Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [135]
Frank did not do this, but when he strapped on his snowshoes and went for walks, he kept away from the trails and did his best never to be seen.
Work was more problematic. When he sat down in his office, the list of Things To Do sometimes looked like a document in another language. He had to look up acronyms that suddenly seemed new and nonintuitive. OSTP? PITAC? Oh yeah. Office of Science and Technology Policy. Executive branch, a turned agency, an impediment to them. There were so many of those. PITAC: President’s Information Technology Advisory Council. Another advisory body. Anna had a list of over two hundred of them, followed by a list of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) just as long. All calling for some kind of action—from the sidelines. Unfunded. Anna had waved a whole sheaf of lists in her hand, not appalled or angry like Frank had been, more astonished than anything. “There’s so much information out there. And so many organizations!”
“What does it all mean?” Frank had said. “Is it a form of paralysis, a way of pretending?”
Anna nodded. “We know, but we can’t act.”
The phrase, something Diane had once said, haunted him as he tried to get back to work. He knew what should come next for most of the items on his list of Things To Do, but there was no obvious mechanism for action in any case; nor any way to decide which to do first. Call the science and technology center coordinator’s office, and see if the leasing of Torrey Pines Generique’s empty facility was complete. Call Yann, and therefore Marta; put them directly in touch with the carbon drawdown and sequestration team. Talk to Diane and General Wracke about the Gulf Stream project. Check in with the carbon emissions team, see if photovoltaics clearly outperformed mirrors before dropping the mirror funding. Okay but which first?
He decided to talk to Diane. She could not only update him, but advise him on how to prioritize. Tell him what to do.
Again Diane was easier to talk to than anyone else. But after she told him what she had heard from Wracke and the Coast Guard and the International Maritime Organization, all of which seemed to indicate that assembling a transport fleet, loading it and sailing it to the Greenland Sea would be at least physically possible, she shifted to something else with a quick grimace. Their new Inspector General appeared to be on the hunt, and the pattern of his interviews and requests seemed to indicate that Diane herself was his quarry, along with several of the most active members of the National Science Board, including its best contact to National Academy of Science, and the one with the strongest links to the Senate. “I’ve got to meet with OMB and have it out with them,” she said darkly. “Maybe call in the GAO for a cross-check to this guy.”
“Is there any chance he’ll . . .”
“No. I am clean. They are looking at my son’s affairs too. All the program directors; you too, I assume. We will hope for the best. They can twist things that are real, and suddenly you’re in trouble.”
“Oh dear.”
“It’s all right. I can get some help. And the colder it gets this winter, the better for us. People are getting motivated to try something. If it comes out that the Department of Energy is trying to stop us from helping the situation here, they will catch hell. So, the colder the better!”
“Up to a point,” Frank warned.
“True.” She looked over his list. “Talk to your carbon drawdown people, we need to get them to commit to the new institute in San Diego.”
“Okay.” That meant a call to Yann and Marta.
Back in his office, Anna was waiting to discuss their alliances program.