The New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein (in one of his excellent podcasts on The Ezra Klein Show) called this "the most important book of 2020". I can see why he reached this conclusion.
Kim Stanley Robinson is a famous contemporary science-fiction writer, who is best known for his novels about the colonization of Mars. However, in this one, he takes on the climate crisis, with a small cast of characters, but as told through many different voices around the world.
Set in the 2030s and 2040s, it tries to imagine what a quasi-worldwide "Ministry of the Future" would have to do in order to save the world, and in telling that story, looks at a variety of climate-related crises and challenges that seem all too plausible in our current political and economic situation.
I'm not sure the author’s "many voices" story approach makes for the best novel, literarily speaking. But he does discuss and illuminate many of the ethical, financial, political and practical hurdles we will face in the coming years, if we are to find global solutions to the crisis of human-caused climate change. Highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment