In the novel’s 106 chapters, he riffs on blockchain technology, Jevon’s Paradox, carbon taxes, ice sheet dynamics, quantitative easing, among other things. Robinson has a geeky, exuberant imagination and likes to pick up pieces of the world and examine them like a geologist examines rocks. It’s a trip through the carbon-fueled chaos of the coming decades, with engineers working desperately to stop melting glaciers from sliding into the sea, avenging eco-terrorists downing so many airliners that people are afraid to fly, and bankers re-inventing the economy in real time in a desperate attempt to avert extinction. Who knew that in this dark hour of the climate crisis hope would arrive in the form of a 563-page novel by a sci-fi writer best known for a trilogy about establishing a human civilization on Mars? But alas, that’s what Kim Stanley Robinson – the author of 20 books and one of the most respected science fiction writers working today - has given us with The Ministry for the Future.
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