Response to “Green Earth”

Response to “Green Earth”

After reading “Green Earth” by Kim Stanley Robinson in such a short time, I am left with many questions regarding parts of the story we skipped and things I may have missed. Rising above these, however, is the lingering feeling of concern for how the author imagines humankind will react to climate change. When the story begins, we see Charlie Quibbler battling circumstances much like our own. The government has politicized climate change (a scientific fact) so that it can deny it to protect the selfish and shortsighted interests of the wealthy and powerful, and powerful climactic effects are looming on the horizon and are just beginning to become reality. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s rendering, even after dramatic and unprecedented climate events, the government seems unable to enact the necessary drastic changes. This inertia is truly crippling and delays the already-too-late adjustments. Furthermore, it reveals what is either a collective attitude of denial or a systematic inability to implement change (or a combination of the two). It has been challenging enough to reconcile the fact that the overwhelming scientific evidence isn’t enough to convince the world that climate action is necessary, let alone to imagine that catastrophic and abrupt climate events would also be insufficient. Unfortunately, this book is leaving me rather lost as to what can be done; if reason and reality can’t convince the world that the time for change has come, then what will?

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