The Plausibility of Robinson's Utopia

        Robinson writes this novel from numerous perspectives on the solution to reducing climate change. He presents the economic perspective, the scientific perspective, and the political perspective. These systems all work relatively independently, as they have their own policies and guidelines to create solutions within their own umbrella of issues. However, as presented in the novel, combatting climate change is a group effort of the entire world, including the cooperation of these systems. While it is nice to think that this is possible, these propositions as unrealistic, because the chance of these systems working together in harmony to reach a goal that benefits everyone equally is extremely low. 

        The novel begins with a catalytic event of twenty million people dying by a heatwave in India (Robinson 18). While this seems like an eye-opening event that makes everyone drop what they are doing to address it, clearly that is not the sequence of events that occurs. Immediately after the event, the Ministry for the Future realizes that something needs to be done as soon as possible to prevent any further disasters, and India sees that immediate action is required because twenty million of their people are killed due to worldwide ignorance, but just about everyone else carries on in this ignorance. Apparently, the multitude of this tragic event is not enough to convince the systems to initiate cohesive work to prevent further damage, so what will?

        Mary and the Ministry for the Future work to find solutions within each of these systems, but the systems still see no immediate concern or solution. Mary pitches the carbon coin to a number of the world’s largest banks, but they argue that it would destroy the market and pose unimaginable consequences to the world economy and value of money (Robinson 188). It takes years for them to finally agree, while more climate disasters occur, and more people die. Here, it is evident that there is a mismatch between the political and economic systems, and their lack of cooperation costs more lives. Also, the scientific system sees the creation and execution of the Antarctica project, which recycles melted glacier water into more layers of ice so the arctic stays intact (Robinson 148). However, as some of those participants state, the project cost more money than people want to spend in fear that it will not work. Here, there is a mismatch between the scientific and economic systems, and that costs time that the world does not have to combat climate change. Finally, there are many problems in the political system itself, as the Ministry cannot take legal action against the biggest carbon emitters because world courts does not allow United Nations-based groups to present cases. This leads to the necessity of an illegal “black wing” in order to create productive change that the three systems will not allow (Robinson 109). The fact that multiple climate change events need to occur before all of these systems work together towards a common goal to benefit the world is extremely appalling, and leads to the question that since this is all fictional and speculative, can the world expect the systems to work together before humanity ends?

        Many aspects of the novel are unrealistic, as discussed in class, and that makes sense because it is a science fiction book that does not hold the blueprint to fight climate change. It seems that a situation where all three systems work together and see successful results is only possible in this narrative, and it is hard to imagine these actions being carried out in reality.