Climate Fiction and Scientific Authority: Governance and Crisis in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capital Trilogy

Abstract

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capital trilogy enunciates the relationship between scientific practice and climate governance during a period of rapid, disruptive climate change. This research paper analyses how Robinson places the United States National Science Foundation at the centre of the story, a site where empirical climate research and government decision-making converge, challenging the assumption that climate science stands apart from public and civic life. Through the professional and personal change endured by protagonist Frank Vanderwal, the trilogy marks a movement from detached observation to engaged responsibility for the warming world around him. Engaging Greg Garrard’s ecocriticism and Dipesh Chakrabarty’s account of planetary history, this research paper argues that Robinson’s climate fiction proposes practical, effective steps toward ecological restoration rather than apocalyptic misery. The paper further considers the trilogy’s witty resolution, its Buddhist and Transcendentalist resonances, its critique of economic short-sightedness and its treatment of extreme weather as a marker of climate disruption. In due course, the trilogy offers a hopeful, climate-response account of how a government might act on unanticipated climate change.