Can We Really Adapt to Climate Change?  

The Ministry for the Future  

Kim Stanley Robinson. New York: Orbit, 2021, 563 pages, $19.99  

How does the Sun keep providing such bright light and heat to planet Earth? Where does its internal energy come from and how long will it last? How does it keep releasing energy externally while simultaneously consuming itself internally, without either completely exploding or collapsing into nothingness? 

Our existence on Earth is completely dependent on our special star, which we orbit at a precarious speed of 67,000 miles per hour (107,000 kilometers per hour). It may not feel like it as we walk, drive, run, and fly around carrying out our activities on Earth, but we are also revolving around our own axis at a speed of about 1,000 miles per hour (1,670 kilometers per hour).

The G-force of this speed is enough to knock your socks (and head) off in a second. And yet, it all feels rather abstract: the numbers are too big, too astronomical to comprehend: we cannot really feel it so we cannot really understand the speed.   

The sun looks so beautiful at times when it is dipping behind a polluted horizon in hues of pink and rose and purple. Cairo, anyone? This is the beauty that Kim Stanley Robinson evokes in his long and verbose book about our inability to confront the encroaching effects of climate change. We are faced with the abstract on a daily basis, the occurrence of climate disasters is intensifying, we have contributed to exacerbating global warming by polluting grotesquely, and now we don’t really know what to do: 

And droughts were coming more and more frequently. Also occasional deluges. Either too little or too much was the new pattern, alternating without warning, with droughts predominating. The upshot would be more forest fires, then more flash floods, and always the threat of the entire state going as dry as the Mojave desert. (p.184)

Robinson is talking about California, but he might as well be talking about Spain where we just witnessed the devastation of the flash floods around Valencia (31 Oct 2024) that killed over 200 people and counting. This is not science fiction: this is really happening now. Forest fires raging across Greece (and Spain), unprecedented droughts are sweeping across North Africa, and glaciers are melting very rapidly…  

This genre of climate disaster fiction should no longer be classified as ‘science fiction’.

Those familiar with the annual UN climate negotiations will find the way Robinson describes the politics and interests around climate action to be hyper-realistic. His main character is inspired by Mary Robinson, the former Irish president and outspoken advocate for climate action, whose efforts often went unheeded. Don’t expect that to change at COP29 in Baku. 

If you are in the climate action and sustainability business, then there is no need for you to read the 500-plus pages of this book: You’ve seen and heard it all before. If you are not in the climate world, then you will learn about a fascinating phenomenon called the ‘wet-bulb’ effect (which is also happening now in India). Kim Stanley Robinson sets the stage by having everyone in Lucknow, northern India, die in a heat wave.  

The human body temperature is about 37° C (98.6° F). If you put a wet blanket over you, then you can’t sweat: no perspiration, no regulating the body temperature. The same happens with high humidity: at temperatures above 40° C your body wants to sweat in order to calibrate, but if it’s +90% humidity outside then you can’t sweat: you die in a few hours, even if you drink water. 

In Robinson’s Lucknow, everyone goes to die in the lakes. They believe the water will be cooler, but it no longer matters as they can no longer regulate their body temperature. This morbid scene of floating bloated corpses haunts Robinson, raising his most pressing question, provoked by the relentless sun: How are we still here? 

Instead of trying to figure out this riddle, Robinson’s answer is simple: You might as well enjoy life and have a party!