Termination Shock

One of Stephenson’s most recent novels, Termination Shock is a present-day story about an eccentric billionaire who takes on climate change. As the former lead energy and transportation economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers who helped craft a lot of the legislation that governs climate change policy today, I’m often annoyed at how often writers are wrong about both the science and the economics of climate change. This novel is one of the more accurate representations of both the urgency and scope of the climate problem that avoids the fearmongering, while still telling a fun adventure story… show more.

What if a gas station billionaire decided to save the planet from oil by using the world’s biggest gun to dim the sun? Oh, and he teamed up with the Queen of the Netherlands and the Captain Ahab of feral hog hunters to do it. I’m a fan of Stephenson’s colorful characters and addictive, page-turning plots. This one is particularly provocative, making a technological case for geoengineering and arguing that the fossil fuel industry is too entrenched to go away overnight. What I enjoyed most, however, was the exploration of the history and geography of real locales: Texas, Punjab, Papua,… show more.