What does it take to change the future?
The Ministry for the Future (2020), the latest novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, departs from a scientific premise: as countries keep ignoring the Paris Agreement, our planet will keep getting hotter, all the way to the human boiling point. When India is hit by a devastating heatwave, killing millions, a climate response starts to unravel. In his most bleak yet hopeful work to date, Robinson explores the limits and possibilities of human cooperation under extreme circumstances. In this TRIGGER themed conversation, we will discuss what could be the wake-up call for rethinking our place as humans on the only planet we have, and the promising tools he discovered during his years of research.
Kim Stanley Robinson is the most beloved science fiction writer alive today. The Mars trilogy, his first international bestseller, published between 1992 and 1996, was an ambitious exploration of the terraforming of the Red planet that included an exercise on comparative space politics and their impact on the survival of the human race. This commitment to exploring climate crisis management and mitigation has turned him into the leading exponent of Climate Fiction, a genre that takes place in the world as we know it or in its near future.
A prolific writer, KSR’s most popular titles include New York 2140, Aurora, Shaman and Green Earth. He also wrote 2312, the first book to be nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards and the winner of the prestigious Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2013. His most recent novel, The Ministry for the Future, published during the pandemic, is a brutal depiction of what it would take for humans to finally face the monstrous side effects of the Anthropocene.
Suggested reading:
[Book]: The Ministry for the Future
[Installation]: Think of Yourself as a Planet
[Talk]: How Climate Will Evolve Government and Society
Organisation: Aksioma with Kino Šiška – in the framework of KonS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art.
