110 pages • 3 hours read
The Ministry for the Future
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTERS 1-30
Reading Check
1. What is the answer to the riddle that makes up Chapter 2?
2. According to the philosopher who discusses ideology, what is the soundest ideology?
3. Where does Frank take a job on a scientific expedition, hoping to get away from the heat?
4. What does Slawek propose be dumped onto glaciers to try to reduce their melting?
5. Whom does Frank kidnap?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why does Chandra Mukajee tell Mary that India will not wait for permission to put its “Pinatubo” plan into action?
2. What bothers Frank about the reasons for his survival?
3. What message do the Children of Kali tell Frank he can deliver on their behalf?
4. How does Frank end up killing Edmund?
5. How does the philosopher characterize the “structure of feeling” that has emerged during the first part of the 21st century?
Paired Resources
“Yale Experts Explain Climate Anxiety”
- This interview with Yale researchers Anthony Leiserowitz and Sarah Lowe explores the various kinds of worry and anxiety people feel in the face of climate change and how people can productively cope with these feelings.
- This resource relates to the themes of The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change and Words Versus Actions.
- How would Lowe and Leiserowitz respond to the philosopher’s claims in Chapter 30? Based on your understanding of The Ministry for the Future, how do you guess Kim Stanley Robinson might respond to Lowe and Leiserowitz? What do the researchers say about the ways in which taking action helps people cope with feelings related to climate change? Do you see this idea reflected in characters in The Ministry for the Future?
- This 2-minute BBC Radio video explains the philosophical “trolley problem.”
- This resource relates to the themes of The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change and Words Versus Actions.
- Many characters in The Ministry for the Future are willing to use violence—even murder—to try to stop climate change. In what sense is this a “trolley problem”? Do you think that these characters are right or wrong for being willing to resort to violence?
CHAPTERS 31-61
Reading Check
1. What does economist Dick Bosworth call the hypothetical number that describes how much we value our current needs over those of future generations?
2. What is the name of the Libyan refugee that Frank, now going by the name “Jake,” marries?
3. What do Dick and Janus Athena suggest creating as a way to address the problem of valuing current needs over the needs of future generations?
4. What resulted from the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, according to the report of their history and origins?
5. What does Badin tell Mary is needed to spread a pro-biosphere ideology?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What concern of Mary’s and Badim’s regarding India’s planned “double Pinatubo” does Chandra refuse to admit might be a problem?
2. How do the hostage takers at the World Economic Summit in Davos try to change the behavior of the elites they hold captive?
3. In the riddle about the market, to what does the narrator compare the market?
4. What does Janus Athena suggest a new social media platform might be used for?
5. What is “Götterdämmerung Syndrome”?
Paired Resources
“Capitalism Is Killing the Planet–It’s Time to Stop Buying Into Our Own Destruction”
- This article from The Guardian offers environmental activist George Monbiot’s perspective on capitalism’s contribution to the climate crisis.
- This resource relates to the themes of The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change and The Death of Capitalism.
- Both The Ministry for the Future and this article point to capitalism as a driving force behind climate change. How does each support this argument? Which do you view as a stronger argument, and why?
“We Don’t Have to Ditch Capitalism to Fight Climate Change”
- This article from the Harvard Business Review offers a contrasting opinion regarding the relationship between capitalism and climate change. (Please note this article is from 2014.)
- This resource relates to the themes of The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change and The Death of Capitalism.
- In this article, Henderson makes an opposing argument to the one offered in The Ministry for the Future. How might Robinson respond to Henderson’s perspective? Do you see biases, gaps in logic, or misstatements in either argument that fundamentally weaken it? Have events since the publication of this article made its opinions more debatable, or do you think the majority of people would readily agree with Henderson’s ideas today?
CHAPTERS 62-85
Reading Check
1. How is Mary nearly killed as she travels through the Alps?
2. What element serves as the anthropomorphized narrator of Chapter 66?
3. Which country invents “pebble-mob” missiles?
4. In the 2040s, what kind of debt do individual people start refusing to repay?
5. What economic term refers to an agreed-upon devaluation of an asset in return for protection against further losses?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What John Maynard Keynes argument regarding “rentiers” does the chapter on economic theory describe?
2. How can tax policy be used to discourage people from profiting from carbon-producing activities?
3. When they meet with Mary at the MftF, how do Badim and Janus Athena describe the new “structure of feeling” that is emerging?
4. What Navy policy does a Navy veteran argue should be more broadly adopted?
5. At the meeting Mary attends in San Francisco, what does Minister Chan tell her China is ready to do?
Paired Resources
“Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now”
- This accessible Matthew Olzmann poem considers the confusing contradiction between the human love of nature and our actions toward the environment.
- This resource relates to the themes of The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change and Words Versus Actions.
- What point is this poem making about contradictions in human behavior? In The Ministry for the Future, what frustrates some characters about the way elites seem to talk without taking action? Do you think that those who talk about change without taking action are lying, or might have conflicting motives, like the people described in the poem?
“The Right Words Are Crucial to Solving Climate Change”
- This Scientific American article explains how carefully crafted messaging can improve people’s willingness to take action on climate change.
- This resource relates to the themes of The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change and Words Versus Actions.
- What does Hassol argue about crafting language and stories that will motivate action on climate change? Does Robinson acknowledge this difference in The Ministry for the Future? How do you feel about the idea that poorly crafted messaging in our own time might contribute to a future like the one Robinson portrays?
CHAPTERS 86-106
Reading Check
1. What is the answer to the riddle that makes up Chapter 88?
2. What does the refugee in the Swiss camp learn the government will soon issue to all refugees?
3. At the Paris Agreement conference, what does Mary conclude is the real problem behind the continued instability in many countries?
