A monstrous heatwave in India kills twenty million people. From this disaster emerges an unlikely institution: the Ministry for the Future, mandated to represent future generations and the living world. Science fiction, yes—but written like a policy manual. No escape to Mars: everything happens here, at the intersection of finance, ecology, and radical struggle.
The Ministry for the Future is a stress test: faced with climate chaos, the question shifts from “when will everything collapse?” to “what will we do when it starts?” It also explores our blind spots: no savior hero, no exit to space. Robinson looks squarely at what prevents action—political inertia, the hegemony of markets, gridlocked geopolitics, fear of violence, and an inability to see the living world as an actor. Each obstacle is dissected, and behind the autopsy lies a belief: everything is still possible. This novel reads like a full-scale public policy laboratory.
1. The political obstacle: governing for those who can’t vote
Our institutions are built for today’s voters, not for future generations. As a result, democracy manages the next two years, never the next fifty. The Ministry for the Future exposes this void: who speaks for those who are not yet born?
The Ministry isn’t a fantasy. The idea already appears in academic and policy debates: an Ombudsman for Future Generations in Hungary, independent commissioners in some Nordic countries, and UN discussions on a Declaration of the Rights of Nature. But none of these efforts yet carries decisive weight.
This stumbling block is the easiest to express and the hardest to solve: how do you compel a democracy trapped by election cycles to think beyond a ten-year horizon? Until we reinvent institutions that can integrate the long term, we’ll remain stuck with short-termism.
She spent 12 years in industry, working for Bolloré Technologies, among others. She co-founded Business Digest in 1992 and has been running the company since 1998. And she took the Internet plunge in 1996, even before coming on board as part of the BD team.
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