Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [35]
IEE had been heavily involved in designing the diagnostic software used in the climate satellites now beaming down their distressing signals. The project mission, sponsored by the International Earth Information Agency, was to assess the true state of Earth’s health and provide corroborative data for developing international climate-change policies.
They were horrified to find that Earth was far sicker than anyone had previously imagined. They also confirmed that the dreaded tipping point had been reached and crossed. For the first time ever, they could see how an array of negative feedback loops was overwhelming Earth’s fragile immune system—and with it Earth’s ability to automatically adjust and recalibrate to new atmospheric threats. Like a sick child with fever, Earth’s ability to counteract the fever diminished as it got sicker; and as it got sicker, the fever rose in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. The prognosis was bleak.
After breaking for the night at almost eleven o’clock, Jack and his friend Peter Canton, the new Secretary of the Department of Energy, Transportation, and Climate-change, sat down, exhausted, for a cup of coffee.
“What do you think, Pete? When should we go public with this information?”
“It’s frightening, Jack, and it’ll have to be documented, corroborated, and disseminated by the IEIA. But once unveiled, it will be like telling a person who seems perfectly healthy that they have terminal cancer.”
“You’re right about that. I bounced some preliminary stuff off Clayton and even mentioned it to Wang Peng—you remember him, you met at a couple of conferences? His people in China are also coming to the same conclusions.”
Chagrined, Peter asked, “What could we have been thinking? How could we ever have let the climate trajectories get so out of hand that tipping points would be reached?”
Jack sipped his coffee slowly and looked despondently at the wall for an answer.
“The signals were all there. We had the data, and the last two IPCC reports made it abundantly clear that climate-change was anthropogenic and escalating. But the lobbyists and their backers got people to believe that the ‘data wasn’t all in yet,’ and we shouldn’t rush to conclusions. Same stall tactics as the tobacco industry used so effectively to forestall tobacco warnings for years.”
“I agree,” Peter said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. “I remember how disheartened the climate science community was after Copenhagen in 2009. They were pounded for practicing ‘junk science,’ and climate-change was labeled a hoax. To their credit, they learned from it and made a real effort thereafter to take on the naysayers and make their scientific processes more transparent. You could see the pendulum start to swing—after all, we got funding for the satellites we’re listening to now—but by then it was too little and too late.”
“Do you think we could’ve made a difference, Peter, if we’d gotten on it sooner?”
Peter had spent many sleepless nights wondering about this very same thing. He took his time before answering.
“My answer is yes and who knows? Yes, we most definitely would have had a better chance of mitigating climate-change had we not wasted all those years, but who knows if we could have totally prevented it? All I know is we would’ve been far better off if we’d taken the IPCC seriously back at the turn of the century. The irony is that with the Chunxiao thing in full bloom and the president in the hospital, our observations tonight, if known, might only make the second page.”
“Sad but true,” Jack replied with a note of dejection in his voice. “Energy and the environment are integrally related, and you can’t tackle one without addressing the other. In medical terminology, I suppose you’d call energy the acute problem and climate-change the chronic illness, but over time it’ll be the climate issue that’s most likely to do us in and not energy.”
They quietly left the building and walked to their cars. Looking up at the cloudless sky, Peter observed, “It’s funny, Jack, you look up at the stars on this perfect night and wonder