Climate change apocalypse, but near term (2040 I think?). Which is actually a lot more difficult to write than a real apocalyps-ey novel set further in the future when everything will obviously be a disaster. If you came to this book because "apocalypse", you're in the wrong place. You need to come to it for "climate" and be ready for a long haul: something like 900 pages.
This is the crumbling of society and the chickens-coming-home-to-roost of the near future. Gas station blockades, collapse of beachside real-estate, environment organizations turning violent and some of-the-moment mentions of AI: AI-written political analysis media articles, AI auto-recruiting extremists over chat etc.
It's a lot of characters, but they are good ones, well placed to give you a view from many angles. The environmental radicals, the PR person who shills for the fossil fuel industry, the political aide, the trump-esque demagogue.
The writing is good but occasionally goes into boring lecture mode to explain what should be happening, but isn't.
Just Transition funds should be targeted at workers in the carbon economy and those people and regions most hurt by polluting practices, which will require major investments in clean electricity deployment, adaptation measures, and afforestation and land management projects. Money must flow to those most affected by the clean energy transition and climate damage. R&D should focus on hard-to-decarbonize sectors with a special emphasis on bringing green hydrogen to scale and carbon sequestration and utilization. Lowering emissions is no longer adequate.
Keeper's character is written in second person, which I hate, but thankfully it isn't a big part of the story. It also occasionally flips into exposition just cataloging disasters, which reads like a boring almanac entry. Markley is really trying to educate and entertain at the same time. It was probably difficult to decide on what to leave out in terms of the science/politics/economics.
All the standard environmental activist stuff of today's world has largely been tapped out without making enough difference, so the activism starts turning more violent:
Our original goal was to create disastrous uncertainty in the market for dirty energy, make it too risky and expensive for investors, but it’s all been surprisingly resilient. So let’s hit the full fucking menu.”
On October 7, Kate Morris led a blockade of a gas station in New York City, part of her so-called Seventh Day protests. The idea being that on the seventh day of each month, people will remove themselves from the economy—refuse to work, shop, or contribute—and instead use the day to “blockade, disrupt, or dismantle” part of the carbon infrastructure.
A lot of it felt plausible. Some things didn't, here's some complaints that I think avoid spoilers. The DC action was too successful: in reality it wouldn't have been allowed to get that far. The political analyst testing calorie budgeting in the cruelest way would have gone to jail. The personal journey for the PR activist felt...unlikely. But it's still worth a read I think.
4 stars.
