Imagining Global Climate Solutions: Reflections on <em>The Ministry for the Future</em> and <em>Eleutheria</em>

Abstract

Even though a scientific consensus has been building for many decades that the climate emergency is real, and despite many protests and conferences demanding action, global climate solutions remain elusive. What are the main sticking points to making climate progress, and how might they be overcome? This article draws on two novels to imagine possible solutions: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson and Eleutheria by Allegra Hyde. Both envision effective social change over the next few decades. Themes and pathways include influencing public opinion, new religious movements, politics at global scale, tweaking the global economic system, geoengineering, and the various roles that people from all walks of life can play&mdash;especially young people&mdash;to deliver climate solutions. Not least, a common theme is how love can save the world.