For those who prefer to read about the looming crisis from global warming in fictional form rather than as speculation by the likes of Sir David Attenborough, this is the book for you. Beginning 2025, as a subsidiary body under the U.N and based in Zurich is led by former Irish foreign affairs minister who is a composite character of diplomats Mary Robinson, Christina Figueres, and Lawrence Tubiana.
Beginning in the 2030s (The only mentioned dates are 2032 when all of the Arctic ice melted and 2034 when a drought caused all the wells in an Indian town to go dry.) and extending for at least the next 30 years, the devastating effects are encountered mainly in poorer countries the least responsible for causing the crisis, with whole cities wiped out in a boiling heat and they are also least able to afford mitigating measures like powerful air conditioners or building dams to hold back rising sea levels. An unprecedented heat wave in India, killing 20,000,000 in one week is the spark that ignites massive unrest and controversy around the world.The United Nations forms a Zurich-based Ministry For The Future to give legal standing for people who don’t yet exist following a 2024 Paris Agreement, with the young widow, Irish diplomat Mary Murphy, the main protagonist, as it’s president. A sole aide worker survivor from that Indian disaster, Frank May, suffering from PTSD becomes a terrorist kidnapper and saboteur of leaders of capitalist companies most responsible for emitting greenhouse gases, is eventually jailed, and becomes a victim of one of the worst diseases I can think of. He also kidnaps Mary temporarily to indoctrinate her because he thinks she is not doing enough; she later befriends him in prison in an awkward example of the Stockholm Syndrome.
Later, the dark offshoot of the Ministry, the Children of Kali, holds Davos attendees hostage to highlight the need to change, downs corporate jets with drones, assassinates fossil fuel company executives, infects beef herds with mad cow disease, and sabotages fossil fuel plants and cargo ships, all with ‘plausible deniability’ on her part.
Remediation efforts include pumping vast quantities of lubricating sub-glacier Antarctic water to the top of the glaciers to slow their slide into the Antarctic Ocean by increasing friction on their under surfaces, a carbon-sequestration currency offered by central banks and backed by longterm bonds offered at attractive rates (“go long on civilization”), using idled fossil fuel company kit in reverse to bury captured carbon dioxide in emptied oil and gas wells, and covering open Arctic water with yellow dye to reflect sunlight back into space. India engages in
geo-engineering, spraying particulate sulphur dioxide at 60,000 feet to act as a shield from the sun. Electric-powered airships (dirigibles) and sailing schooners with solar panels and kites largely replace jet planes and cargo ships.
The 106 chapters are generally short, but one pithy one discussing the concept of discount rates in the fields of markets, economics, and insurance as applied to the lives of future generations was particularly poignant to me. Why should my great great granddaughter’s life be of lower value than mine?
In one of the longer chapters, Mary Murphy, that President of The Ministry of the Future, a then low budget almost powerless institution, fails in attempts to engage the world financial system and very powerful central bankers, in the decarbonization efforts, but later they see the need and establish a world carbon cryptocurrency using block-chain and distributed ledger technology to reward people and companies for reducing their carbon footprint. The House of Saudi is dethroned and it’s replacement is rewarded for oil not burned and for switching to solar energy with trillions of dollar-equivalents in the new carbon coins. The world eventually sees a steady decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Remaining global problems are not glossed over, including income inequality, gender discrimination, mass migration, and ozone layer and biodiversity depletion. In spite of development of a vast network of wildlife corridors around the world, creation of huge wildlife reserves, and promotion of regenerative farming, protecting biodiversity remains a global problem.
The American author’s impressively broad knowledge of atmospheric science, human psychology, (Jevon’s Paradox and Lima Syndrome are discussed) philosophy, and literature, languages, geography, macro economics, international law, inequality, biodiversity, mass migration of many species including Homo sapiens, regenerative farming, is all integrated in a complex and imaginative plot.
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Some great quotes:
“Of course there is always resistance, always a drag on movement toward better things.The dead hand of the past clutches us by way of living people who are too frightened to accept change.”
“Maybe that was what PTSD was- the inability to do the work of forgetting or of not recalling.”
“Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
The Tipping Point, a phrase made famous by Malcolm Gladwell, is a valid concept that could be applied to the climate crisis. In Europe, it appears that that point with respect to converting to electric vehicles is when 10% of vehicles seen on roadways are electrically powered. Will it be the same in N.A.?
I see one theoretical contradiction in this great science fiction story. The new Carbon Coalition of Central Banks for Carbon Currency the agency urged on to the central banks by the Ministry For The Future uses block-chain and distributed ledgers in administering the carbon cryptocurrency. Most computer geeks I know allege that these are tech solutions looking for a problem to solve and need huge amounts of energy to operate, most of it currently coming from the burning of fossil fuels; they are helpful only to criminals trying to hide money, as the recent FTX fiasco has demonstrated long after this book was published.
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Thanks, Mike I.
The Passionate Reader 