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Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson
01/01/2006 . Source: Pauline Morgan 
pub: Bantam Spectra. 405 page hardback. Price: $25.00 (US), $35.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-80312-3. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.bantamdell.com
Very occasionally something will happen that you feel is so important that you need to tell everyone about your discovery. It is this kind of epiphany in which great movements and religions have their seeds. It may be something seemingly insignificant such as Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person or Paul's visions on the road to Damascus. It may be a book. For some it was 'Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert M. Pirsig, for others it was 'Silent Spring' by Rachel Carson. I would like to put a copies of Kim Stanley Robinson's two books, 'Forty Signs Of Rain' and 'Fifty Degrees Below' into the hands of every politician (especially American) and force them to read them. Perhaps enough would take on board the message and actually do something instead of remaining in a state of denial about what we are doing to our planet.
These books are scary!!!
'Forty Signs Of Rain' was the start of what is intended to be a trilogy revolving around the implications of global warning. Robinson is researching at the cutting edge of knowledge and making uncanny predictions. For those of us that believe in global warming, we know that one of the symptoms is unusual weather patterns. Some of these generate storms. Storms can cause flooding. In 'Forty Signs Of Rain', unusually severe storms hit the Eastern seaboard of America. Washington is flooded. Robinson may have got the city wrong, but the chaos that he describes for Washington was mirrored this summer by scenes in New Orleans.
'Fifty Degrees Below' takes the situation a stage further. Due to the melting of the Arctic ice, the Gulf Stream has stalled. This is a vital part of our weather system. It carries warm water from the tropics northwards across the Atlantic, providing Britain with its temperate climate. Normally, when the warm water meets the cold, Arctic water, the heavier warm water sinks, carrying the colder water with it and then moves south, forming a vast convection current. The melt water is less dense and floats on salt water. The increasing amount of it being produced forms a fresh water cap on the ocean preventing the warm current carrying it downwards. The convection current is stopped. Without the warm water moving north, the criteria for abrupt climate change are met. Signs of abrupt climate change have been found in geological records so it is not an impossible theory. It could take as little as three years. What this will mean is very cold winters in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the real world, the Gulf Stream is slowing down, and this winter has been predicted to be much colder than those we have seen in the last decade. In this novel, it happens. Washington is still the focus of disaster, though the rising sea levels are not forgotten. Frank Vanderwal has decided to stay another year at the National Science Foundation. In the past, the organisation has been largely passive, awarding grants for promising ventures that apply for money. Now it is moving into an active phase with Frank doing a lot of the organising. One project is to try and restart the Gulf Stream by dumping an awful lot of salt into the sea at the point where it should be sinking.
The human characters are small set against the power of the weather. In the same building as the NSF, is an embassy from the small island state of Kembali. The Kembalis are refugees from Tibet who were granted an island in the Indian Ocean as their home. Frank and his colleague, Anne Quibler, have befriended them and they are invited to visit the island. They arrive just as the Monsoon hits. A large amount of rain, run-off from the Indian mainland entering the ocean and high seas combine. The island is actually below sea level, the ocean being held out by a ring of dykes. When the dykes are breached the whole of the island has to be evacuated. The chances of anyone being able to return are slim.
Back in Washington, Frank is homeless. The people he had been renting from have returned to reclaim their apartment. To begin with, he is not worried as he constructs a tree house in Rock Creek park. After the floods, the park was closed to the public. Animals that had been released from the zoo, to give them a chance of survival as the waters rose, still roam the park. Frank joins a group that is monitoring the feral animals, giving him a right to roam the park. Other homeless people also use the park as a base. In many ways, they are as feral as the animals. In the beginning, this lifestyle is fun. Then winter sets in and the snows come. Frank is still content until the night the temperature drops to fifty degrees (Fahrenheit) below freezing and people start dying. Washington, though hard hit, does not suffer as badly as some places in Europe.
At the end of the book, you are left with the unsettling feeling that the conditions described are just around the corner that if we do not act now, Robinson's predictions will become inevitable. If you have any doubts about the truth of global warming, read these books and ask yourself the question, do you want to run the risk of this future? Then go and lobby your government. It may not be too late.
Pauline Morgan
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