After reading Kim Stanley Robinson's speculative novel, Adèle Thorens Goumaz is convinced: "We don't just need technological solutions, but also new narratives, new imaginaries that motivate us to make responsible decisions."
As a politician, I have often been confronted with inaction on climate matters. It is a reality I have never been able to accept or explain. How can human beings continue to destroy, systematically and knowingly, their own living environment ? How can they refuse to act to protect the future of those they love most in the world, namely their own children?
This inertia is all the more incomprehensible given that we have the necessary technological solutions and that we all have room to maneuver. Every day we make decisions that can help ensure a pleasant living environment for our children or plunge them into a world that climate change will make unmanageable. The fact that we so often, and consciously, make decisions that go against our own interest and, often, our own values, defies rational thought. But perhaps we should precisely question this rationality, so dear to ethicists.
The philosopher Hans Jonas argues that power, as well as knowledge, define the scope of our responsibility and elevate it to a duty: if you have the power to harm, and you know the negative, even catastrophic, consequences of your action, then you have the duty to act responsibly. This principle is all the more valid when we have the possibility to act otherwise. Its automatic character, however, is emblematic of the rationality bias from which most ethicists suffer.
It consists in assuming that a convincing moral judgment necessarily implies a motivation to comply with it. Experience unfortunately shows that this is not the case. Dieter Birnbacher, another ethicist philosopher specializing in the environmental crisis, observes: “Having moral reasons to act and being effectively motivated to act are two distinct elements, so that a psychological mechanism independent of the acceptance of the moral rule is necessary for action to conform to it.” [1]
The fact that we so often, and consciously, make decisions that go against our own interest and, often, our own values, defies rational thought.
What if fiction could help trigger that psychological mechanism ? I recently read Kim Stanley Robinson’s speculative novel, “The Ministry for the Future”. If you haven’t read it yet, do. It tells the story of the commitment of a new international organization, created in 2025 in Zurich, to defend the interests of our descendants and to prevent us from destroying their living environment.
Constructed as a series of testimonies, the novel describes the impacts of climate change in the decades to come and the way scientists and decision-makers organize themselves to face them. It begins with a terrible heatwave that causes twenty million deaths in India, and ends on a note of hope, as humanity gradually manages to engage in abandoning fossil fuels.
One of the great qualities of the novel is to make complex and technical themes accessible. It highlights the difficulties of mobilizing geoengineering solutions whose impacts are still poorly known, but which we desperately need after having delayed action at the source to reduce our emissions. It addresses the issues of global governance, indispensable for fair and coordinated action, as well as the role of developing countries, which it puts in the spotlight.
The novel also raises the question of the effectiveness of institutional avenues in the face of a vital crisis. Will we be able to maintain our democratic processes when climate disasters multiply and cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people? Will we be able to carry out the transition nonviolently? Can we prevent groups from becoming radicalized and resorting to eco-terrorism, or states from resorting to authoritarian measures? How will we manage the vast migratory movements caused by lethal heatwaves in regions where the climate is already hot and humid?
Well researched, “The Ministry for the Future” confronts these painful questions, but also depicts a humanity that, despite the obstacles, manages to take charge of itself and put in place viable solutions. It traces a path, imaginary but nonetheless realistic, toward what we can reasonably hope for.
The climate crisis testifies to our difficulty in projecting ourselves into the future and accepting change. We do not only need technological solutions, but also new narratives, new imaginaries that motivate us to make responsible decisions by helping us envision desirable tomorrows. Obviously, as Kim Stanley Robinson points out, the utopia evoked by “The Ministry for the Future” is fairly minimalistic, since it simply consists of humanity renouncing self-destruction. But, at the start of this year, God knows how much we need such a utopia.
[1] Birnbacher, D. (2009). What Motivates Us to Care for the (Distant) Future? Gosseries, Axel and Lukas H. Meyer, (eds.), Intergenerational Justice, Oxford University Press.
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