The Ministry for the Future

 "The days grew short, the air chill. The leaves on the lindens turned yellow and the west wind swept them away." - Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future

I started Kim Stanley Robinson's powerful novel, The Ministry for the Future, at the beginning of summer when Colorado baked under a heat wave. At the time, the Pacific Northwest was suffering under a heat dome and millions of shellfish were boiled alive in their shallow-water habitat. The opening scene of the novel describes millions of people dying in a terrible heat wave in India, and the conjunction with reality was too much for me; I had to put the book down. It lay untouched on my bedside table - mutely chastising me - until the cooler evenings of late August allowed me to push past memories of stifling heat and resume reading.

If you're interested in looking closely at the climate crisis and potential solutions, I highly recommend the book, which left me on a hopeful note despite hundreds of pages dealing with the obstacles confronting humanity. Among those - bankers, the wealthy, fossil fuel companies, intransigent governments, etc, that we see in action every day. Though a work of fiction, the book is well-researched and Robinson's perspectives on economics, science, diplomacy and human nature continually resonated with me as true to both our current and prospective situations.

Who knows what great invention, positive social trend or technological advance lies right around the corner? We must always hope, and work, and hope. Robinson writes of sailing ships that run on wind and solar, dirigibles and other air vessels that also run on renewables and replace jets and jet fuels. The protagonist sails from France to New York and takes rail from NYC to San Francisco. The world banks group together to  issued money in units of carbon saved, and across the world people's movements for a fair wage and fair taxes catch fire. These hope-filled ideas spring from the possibilities of today, which we can make real. In the book, as with anything, you have to struggle through the muck to get to daylight on the other side, and in this case the struggle is worth it.