Rereading: Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Science in the Capital’ trilogy

With the impacts of climate change crashing down upon us daily, I have been thinking a lot about the prescient trilogy written by Kim Stanley Robinson almost 20 years ago. Known as the “Science in the Capital” trilogy, it comprises Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007). I particularly remembered one character living in a treehouse in Rock Creek Park after a flood hit Washington, D.C. but not much else. I’m midway through the second book and enjoying the realistic depiction of the federal bureaucracy, the crazed weather, and the search for solutions. There’s a recurrent tone of sexism that’s not landing quite right however. I’ll post a full review when I finish.

One short passage for you–This description of Senator Phil Chase, a kind of John Kerry wannabe environmental wonk, embodies the characteristics of a successful senator, matching what I saw when I lived in D.C. and covered the Senate:

He was a delegating senator, a hands-off senator. As many of the best of them were. Some senators tried to learn everything, and burned out; others knew almost nothing, and were in effect living campaign posters. Phil was somewhere in the middle. He used his staff well—as an exterior memory bank, if nothing else, but often for much more—for advice, for policy, even occasionally for their accumulated wisdom.