Forty Signs of Rain

Dr. Vaibhav Anil Aidale, Asst. Professor
S.P. Jain College, Pabal.

If you want to visualize the vicissitudes of climate and humans’ un-altruistic adaptations to these anthropogenic changes by trampling down the Ecobuddhist dictums such as non-self, interdependence, interconnectedness, biophilic mutuality, egalitarianism, coevolution and compassion, loiter in the realm of the novel Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson. The novel will acquaint you with the world of scientists and their efforts to mitigate global warming as well as the impending ecological cataclysm. It contains ten chapters, each begins with some sort of scientific explorations pertaining to the nonchalance of humans, anthropocentric arrogance and entailing degradation of the environment. It reflects on the scientific efforts such as artificial photosynthesis to resolve the issue of excessive CO2 in the atmosphere. The scientist characters in the novel opines that by augmenting the productions of lichens and lignins in the tree trunk we can seize the excessive CO2 from the atmosphere. It throws light on hypernino, thermohalin circulation, albedo effect and Coriolis force etc. geographical terms. K.S. Robinson’s characteristics as a writer makes him stand apart from the rest of the other sci-fi and cli-fi novelists. He is distinctive in the sense that he possesses utopian optimism in the face of ecological derangement. Another distinctive trait is that he does not attribute utterly the loss of the ecosystem on to the boom in the science and technology rather he promotes the use of science and technology to resolve ecological problems. He insists on the use of renewable sources of energy. He opines that there should be a synergy of scientific organizations across the world to provide economic support to the researches of the scientists in the field of global warming mitigation. In his novels he depicts the scientific ways to tackle the issues of the environment such as measuring the ecological footprints of all the organizations. His novel Forty Signs of Rain is a part of the trilogy entitled Science in the Capital. The novel portrays a world of scientists containing the central characters like Anna Quibbler, the head of the bioinformatics Division at NSF; Charlie Quibler, husband of Anna who helps his wife in bringing up their children and doing household chores. He is a climate adviser to Senator Phil Chase. He drafts a comprehensive Climate Bill to be presented in the Senate meeting and is solicitous about the bill to get it sanctioned. The Bill aims to apprise the members of the Congress about the magnitude of global warming and exigent urgency to curb the emissions of CO2 and greenhouse gases. The novel delineates the characters like Frank Vanderwal, a bio-mathematician; Leo Mulhouse and Diane Chang who are shown busy in doing scientific research all the time.
The novel deals with the scientific explorations in the field of global warming mitigation and efforts of the scientists to combat the imminent eco-disasters. It reflects on the ethics of using animals as subjects to carry out experiments. It envisions a nation namely, Khembalung where Buddhist monks are trying to protect their region from the inundation caused by global warming. It discusses the need of using religions not to be triumphant in the elections but to promulgate the eco-theological principles to restore the loftiness of the environment. In a nutshell, the novel is worth reading in order to reflect on the ideas of ecobuddhism, ecomasculinism, ecopolitics, animality, environmental ethics and use of science and technology etc.