Thanks to Sue Hruby and the West Tisbury Library about letting us know about the Climate Book Club!
Sue Hruby writes:
My favorite book club is the Climate Book Club — admirably supported by the wonderful WT Library — supplying us with books (hard copies, as well as access to the audio versions) and a comfortable location for our meetings.
We read both nonfiction and fiction to educate ourselves about, and to explore, all dimensions and thinking about the climate crisis. We also support each other — ohhh, so much better than reading this sometimes scary material all alone.
We recently completed The Ministry of the Future (find it on Amazon at that link) which is categorized as sci-fi but in places reads almost as nonfiction.
For me, it was one of the most challenging and stimulating reads. Set not so far in the future, starting in 2025 the UN/IPCC sets up a body to advocate for all the world’s future generations, dubbed in the press as the “Ministry for the Future.” The name sticks.
Not long after that, a big heat wave strikes India.
We see a possible scenario for the world deep in climate emergencies. The opening heat wave is very realistic and dystopian. I wanted to stop reading it was so grim, but I kept on.
The Ministry is about what a future global ministry of the U.N. is doing to coordinate world-wide efforts to reduce carbon emissions. All is not going well, until it does — or at least begins to.
There is horror, data, eco-terrorism, global finance (carbon coin), and humor (such as the laughable response of mega-wealthy Davos meeting attendees to their briefly uncomfortable kidnapping “reeducation” class). You see interesting (speculative) solutions, such as the floating airship for tourists and travelers. Fanciful? I don’t know. You see people traveling to meeting destinations by trans-Atlantic ship. Really? Well Greta Thunberg did it, why not here in a much bigger boat? I found it engaging, sometimes confusing (where am I in this story?) until the outlines began to emerge. Definitely worth a read. Don’t put it down after the first chapter, and don’t skip the first chapter either.
The book suggests many possibilities for how the world could act together. Take a look. It might just give you hope and courage.
Details for next book club
Sunday, February 18th at 4pm, West Tisbury Public LibraryNot the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie (on Amazon). Her new book “provides an optimistic, evidence-based look at our environmental problems and how to solve them.” Please come pick up your free copy!
