I finished this 563 page and to my surprise felt optimistic. Like, what is there to be optimistic about? This slightly futuristic, a little sci-fi, looks at global warming and the policies and impacts on people and geography in a year not too far from now. The Ministry of the Future is an agency tasked with establishing scientific and economic policies address warming. It is run by a smart civil servant from Ireland and tracks her travails through attempts to bargain with national banks to navigating through safe houses to prevent potential threats on her life. The book is a celebration of earth as the last best place for human life, animal life and our amazing tapestry natural wonders.
There is enough real science and economics (a global carbon coin), to lay a roadmap for lowering temperatures. Along the way you will visit refugee camps (a solution is presented to people without nationhood ), eco-terrorism (an unfortunate method to knock off the evil unrepentant fossil industrialists), large scale water pumping projects in Antartica to name just a few. This is a dense read with details that are so well researched. This seems to be a super realistic novel and since the book ends on a positive note, and since the times, they have been not easy, I took it to heart that we may come out of this.
The book cover (2020 publishing date), proclaims, One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year”. That might be good enough for you to give this book a read.