What Could Possibly Go Right? #32 Kim Stanley Robinson: The Paris Agreement, Neoliberal Capitalism, and Carbon Quantitative Easing
New York Times best-selling author Kim Stanley Robinson joins Vicki Robin this week. Widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction, Robinson is the author of more than twenty books, includingThe Ministry For The Future, the best-selling Mars trilogy, and the critically acclaimed Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt, and 2312. In 2008, he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine.
From his perspective as a utopian science fiction writer, he answers the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?” with thoughts including:
- That science fiction, literature, and arts have “become a kind of a necessary tool of thought for thinking our way forward”.
- The value of the Paris Agreement in ensuring the rights of future people and all living beings to a livable world.
- The risk of reaching wet-bulb temperature levels where a high enough heat and humidity combination is fatal to humans.
- That we do have enormous scientific and technological powers, but our inaction comes down to matters of capitalism and pursuit of monetary profit. “We're in an economic system that will not pay us to do the right things.”
- The idea of carbon coins and carbon quantitative easing for positive impact.
- The benefits of significantly increasing the world’s land surface left to animals.
Resources
- Book: The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Book: Half Earth by E. O. Wilson
- Book: How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire by Andreas Malm
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