Not long after I’d started reading this door-stopper (550+ pages) I realised here was someone who had read John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, a similar work from the late 1960s. Brunner’s novel deals with the prospect of overpopulation, its implications and how to address it as planetary issue (as I recall) and Robinson’s book (I hesitate to call it a novel) addresses global warming in a similar fashion.
I say I hesitate to call it a novel: like Brunner’s masterpiece, it loosely tells a story, but its wider scope is rather more significant: imagined worldwide meetings, conferences and actions — legal and illegal — to tackle the current threat to life on the planet, but there are basically only two characters with any substance, an Irishwoman who heads the official global efforts, and a young American volunteer in the Third World who is traumatised by his experience of a heat disaster phenomenon which causes the deaths of several million people in a few days… other characters are merely sketched in for narrative convenience. This makes the reading a it of an effort.
Where Robinson excels — as did Brunner — is the contextual material, the scientific analyses and the exploration of social, political and economic possibilities for dealing with the emergency. But there’s an awful lot of this, and at times it does become a tad tiresome: am I reading a novel or a tract; why am I skim-reading sometimes?
Do texts like this ever change anything? They are certainly written to make the intelligent reader think, to convince one, if that is needed, of the impending disaster, and to encourage one to think that there are ways out. Robinson is well aware of the cynicism that currently exists, and is maybe even being deliberately fostered by interested parties: we cannot and will not cope, the problem is too big, we just have to get used to it, etc etc. Or, the problem doesn’t even exist, according to certain moronic politicians and leaders.
Is terrorism — or what most politicians would currently label terrorism — an acceptable tactic in the face of climate emergency? Robinson certainly doesn’t duck this question. It’s possible for anonymous groups to target aviation, container ships, meat production pretty effectively and perhaps trigger change… Robinson’s premise is that all change has to take place within the current capitalist system, and since we don’t have any currently viable alternatives, perhaps he’s right: he certainly explores closely how the international financial system might be subverted or converted to support changes, including much more deliberate and effective state and international interventions. Can capitalism really save the world?
It’s not until about halfway through the book that you realise Robinson is presenting an optimistic scenario that over several decades does succeed, against enormous odds, in turning the tide, and beginning to save the future. However I did find myself thinking that, although we definitely do need visions and visionaries like this, do we really understand how it might be done? It’s a complex and challenging read (I’m certainly glad I read it) but is Robinson ultimately preaching to the converted? Or an I just an aged cynic who has seen too many promising ideas for making a better world go down the pan in my own lifetime?
LIT.GAZ. 
