Forty signs of rain - Kim Stanley Robinson [18]
Whereas with the second one it was as they all said: just try to make sure they don’t eat out of the cat’s dish. Not always successful in Joe’s case. But not to worry. They would survive. They might even prosper. Meanwhile there was the newspaper to read.
But now here they were at the park, Joe and Dad, so might as well make the best of it. And it was true that Joe was more fun to play with than Nick had been at that age. He would chase Charlie for hours, ask to be chased, wrestle, fight, go down the slide and up the steps again like a perpetuum mobile. All this in the middle of a D.C. May day, the air going for a triple-triple, the sun smashing down through the wet air and diffusing until its light exploded out of a huge patch of the zenith. Sweaty gasping play, yes, but never a moment spent coaxing. Never a dull moment.
After another such runaround they sprawled on the grass to eat lunch. Both of them liked this part. Fruit juices, various baby foods carefully spooned out and inserted into Joe’s baby-bird mouth, applesauce likewise, a cheerio or two that he could choke down by himself. He was still mostly a breast-milk guy.
When they were done Joe struggled up to play again.
“Oh God Joe can’t we rest a bit.”
“No!”
Ballasted by his meal, however, he staggered as if drunk. Naptime, as sudden as a blow to the head, would soon fell him.
Charlie’s phone beeped. He slipped in an earplug and let the cord dangle under his face, clicked it on. “Hello.”
“Hi Charlie, where are you?”
“Hey Roy, I’m at the park like always. What’s up?”
“Well, I’ve read your latest draft, and I was wondering if you could discuss some things in it now, because we need to get it over to Senator Winston’s office so they can see what’s coming.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Phil thinks we have to do it.”
“Okay, what do you want to discuss.”
There was a pause while Roy found a place in the draft. “Here we go. Quote, ‘The Congress, being deeply concerned that the lack of speed in America’s conversion from a hydrocarbon to a carbohydrate fuel economy is rapidly leading to chaotic climate changes with a profoundly negative impact on the U.S. economy,’ unquote, we’ve been told that Ellington is only concerned, not deeply concerned. Should we change that?”
“No, we’re deeply concerned. He is too, he just doesn’t know it.”
“Okay, then down in the third paragraph, in the operative clauses, quote, ‘The United States will peg hydrocarbon fuel reductions in a two-to-one ratio to such reductions by China and India, and will provide matching funds for all tidal and wind power plants built in those countries and in all countries that fall under a five in the UN’s prospering countries index, these plants to be operated by a joint-powers agency that will include the United States as a permanent member; four, these provisions will combine with the climate-neutral power production—’”
“Wait, call that ‘power generation.’”
“‘Power generation,’ okay, ‘such that any savings in environmental mitigation in participating countries as determined by IPCC ratings will be credited equally to the U.S. rating, and not less than fifty million dollars per year in savings is to be earmarked specifically for the construction of more such climate-neutral power plants; and not less than fifty million dollars per year in savings is to be earmarked specifically for the construction of so-called “carbon sinks,” meaning any environmental engineering project designed to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide safely, in forests, peat beds, oceans, or other locations—’”
“Yeah, hey you know carbon sinks are so crucial, scrubbing CO2 out of the air may eventually turn out to be our only option, so maybe we should reverse