In 2020, I was very much looking forward to reading another work by Kim Stanley Robinson, as he has become one of my favorite science-fiction writers. Most famous for his Mars trilogy, and in my opinion one of his best works, 2312, he has tackled one of the greatest issues facing the world in his most recent novel. With rampant climate change altering weather, coastlines, and threatening the biodiversity of our planet, it seems that The Ministry for the Future is the only option in a world rapidly cascading towards climactic disaster.
This work is part of a growing body of literature which examines climate fiction (or cli-fi, if you will), and works to show both the perils of, and possible solutions to, climate change on Earth. Robinson has done some excellent interviews about the book, and has been very open that he's using it to address many of the problems with how society handles climate change, and how it thinks about the world economy, a system which supports a lazy or even do-nothing approach to combating climate change. As a piece of cli-fi, it is probably one of the most comprehensive in showing how many interconnected systems are contributing to, and accelerating, climactic change the world over.
Robinson's story itself begins in 2025 when a deadly heatwave kills 20 million people in India. More than plague, world wars, and any other natural disasters up to that point combined. In response, two things happen. The global shock to this catastrophe causes the UN to found the titular Ministry for the Future, whose job it is to see that the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement are held to. The second is that India, in the wake of this enormous disaster, undergoes a social and political change only a nation suffering that kind of loss on a psychological and social level could, it has an almost overnight revolution and begins desperate efforts to make sure such a tragedy never happens again. They launch what could probably be considered the first act of geoengineering by using particulates to seed the skies in their hemisphere with an artificial ash cloud to mimic an enormous volcanic eruption, and cut the intensity of the suns rays over their subcontinent for a time.
The story then follows members of the Ministry, Mary Murphy it's leader primarily, as they attempt to use what little influence they have to mitigate the damage caused by climate change. At first, this is a largely frustrating uphill battle, and many people see it as futile to fight against the currently entrenched global system. Mary is shaken by an unexpected visit from a foreign aid worker, Frank, who survived the Indian heatwave, who demands she do better. The story spreads out from there.
The deadly heat wave in India isn't the only natural disaster to plague the world in this book. More killer heatwaves rock the globe, a major one killing tens of thousands across the American South, L.A. is practically wiped off the map in a superstorm comparable to one which struck the state of California in 1862, and other deadly events stalk the world, motivating people to advocate for change.
In this story Robinson tackles numerous difficult ideas. If laws and jurisprudence aren't going to stop people from burning carbon, is it moral to use extreme methods to do so? Some groups say yes, and an extremely angry group of radicalized Indians who suffered from the heatwave, the Children of Kali, lead the way. They assassinate petrolium industry moguls, blow up private jets, and attack coal plants. In many other parts of the world, more people follow suit as the natural disasters grow more widespread. There's questions on the morality of this, weighing the worth of all future generations of mankind, and then the lives of men and women enriching themselves at the expense of others and then trying to flee from their problems. Of course, those people hit back, killing dissidents, and even targeting the Ministry!
As an alternative to violence, Mary uses her ministry to try and find a different path, an economic one. Much of the world, through both climate related damages and populist action against existing systems, begins to balk at the way they're governed and how wealth is transferred. Her own people propose a currency backed by carbon sequestration efforts, meaning that as you work to store carbon you will be rewarded by a new form of currency backed by the level of climate friendly action you engage in. To be honest, I freely admit I'm probably explaining this badly, but this should be read to be understood as its a fascinating idea.
From the ground up, people begin to agitate for change as they become broadly more affected by a changing climate, and the economic fallout from that. Students stage debt strikes, refusing to repay their loans, tenants simply occupy properties and dare someone to do something about it. The African Union pointblank nationalizes many internationally owned resources extraction operations, and in China the hundreds of millions of migrant hukou workers use their mass to occupy Beijing to demand change.
Even on an individual level, a different form of internet is developed. A new social media, web browsing app, YourLock, is launched. This app allows individuals to put their data in quantum encrypted data storage, which protects both their information and their money from theft, but also gives them a means of economic power. Since many modern internet and social media providers make money off of mining your data, the idea that you could deny them that resource and then negotiate with, and directly sell it for royalties to corporations is fairly revolutionary. It's almost an annual annuity for being yourself.
Against these backdrops, many different political and economic organizing ideas are touted. The ever familiar Mondragon model of federated worker cooperatives is of course front and center, with some fascinating expansion on the man who founded it. Before reading this, I had no idea who Father José María Arizmendiarrieta was, but he's a simply fascinating figure I'd love to know more about now! There's other examples offered, blockchain economics, even blockchain governance, as a system for the future.
In terms of science fiction, we even have a subplot following some Antarctic scientists who are engaging in an experiment in geoengineering of their own. Seeing that the West Antarctic ice shelf is in danger of slipping its bonds and collapsing into the ocean potentially adding a catastrophic seven feet of sea level rise in less than a generation, and if the Greenland ice sheet were to join it, that would be even worse! Interestingly, something like this is part of the plot of 2312, which makes for some fascinating parallel reading. However, these scientists are trying a novel approach which Robinson thought of and sketched out to try and present something that might work to help keep the worst effects of climate change and global sea rise down. It's some very interesting reading here.
What's important, I think, is that this book bucks the trend a lot of other more technocratic writers might argue for and presents no silver bullet solutions. It's a painstaking series of decisions, mistakes and uphill fights to try and build a better future. Robinson doesn't give us some easy solution and pretend everything will be alright, he instead reminds us that this is an issue we have to face head on, with everything we've got.
The plot is a bit thin though, the main characters really only exist as mouthpieces for the arguments around different ideas to deal with global warming and how to solve it. This made me less than invested in them as individuals, but more interested in the situations which surrounded them.
The writing style was a bit difficult too, as certain vignettes would probably better have been served as being part of an overall interview process or categorization under some different internal structure similar to what was done in 2312 or World War Z to add a cohesive and overarching element to the story. This lack of structure did make me lose focus on what I was reading at some points, and occasionally served to suck me out of the book, and not in a positive way. I also tended to simply glaze over the more polemic interludes, some might enjoy them, but they weren't quite my fancy for this read.
On a purely literary level the book has a few flaws. However, the book should not be judged on its literary merits alone. In fact, its literary merits might also be better disregarded. Ministry is more a thought experiment than manifesto, an attempt to force us to confront difficult questions about climate change and its repercussions, and would make us change our minds.
In that sense, it succeeds wonderfully. It makes you re-examine how we view the world and rather effectively points out its flaws with things such as wealth inequality, the oil and gas industry, refugee politics, and even the way our banking system works. I found many of the objections raised by characters to portions of the currently existing international system to be fascinating. There were many compelling arguments and a lot of good banter back and forth on numerous issues. You find yourself thinking "yes, why do we do things this way?" which is something not enough people seem to ask.
Rather than presenting a broad and sweeping plan for combating climate change and global inequality, the book presents many options, and gives you lots of ideas to think about. Jacobin probably had one of the best write ups on this novel saying that Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a future where we don't all die, which when you consider some of the rather apocalyptic visions of what unfettered climate change could bring, that's a nice image. I think that the hope this novel ends up conveying both in humanity, and our ability to combat climate change, is also a much needed message in a world where denialism is running up against increasingly self-evident facts, and a sense of hopelessness in younger generations.
For that reason, Ministry for the Future, while perhaps not being a literary masterpiece, might be one of the most important books you read in 2020 or 2021. It's made to make you think, and doing that, you might just come away with some ideas even this ambitious author couldn't imagine.
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