Bud Werner Memorial Library

A speaker at the UN’s COP-26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (November 1-12, 2021), Kim Stanley Robinson is a New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. A science fiction writer known for literary pieces, he is the author of more than 20 books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt and 2312, which was a New York Times bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards—a first for any book.

Among his notable works is an essay recently published in The Financial Times, A climate plan for a world in flames. In 2008, Robinson was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. In 2016 he was given the Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction, and asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.” In 2017 he was given the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. Despite his work in the genre of fiction, The New Yorker has called Robinson “one of the most important political writers working in America today.”

Resources

• Kim Stanley Robinson took the stage at COP26 to discuss how The Ministry for The Future is already here.
• Get acquainted with Kim Stanley Robinson in this insightful September 2021 interview in Time Magazine.
• Listen to Kim Stanley Robinson speak with author and climate change activist Bill McKibben on The New Yorker Radio Hour. 
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. In 2021, The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report addressing "the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations." Their conclusion: Earth is getting hotter, faster; and, "It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land." Read the summary of the most recent IPCC report.
• Ten Strategies for Climate Resilience in the Colorado River Basin: the synopsis, the full report, and graphics to help illustrate and educate for climate action
• Investigate green finance: At the Paris “One Planet Summit” in December 2017, eight central banks and supervisors established the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System  (NGFS). Since then, the membership of the Network has grown dramatically, across the five continents. The Network’s purpose is to help strengthening the global response required to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and to enhance the role of the financial system to manage risks and to mobilize capital for green and low-carbon investments in the broader context of environmentally sustainable development. To this end, the Network defines and promotes best practices to be implemented within and outside of the Membership of the NGFS and conducts or commissions analytical work on green finance.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet: Inside Climate News
• Yale Climate Connections is a nonpartisan, multimedia service providing daily broadcast radio programming and original web-based reporting, commentary, and analysis on the issue of climate change, one of the greatest challenges and stories confronting modern society. Yale Climate Connections aims to help citizens and institutions understand how the changing climate is already affecting our lives. It seeks to help individuals, corporations, media, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, academics, artists, and more learn from each other about constructive “solutions” so many are undertaking to reduce climate-related risks and wasteful energy practices.
• Routt County's Climate Action Plan is available online, or you can check it out in print at the Library.