4. Who replaces Mary when she retires from the Ministry?
5. When Mary meets Badim after leaving the Ministry, for what event does she accuse him of being responsible?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What are the people of the Montana town mourning after they vote on the federal government’s plan?
2. When technology as a driver of history is discussed, what theory does the second speaker advance about human intelligence?
3. Why is it particularly painful to Mary that Frank died in Zurich?
4. What moving global event does the Hawaiian surfer and linguist describe?
5. What is Art’s interpretation of what the Ganymede and the eagle statue represents?
Recommended Next Reads
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Another Robinson novel about climate change, New York 2140 is set in a more distant future, when New York City is permanently flooded. The action centers on the residents of a Madison Square apartment building and on what happens when two of them disappear.
- Shared themes include The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change, The Death of Capitalism, and Words Versus Actions.
- Shared topics include speculative fiction, near-future, multiple narrative perspectives, climate justice, economic inequality, climate refugees, political unrest, teamwork and community, ethics, and science and technology.
- New York 2140 on SuperSummary
Termination Shock by Neil Stephenson
- In this sweeping novel set in the near future, characters from around the globe deal with the devastating impacts of climate change. Billionaire T. R. Schmidt has a grand plan to save the Earth, but his solution might actually make Earth’s problems worse.
- Shared themes include The War for Earth: Confronting Climate Change, The Death of Capitalism, and Words Versus Actions.
- Shared topics include speculative fiction, near-future, climate justice, economic inequality, climate refugees, political unrest, teamwork and community, ethics, and science and technology.
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-30
Reading Check
1. The sun (Chapter 2)
2. Science (Chapter 11)
3. Antarctica (Chapter 18)
4. Water from beneath the glaciers (Chapter 22)
5. Mary (Chapter 25)
Short Answer
1. The heat wave in India has been devastating, killing millions of people, and the government feels it must act quickly to lower global temperatures. (Chapter 4)
2. Frank understands that accumulated privilege—his better diet, medical care, and abilities as a swimmer—may have allowed him to survive when the Indians around him were succumbing to the heat. (Chapter 7)
3. They will kill people who contribute to the problem of climate change. (Chapter 13)
4. Edmund is at a party at a beach house, and the partygoers try to remove Frank from the beach because he is disheveled and the sight of him is irritating to them. Frank argues with them and when Edmund mocks him, he hits Edmund with a piece of driftwood hard enough to kill him. (Chapter 21)
5. There is a sense that everything is falling apart, and people feel overwhelmed and afraid. (Chapter 30)
CHAPTERS 31-61
Reading Check
1. The “discount rate” (Chapter 32)
2. Syrine (Chapter 37)
3. A “carbon coin” (Chapter 42)
4. US hegemony/US economic colonialism (Chapter 49)
5. A new religion (Chapter 56)
Short Answer
1. They are concerned that the first “Pinatubo” process is responsible for a shortened monsoon season in India, which impacts India’s ability to grow crops. (Chapter 34)
2. After forcing the attendees to watch films and presentations about the terrible conditions that economic inequality creates, the hostage takers release them with a warning that they will be watching them. (Chapter 39)
3. The narrator compares the market to a living creature that starts off small but consumes everything around it in a state of unchecked growth—even the reader. (Chapter 46)
4. Janus Athena suggests that with this new social media platform, people can use the blockchain to create their own banking system as insulation against a collapse of the current banking system. (Chapter 54)
5. Götterdämmerung Syndrome is part of the “structure of feeling” in the 2030s as the biosphere begins to collapse. It is named for the Wagner opera about Ragnarök, the destruction of the world by its dying gods, and it describes the actions of some privileged people who cope with their own rage and fear by deliberately accelerating the collapse of society. (Chapter 61)
CHAPTERS 62-85
Reading Check
1. In a landslide (Chapter 62)
2. Carbon (Chapter 66)
3. Russia (Chapter 69)
4. Student loans (Chapter 75)
5. A haircut (Chapter 81)
Short Answer
1. Keynes argued that the “rentier” class—those who derive wealth from investments rather than from work—must be “euthanized.” (Chapter 64)
2. It suggests that Piketty taxes targeting corporations’ capital assets might be enough to break corporations into smaller, more easily regulated entities. Direct taxes on activities like burning fossil fuels could eliminate profit from these activities and quickly reduce their prevalence. (Chapter 67)
3. They argue that a new, pro-environmental sense of global citizenship is emerging. (Chapter 71)
4. The veteran argues that the Navy’s salary ratio, which caps the salary differential between ordinary sailors and the highest officers at 1:8, should be a model for a more equitable distribution of salaries between ordinary workers and executives. (Chapter 76)
5. China is ready to transition completely to an economy where things necessary for life are held by citizens in common and all businesses are owned by their employees. (Chapter 84)
CHAPTERS 86-106
Reading Check
1. Herd animals (Chapter 88)
2. Global passports (Chapter 92)
3. American hegemony/American economic colonialism (Chapter 94)
4. Badim (Chapter 98)
5. The bombing at the Ministry (Chapter 104)
Short Answer
1. The government plan they have voted to accept involves relocating the townspeople so that the land the town currently occupies can be turned into a wildlife corridor. They are mourning the loss of their community. (Chapter 87)
2. The second speaker argues that climate change has diminished the nutrients in food and that this might be causing a reduction in human intelligence. (Chapter 90)
3. Zurich has always been a place where Mary can avoid the pain of losing her husband, because she and Martin never visited Zurich together. After Frank dies, Zurich becomes tainted with the memory of Frank’s death. (Chapter 96)
4. He describes a night when people all over the earth celebrated a global Earth Day by simultaneously singing a hymn to the Earth. (Chapter 103)
5. He believes that the man is offering his life to the eagle. Art sees this as symbolic of the new relationship between humans and non-human animals. (Chapter 106)
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