Valerie Reviews Green Earth by Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson has written a sci fi trilogy on climate change that is now in the omnibus Green Earth. For those who want a view of the politics and climate issues as the earth hits the tipping point, this one is imaginative in both the solutions available and story of residents of Washington, DC, living through the new weather-generated issues. Best of all, there are several fine quotes.

Robinson is one of the sci fi genre’s top storytellers, so I leave you to discover the various interwoven plots through your own efforts. However, I was impressed by some of his descriptive views of government as they are similar to the ones I share. Hence, I offer these excerpts from the Kindle version of Green Earth.

“…[I]t has sometimes been fashionable to belittle the American government as some kind of foreign burden laid on us. That attitude is nothing more than an attack on American history, deliberately designed to shift power away from the American people…

“This is the crucial concept of American democracy–that government expresses what the majority would like to do as a society. It’s us. We do it to us and for us.

“…government of the people, for the people and by the people…” [using the words of Lincoln]

Phil Chase, Presidential Inaugural Address, Chapter 22 of Green Earth, at 70% of the Kindle edition.

“…[A]n ounce of law is worth a pound of rhetoric.”

Roy, a staff member for Phil Chase, Chapter 22 of Green Earth, at 70% of Kindle edition.

To get the full depth, ambience, and gestalt of these quotes, do read the book–or at least the entire passages within Chapter 22. You will see that the first set of quotes were originally all in one paragraph. I apologize to CMoS for the incorrect of quotation style, but each phrase is, to me, worthy of separate attention.