The plane flew back through the dazzling morning light. Sarah was sleeping. Sanjong was working on his laptop. Kenner stared out the window.

Evans said, “All right, what did you disconnect randomly?”

“The cone charges,” Kenner said. “They were laid out in a precise pattern, four hundred meters apart. I disconnected fifty at random, mostly along the eastern end of the line. That will suffice to prevent the standing wave from being generated.”

“So, no iceberg?”

“That’s the idea.”

“And why are we going to Helsinki?”

“We’re not. I only said that for the benefit of the technician. We’re going to Los Angeles.”

“Okay. And why are we going to Los Angeles?”

“Because that’s where the NERF Conference on Abrupt Climate Change is being held.”

“This is all related to the conference?”

Kenner nodded.

“These guys are trying to break off an iceberg to coincide with the conference?”

“Exactly. All part of any good starburst media plan. You arrange an event with good visuals that reinforces the point of the conference.”

“You seem awfully calm about it,” Evans said.

“It’s the way things are done, Peter.” Kenner shrugged. “Environmental concerns don’t come to the public’s attention by accident, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take your favorite fear, global warming. The arrival of global warming was announced dramatically by a prominent climatologist, James Hansen, in 1988. He gave testimony before a joint House and Senate committee headed by Senator Wirth of Colorado. Hearings were scheduled for June, so Hansen could deliver his testimony during a blistering heat wave. It was a setup from the beginning.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” Evans said. “It’s legitimate to use a government hearing as a way to make the public aware—”

“Really? So you’re saying that in your mind, there’s no difference between a government hearing and a press conference?”

“I’m saying hearings have been used that way many times before.”

“True. But it is unquestionably manipulative. And Hansen’s testimony wasn’t the only instance of media manipulation that’s occurred in the course of the global warming sales campaign. Don’t forget the last-minute changes in the 1995 IPCC report.”

“IPCC? What last-minute changes?”

“The UN formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the late 1980s. That’s the IPCC, as you know—a huge group of bureaucrats, and scientists under the thumb of bureaucrats. The idea was that since this was a global problem, the UN would track climate research and issue reports every few years. The first assessment report in 1990 said it would be very difficult to detect a human influence on climate, although everybody was concerned that one might exist. But the 1995 report announced with conviction that there was now ‘a discernable human influence’ on climate. You remember that?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, the claim of ‘a discernable human influence’ was written into the 1995 summary report after the scientists themselves had gone home. Originally, the document said scientists couldn’t detect a human influence on climate for sure, and they didn’t know when they would. They said explicitly, ‘we don’t know.’ That statement was deleted, and replaced with a new statement that a discernable human influence did indeed exist. It was a major change.”

“Is that true?” Evans said.

“Yes. Changing the document caused a stir among scientists at the time, with opponents and defendants of the change coming forward. If you read their claims and counter-claims, you can’t be sure who’s telling the truth. But this is the Internet age. You can find the original documents and the list of changes online and decide for yourself. A review of the actual text changes makes it crystal clear that the IPCC is a political organization, not a scientific one.”

Evans frowned. He wasn’t sure how to answer. He’d heard of the IPCC, of course, although he didn’t know much about it….

“But my question is simpler, Peter. If something is real, if it is a genuine problem that requires action, why does anybody have to exaggerate their claims? Why do there have to be carefully executed media campaigns?”

“I can give you a simple answer,” Evans said. “The media is a crowded marketplace. People are bombarded by thousands of messages every minute. You have to speak loudly—and yes, maybe exaggerate a little—if you want to get their attention. And try to mobilize the entire world to sign the Kyoto treaty.”

“Well, let’s consider that. When Hansen announced in the summer of 1988 that global warming was here, he predicted temperatures would increase .35 degrees Celsius over the next ten years. Do you know what the actual increase was?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me it was less than that.”

“Much less, Peter. Dr. Hansen overestimated by three hundred percent. The actual increase was .11 degrees.”

“Okay. But it did increase.”

And ten years after his testimony, he said that the forces that govern climate change are so poorly understood that long-term prediction is impossible.”

“He did not say that.”

Kenner sighed. “Sanjong?”

Sanjong pecked at his laptop. “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 1998.”^*

“Hansen didn’t say that prediction was impossible.”

“He said quote ‘The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change’ endquote. And he argued that, in the future, scientists should use multiple scenarios to define a range of possible climate outcomes.”

“Well that isn’t exactly—”

“Stop quibbling,” Kenner said. “He said it. Why do you think Balder is worried about his witnesses in the Vanutu case? It’s because of statements like these. However you attempt to reframe it, it’s a clear statement of limited knowledge. And it’s hardly the only one. The IPCC itself made many limiting statements.”†

“But Hansen still believes in global warming.”

“Yes, he does. And his 1988 prediction,” Kenner said, “was wrong by three hundred percent.”

“So what?”

“You are ignoring the implication of an error that large,” Kenner said. “Compare it to other fields. For example, when NASA launched the rocket carrying the Mars Rover, they announced that in two hundred and fifty three days, the Rover would land on the surface of Mars at 8:11 p.m., California time. In fact, it landed at 8:35 p.m. That is an error of a few thousandths of a percent. The NASA people knew what they were talking about.”

“Okay, fine. But there are some things you have to estimate.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Kenner said. “People estimate all the time. They estimate sales, they estimate profits, they estimate delivery dates, they estimate—by the way, do you estimate your taxes for the government?”

“Yes. Quarterly.”

“How accurate does that estimate have to be?”

“Well, there’s no fixed rule—”

“Peter. How accurate, without penalty?”

“Maybe fifteen percent.”

“So if you were off by three hundred percent, you’d pay a penalty?”

“Yes.”

“Hansen was off by three hundred percent.”

“Climate is not a tax return.”

“In the real world of human knowledge,” Kenner said, “to be wrong by three hundred percent is taken as an indication you don’t have a good grasp on what you are estimating. If you got on an airplane and the pilot said it was a three-hour flight, but you arrived in one hour, would you think that pilot was knowledgeable or not?”

Evans sighed. “Climate is more complicated than that.”

“Yes, Peter. Climate is more complicated. It is so complicated that no one has been able to predict future climate with accuracy. Even though billons of dollars are being spent, and hundreds of people are trying all around the world. Why do you resist that uncomfortable truth?”

“Weather prediction is much better,” Evans said. “And that’s because of computers.”

“Yes, weather prediction has improved. But nobody tries to predict weather more than ten days in advance. Whereas computer modelers are predicting what the temperature will be one hundred years in advance. Sometimes a thousand years, three thousand years.”

“And they are doing better.”

“Arguably they aren’t. Look,” Kenner said. “The biggest events in global climate are the El Niños. They happen roughly every four years. But climate models can’t predict them—not their timing, their duration, or their intensity. And if you can’t predict El Niños, the predictive value of your model in other areas is suspect.”

“I heard they can predict El Niños.”

“That was claimed in 1998. But it is not true.”^* Kenner shook his head. “Climate science simply isn’t there yet, Peter. One day it will be. But not now.”