SPOILER ALERT! Climate Change is going to effect every aspect of our lives.
Glad you are reading the book! Funny but I've known that for at least 10 years so I am happy a book is out that can hit that point home. A few years ago, my husband gave me another climate best seller (non fiction) called The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells but I too afraid to read it. It is quite grim and I didn't need to read it. I already know what is coming if we don't do something. I just remember one part I opened to where he pointed out that there will be over a hundred million people migrating from climate-devastated areas. I have seen this migration in my visions, and posted it back in 2014 for the 2030's.
The Ministry for the Future doesn't terrify us like that. There is that heat wave in India in 2023 that kills 22 million people-- every man, woman and child in a few cities. The children die first. After that, the world begins to wake up.
I am now at chapter 83 which is about two-thirds through.
The story is really about how they bring the world back from the brink or how it is possible to bring the world back from the brink. I pray it will come true. I can't wait for a few of you to get through it so we can compare notes.
I am about half way through the book and it reminds me of a book I read last year.
“The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming” by James Lawrence Powell.
The book deals realistically with how entrenched the system is and what they have to do to make change, which doesn't happen quickly. But then it does happen.
- They change the monetary system with carbon coins.
- They use pumping technology to stop the glaciers from sliding into the sea.
- They bring back species from the brink of extinction and set up wild animal corridors around the world.
- They replace diesel fueled shipping with sustainable ships.
- They change air travel to sustainable travel.
I’m on chapter 91 and they have pulled so much carbon out of the air that atmospheric carbon starts to drop.
I just finished reading the chapter that talks about the 2000 watt society in Switzerland. I found this website that explains a little bit more. It's pretty interesting and caused me to look at my own home energy usage in the past year. The website is connected to an exercise bike that generates electricity as you use it. I guess it's being developed in the UK. I think this is a pretty cool concept. There's a battery that goes on the bike and you can use that battery to charge your devices.
https://energym.io/blogs/news/the-2000-watt-society-powering-swiss-sustainability
@jeanne-mayell I did read the chapters when they were discussing carbon coins and saving the glaciers. I think my problem is that the book isn't really depressing as much as it was my inability to understand the science behind it all. I will try to stick with it but I truly am a dunce when it comes to how things work. I think the book is very unique but am confused by who is narrating the different chapters. For instance, the same ragged guy on the beach watching the party can't be the same person at Davos? This might be a book that is just over my head.
I find it very confusing as well. His writing structure confuses me because he doesn't adhere to the common conventions of writing. When characters speak, sometimes he uses quotations and other times not. He doesn't identify who is speaking at all throughout a chapter. Maybe this is some kind of clever device and others have better insight but I think it distracts from the point he is trying to get across. Also, Chapter 49, I will say that I felt like I need a dual degree in law and economics to understand the language. That was a hard chapter for me, but I feel like I learned some things about global economics even if I couldn't quite tell you what I learned yet. It is cleverly written, but often difficult to digest. And Robinson (author) also gives acronyms throughout the story that he never spells out what those acronyms stand for which complicates it even more. I find myself looking up many words to find out their meaning as I'm reading. But I really do like this book.
And yes, I believe Frank is the one at Davos. But I have forgotten that chapter already and couldn't tell you what happened.
Good luck. I hope you stick with it. I think it is the type of book that is meant for a book club. Maybe input from more people, as they read it, will help further clarify the story.
Right now, I'm on Chapter 50 and Mary is talking about the possible "Stockholm syndrome" she feels towards Frank and it makes me wonder if Robinson is intending for a deeper implication here. Placing her under duress has resulted in a trauma that helps her to understand Frank's trauma. And now I'm wondering if Robinson is suggesting that sharing trauma is necessary in order to get world leaders to recognize and realize the casualty or effect of their decisions as they relate to global warming. Robinson subtly says, "But what if it wasn't a mistake? What if you had been forced, by being taken hostage, to focus for once on the reality of the other - on their desperation, which had to have been extreme to drive them to their own rash act? What if you saw that you might do the same sort of thing in the other's shoes? If that insight were to occur to you, in the immense protraction of time that occurred when taken hostage, you would then see the situation newly, and change somehow, even if much later...".
I could be overthinking this, but a part of me is wondering if he is suggesting that world leaders should be taken hostage and placed in the context of a traumatic situation in order to empathize with the trauma of the collective that is on the receiving end of their poor environmental policies.
Got the book. I've read Robinson before and found the author good on the science. Thanks for the tip.
Reading the book tonight about the pumping of water from under glaciers and re-freezing it on top, the author also mentions using ocean water to refill lakes, like Great Salt Lake... This idea is actually being considered but the project will be immense. Unfortunately, I think the world is going to need to get this idea of projects being too costly, long and difficult out of their vocabulary.
If we can have pipelines carrying oil and gas around the US, why couldn't we have a sophisticated network of pipelines in all coastal states running across the US? Each state could have its own connection to the pipeline that they could tap into if they want and draw water from the ocean. Then it's the states own responsibility to build their own desalination plants for their water. California could end it's wild fires and droughts. Arizona could continue growing crops. Lakes could be refilled. All the while we are removing water from the ocean to stabilize rising water. This wouldn't address the carbon issue, but we could atleast offset the melting of the glaciers. If all continents built a similar network of piping across their countries to carry saltwater throughout the globe, we wouldn't have to worry about melting glaciers as much.
Thoughts? Does anyone eventually see something like this happening?
@chromosomexy Thanks for posting this aspect of the book. As she says in the book, at first no one was interested in spending the 50 or so billion dollars those glacier pumps with cost. But once the banking industry and the billionaires realized that the glaciers will destroy most of the world's coastal cities and probably cause a major collapse of the monetary system, even $100 billion doesn't seem like much to pay to save civilization. I believe it will happen once they wake up. We are in the foothills of climate change and we are also in the foothills of climate action.
As for the use of ocean water to refill lakes, again, I think they will have to experience some major losses before they would fund that kind of desalination and piping project. I have seen major epic drought in the late 2020's in the US heartland unless they can find the water to irrigate.
Humanity is incredibly innovative when it awakens. I can see the possibility of massive desalination and piping in sea water.
When people see how successful Kim Stanley Robinson's book is, there will be more books. I'm eager to read more well-thought out cli-sci dramas that imagine how we will navigate the climate.