If you could wave a magic wand and there was no personal recourse to your actions, what is one thing that you would do to improve human and planetary futures? As a science fiction author, I imagine you have dozens of such ideas. Some of it is absolutely simplistic. If people would spend more time outdoors, it would reorient their sense of reality in fundamental ways which changes the view of everything. The 30 by 30 thing is profound. When I first read the E.L. Wilson book Half Earth, I thought beautiful idea will never happen. And here 20 years later, it's happening.
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson to discuss how he contributes to the discussion of climate and pro-social changemaking through writing. There have been many calls to improve the communication of scientists to the general public in hopes it will help people understand the severity of the various global threats we face. A key component to such communication comes from art and literature. Even further, the humanities help us think about the type of future and culture we want to have given the information that science brings us. How can we incorporate fiction into our set of tools to bring more people into awareness of the pressing systemic dynamics underpinning global events?
About Kim Stanley Robinson:
Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of over twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. He was part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow, as a guest of the UK government and the UN. His work has been translated into 28 languages, and won awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”
To watch this video episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/Xc53KPv7flk
Show Notes & Links to Learn More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/66-kim-stanley-robinson