Kim Stanley Robinson: The Ministry for the Future

Uniting science and politics, and giving voice to our most ardent hopes and our worst fears, American climate fiction pioneer Kim Stanley Robinson’s book 'The Ministry for the Future' is a gripping portrayal of a world grappling with the devastating consequences of climate change and the urgent actions needed to forge a sustainable future.
In a world that is rapidly warming and where the conversation has already moved from mitigation to adaptation, where climate protestors are treated as security threats and global corporations continue to pollute the planet, discourses on our common future tend toward the apocalyptic. Under such circumstances, imagining the future is a daunting task. Yet 'The Ministry for the Future' reaffirms Robinson’s unique ability to weave science and storytelling into a compelling imaginative tool, offering thought-provoking solutions that often get lost amidst the highly polarized debate about how to best tackle this life-threatening problem.
This video was recorded on Nov 8th, 2023 in De Duif, Amsterdam

[@JDBrown4peace]

Another good conversation with MtfF as the stimulus. I watch as many of Stan's talks as I can find. Some useful distinctions came out of this for me. More clarification about Post Apocalypse was one. I could go on, yet what I noticed in this conversation and so many others on this topic is the reference to the number of people who died in the "Heat Dome". Many have used the number of around 2,000,000. That didn't seem right so I went to look it up and, sure enough, the upper number is 20,000,000. It seems that this number is above a threshold of contemplation. People can't go there. That is a big number that is closer to what will break our shell of "holding it together". How many will it actually take? I am looking for something from Stan post COP28. Thanks for the conversation.

[@EidolonMedia]

In the telephoto close-ups of Stan seated you can see the body heat of the audience waver the image. Astounding.

[@simonpenny2564]

KSR - visionary, thankyou.

[@mikeharrington5593]

KSR is perhaps the George Bernard Shaw of our time. Whilst he discusses using fiat capitalism to fund green projects, I am kinda surprised he doesn't use words emphasizing the need to place values on pricing & preserving the natural capital of our environment, though his theme does embrace this concept.

[@garyhoover9750]

I appreciate the conversation very much, thank you! would it be possible to actually list the names and a brief bio of the folks on stage with KSR? I would appreciate being able to explore more the contributions each is making along the way, and also any work they have done that is available online. I believe that one of your panelists is Helen de Coninck, who is an IPCC scientist? Others?

[@TheJohnAdamsInstitute]

Hi Gary! He was joined by dr. Heleen de Coninck and philosopher and author Lisa Doeland, who are both experts in the fields of literature, environmental studies and social activism

[@garyhoover9750]

@@TheJohnAdamsInstitute Thank you!

[@erik_carter_art]

Good conversation. But the host/interviewer was annoying, confrontational, and interrupted too much.

[@Adam-Flint]

I have mixed feelings about the book. Many qualities: I like the dispersed format of the story, some aspects of the style, some useful reminders such as "climate change is real and caused by humans," or "we are in the sixth mass extinction," or "this is the Jevons paradox." But too many things are plain wrong. Chapter 56 in the book: "The US and several other big countries had withdrawn from the court’s jurisdiction (The Intertnational Criminal Court of The Hague) after negative rulings against their citizens." whereas in our real world: "The General Assembly (of the UN) convened a conference in Rome in June 1998, with the aim of finalizing the treaty to serve as the Court's statute. On 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by a vote of 120 to seven, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the U.S., and Yemen." Quite another reality... Chapter 55 in the book, writing about France: ...the Commune of 1848... No. The Revolution of 1848 (the third one) from February 22 to February 24, 1848, led to the abdication of King Louis Philippe and to the foundation of the Second Republic. The Commune was in France a Parisian insurrection against the Third Republic, from March 18 to May 28, 1871. The two are never confused, neither in French nor in English. When you know Switzerland, it is kind of hilarious to see it portrayed as a welcoming country for refugees, and in Chapter 47, you might be led to believe that the Swiss banking industry is an old thing of the past that has little to do with Swiss prosperity (LOL). And about Germany and France, chapter 50: "...the rest of the world was irrelevant, or at most instruments to be used." What should one say, then, maybe, about the USA? About China? etc. But the worst thing is the substance of the book. The reader might be led to believe that, yes, the climate situation is very, very bad (it starts like that in Chapter 1), but don't you worry too much, "clean energy", geoengineering and human goodwill will save us... in some decades, when many scientists today estimate we may have already crossed irreversible tipping points, when James Hansen writes "Eventual global warming due to today's GHG forcing alone - after slow feedbacks operate - is about 10°C." An increase of 5°C is generally considered beyond the point of extinction for humans. So false hope not based in reality is noxious, an anesthesic against action. Really, this is the only kind of book our contemporary fiction literature has to offer other than apocalyptic/survivalist, Rambo type, or stupid zombie series? At the most defining time in human history, maybe the end of humanity, I'd like to give this excerpt of "Where is the fiction about climate change" by Amitav Ghosh, in The Guardian (the whole article is online and worth reading). "In a substantially altered world, when sea-level rise has swallowed the Sundarbans and made cities such as Kolkata, New York and Bangkok uninhabitable, when readers and museum-goers turn to the art and literature of our time, will they not look, first and most urgently, for traces and portents of the altered world of their inheritance? And when they fail to find them, what can they do other than to conclude that ours was a time when most forms of art and literature were drawn into the modes of concealment that prevented people from recognising the realities of their plight? Quite possibly, then, this era, which so congratulates itself on its self-awareness, will come to be known as the time of the Great Derangement." As global warming and overshoot don't happen in a vacuum but are descending on our society with politics, here is an excerpt from "Parable of the Talents" by Octavia Butler (1998): "Jarret was inaugurated today. We listened to his speech-short and rousing. Plenty of “America, America, God shed his grace on thee,” and “God bless America,” and “One nation, indivisible, under God,” and patriotism, law, order, sacred honor, flags everywhere, Bibles everywhere, people waving one of each. His sermon-because that’s what it was-was from Isaiah, Chapter One. “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers.” Adam Fint, author of "Mona."