RaveSalonThere are four basic ways coastal communities can respond to sea-level rise: suffering damage, developing protective infrastructure, finding ways of accommodating flooding and retreating from the coast. Robinson’s New Yorkers engage in all four – and Robinson’s vision of accommodation is profoundly richer than in the imaginings of adaptation strategies developed by national, state and local governments ...Science tells us that, by reshaping our global energy and agricultural systems, we can avoid the magnitude of planetary change that Robinson depicts. But to make those changes and to adapt to the changes we don’t avoid, the world’s best minds need to focus, not on new apps or financial innovations, but on the civilizational challenges at hand. Works like Robinson’s – starkly beautiful and fundamentally optimistic visions of technological and social change in the face of some of the worst devastation we might bring upon ourselves – can inspire that focus in a way that myopic discussions of the near term or grim, apocalyptic tales cannot.
