind powered multi-masted schooners reappear on the oceans. Large scale wildlife corridors are established all over the planet. The earth is allowed to heal.
As a doomer and pessimist, I have to say that I was very impressed. This book gave me a lot of new perspectives. It made me feel a small chink of hope. Robinsons prose is excellent and is a pleasure to read. His arguments are mostly quite solid. However, Robinson often seems rather naïve (or else prone to wishful thinking) as to the feasibility of getting the entrenched power-elites to radically rethink their world views.
On the other hand, perhaps the power of the masses really can be brought to bear if enough people wake up.
As he says, “When push comes to shove, it’s always humans looking at humans; and when a thousand people stand looking at one person, it’s clear who has more power”.
In the end, I was convinced that these are the kinds of things that we (humanity as a whole) *should* be doing and indeed should have started doing long ago. The book is particularly realistic in the sense that the events described take place over a period of some forty years. There is no quick fix to our predicament if indeed there is a fix at all.
This is a significant book. The fact that it made a doomer like me stop and think “What if that could still work?” and “m..m..maybe” surprised me. Highly recommended.
David Richards –
Uma ficção social e ecológica sobre como as mudanças climáticas vão mudar o mundo. Um livro necessário para compreender não apenas para onde o mundo está indo, mas para onde tem que ir
Johannes Schultz –
An incredibly detailed, well-researched and thankfully hopeful story full of practical ideas about how humanity might deal with climate change. Take the time to read it, it really might give you hope about the future of the planet. If people can write books with so much passion and creativity, they can find solutions to our problems.
Client d’Amazon –
Libro consigliatissimo per tutti che vogliono capire come affrontare il cambiamento climatico!
GGreene –
From the Mars Trilogy thru his recent focus on global climate change, KSR has been an important SciFi voice on “the future”. What he says is always worth thinking about―even if just to sharpen one’s own, perhaps contrasting, views. That’s true of this book, too, & while it’s in some ways rather a disappointing read, it makes a lasting impression.
In KSR’s best work, his ideas on an “ideal” society are built seamlessly into the fictional “world” & the narrative shows how the techno-economic structure actually works―a sort of proof-of-concept. This book, however, lacks any real narrative structure―really, just a sequence of vignettes, each describing some aspect of a strategy to deal w/ climate change. A lot of nice ideas―but the main ones don’t really seem to fit together as a coherent decarbonization story.
Two key ideas are: (1) blockchain-based platforms for ”carbon coin”, a digital currency to incentivize decarbonization, & “YourLock”, a distributed social-finance system; & (2) E.O. Wilson’s beautiful “Half-Earth” vision of a rewilded planet with human populations concentrated in mega-cities (where health, education, & infrastructure can be efficiently scaled), & everywhere else a nature-preserve/carbon-sink. But vast blockchain networks & megacities would be hugely energy-intensive. Where’s this energy coming from?
KSR’s idea is, more or less, (3): pave over the planet w/ low energy-density renewables like solar & wind. But “eco-modernists” like Bill Gates & other energy realists convincingly argue that this won’t be sufficient to support a technologically-advanced society. Therefore ideas (1) & (2) don’t work, either. So, when greenhouse gas concentrations actually begin to decline at the end of the book, it’s a kind of phony deus ex machina happy ending. Unedifying, especially since KSR is usually so good at scientifically well-founded world-building.
There’s an alternative to KSR’s idea (3) that would support (1) & (2). Following the eco-modernists, supplement renewables w/ higher energy-density technologies. For example, leverage emerging “small modular reactor” nuclear technology (mass-produced, always-on, & safe) for local electrification of homes, offices, & production facilities (minimizing dependence on a grid & battery storage). Then use some of this power to make hydrogen & other “electrofuels” (“drop-in” replacements for petroleum liquids in current jet & automotive engines & fuel distribution networks) for transportation.
So, given KSR’s clear intent to propose strategies to prevent catastrophic climate change, why not consider these high energy-density technologies? Perhaps because KSR views “degrowth” as an ideal―a steady-state, no-change economy in static balance w/ nature. But is this really desirable?
Ignoring climate externalities for the moment, economic growth is a good thing. It generates resources to improve material living standards, expand healthcare & education, & broaden access to leisure & cultural activities―all benefits that people everywhere value. Indeed, eco-modernists emphasize that, as a matter of social justice, the living standards of the rest of the world must rise to match those of the richest 10%. This requires economic growth. In fact, as shown by UN & World Bank data, 50 years of “neoliberal” globalization (scornfully dismissed by KSR) have disproportionately benefited the world’s poorer regions, lifting (literally!) billions out of extreme poverty.
With this in mind, “degrowth” is justified ONLY if necessary to achieve global decarbonization. This is just not the case. Vaclav Smil’s analyses of historical “energy transitions” show how markets (i.e., people participating in social exchange) respond to increases in energy costs (due to resource constraints, shifts in trade patterns, government policies, &c) by evolving new sources & technologies.
So, rather than a static “degrowth” equilibrium, it’s surely better to change incentives (via carbon taxes, green technology subsidies, even KSR’s “carbon coin”, &c) & transition to “clean growth” featuring nuclear electrification & electrofuels, as well as renewables. As in past energy transitions, living-standard gains can continue, even accelerate, as these innovations drive new industries & opportunities. Finally, & very important, a growing economy will make it easier to compensate (via social transfers & re-skilling) those who are initially disadvantaged by decarbonization policies.