There were two white camera trucks parked outside the offices of the Vanutu litigation team. Evans went inside and found workmen setting up lights and changing fluorescent light bulbs in the ceiling. Four different video crews were walking around, inspecting different angles. But nobody was shooting yet.
The offices themselves, he noticed, had been considerably transformed. The graphs and charts on the walls were now much more complicated and technical looking. There were huge, blowup photographs of the Pacific nation of Vanutu, as seen from the air and from the ground. Several featured the erosion of the beaches, and houses leaning at an angle, ready to slide into the water. There was a school picture from the Vanutu school, beautiful brown-skinned kids with smiling faces. In the center of the room, there was a three-dimensional model of the main island, specially lit for cameras.
Jennifer was wearing a skirt and blouse and heels. She looked startlingly beautiful in a dark, mysterious way. Evans noticed that everyone was better dressed than at his first visit; all the researchers were now in jackets and ties. The jeans and T-shirts were gone. And there seemed to be a lot more researchers.
“So,” Evans said, “what is this about?”
“B-roll,” Jennifer said. “We’re shooting B-roll for the stations to use as background and cutaways. And of course we’re making a video press kit as well.”
“But you haven’t announced the lawsuit yet.”
“That happens this afternoon, here outside the warehouse. Press conference at one P.M. You’ll be there, of course?”
“Well, I didn’t—”
“I know John Balder wants you there. Representing George Morton.”
Evans felt uneasy. This could create a political problem for him at the firm. “There are several attorneys more senior than I who handled George’s—”
“Drake specifically asked for you.”
“He did?”
“Something about your involvement in getting the papers signed to finance this suit.”
So that was it, Evans thought. They were putting him on television so he would not be able later to say anything about the gift of ten million dollars to NERF. No doubt they would stick him in the background for the announcement ceremony, maybe make a brief acknowledgment of his presence. Then Drake would say that the ten million was coming, and unless Evans stood up and contradicted him, his silence would be taken as acquiescence. Later, if he developed any qualms, they could say, But you were there, Evans. Why didn’t you speak up then?
“I see,” Evans said.
“You look worried.”
“I am…”
“Let me tell you something,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But you don’t even know—”
“Just listen to me. Don’t worry about it.” She was looking directly into his eyes.
“Okay…”
Of course she meant well, but despite her words, Evans was experiencing an unpleasant, sinking feeling. The police were threatening to issue a warrant for his arrest. The firm was complaining about his absences. Now this effort to force him into silence—by putting him on television.
He said, “Why did you want me here so early?”
“We need you to sit in the hot seat again, as part of our test for jury selection.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t—”
“Yes. You have to. Same thing as before. Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
“You look tired. Let’s get you to hair and makeup.”
Half an hour later he was back in the deposition room, at the end of the long table. There was again a crew of eager young scientific types looking down at him.
“Today,” Jennifer said, “we would like to consider issues of global warming and land use. Are you familiar with this?”
“Only slightly,” Evans said.
Jennifer nodded to one of the researchers at the far end. “Raimundo? Will you give him the background?”
The researcher had a heavy accent, but Evans could follow him. “It is well known,” he said, “that changes in land use will cause changes in average ground temperature. Cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside—what is called the ‘urban heat island’ effect. Croplands are warmer than forested lands, and so on.”
“Uh-huh,” Evans said. Nodding. He hadn’t heard about these land use concepts, but it certainly stood to reason.
Raimundo continued, “A high percentage of weather stations that were out in the countryside forty years ago are now surrounded by concrete and skyscrapers and asphalt and so on. Which makes them register warmer.”
“I understand,” Evans said. He glanced away, through the glass wall. He saw film crews moving around the warehouse, shooting various things. He hoped the crews wouldn’t come in. He didn’t want to sound stupid in front of them.
“These facts,” Raimundo said, “are well known within the field. So researchers take the raw temperature data from stations near cities and reduce them by some amount to compensate for the urban heat island effect.”
Evans said, “And how is this reduction calculated?”
“Different ways, depending on who does it. But most algorithms are based on population size. The larger the population, the greater the reduction.”
Evans shrugged. “That sounds like the right way to do it.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, “it probably isn’t. Do you know about Vienna? It was studied by Bohm a few years back. Vienna has had no increase in population since 1950, but it has more than doubled its energy use and increased living space substantially. The urban heat island effect has increased, but the calculated reduction is unchanged, because it only looks at population change.”*
“So the heating from cities is being underestimated?” Evans said.
“It’s worse than that,” Jennifer said. “It used to be assumed that urban heating was unimportant because the urban heat island effect was only a fraction of total warming. The planet warmed about .3 degrees Celsius in the last thirty years. Cities are typically assumed to have heated by around .1 degree Celsius.”
“Yes? So?”
“So those assumptions are wrong. The Chinese report that Shanghai warmed 1 degree Celsius in the last twenty years alone.† That’s more than the total global warming of the planet in the last hundred years. And Shanghai is not unique. Houston increased .8 degrees Celsius in the last twelve years.‡ Cities in South Korea are heating rapidly.* Manchester, England, is now 8 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside.† Even small towns are much hotter than the surrounding areas.”
Jennifer reached for her charts. “Anyway,” she said, “the point is that the graphs you see are not raw data. They have already been adjusted with fudge factors to compensate for urban heating. But probably not enough.”
At that moment, the door opened and one of the four video crews came in, their camera light shining. Without hesitation, Jennifer reached for some charts, and brought them up. She whispered, “B-roll is silent, so we need to be active and provide visuals.”
She turned toward the camera and said, “Let me show you some examples of weather station data. Here, for instance, is a record of the average temperature for Pasadena since 1930.”‡
Pasadena, CA 1930–2000
“As you see,” Jennifer said, “a dramatic rise in temperature. And here is Berkeley since 1930.”
Berkeley, CA 1930–2000
“A surprisingly incomplete record. But we are using raw data, so you can see missing years. And you see a clear warming trend. Indisputable, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I would,” Evans said, thinking that it wasn’t much of a trend—less than a degree.
“Now, here is Death Valley, one of the hottest, driest places on Earth. No urbanization has occurred here. Again, missing years.”
Death Valley, CA 1933–2000
Evans said nothing. It must be an anomaly, he thought. Jennifer put up more graphs:
McGill, NV 1930–2000
Guthrie, OK 1930–2000
“These are stations from the Nevada desert and the Oklahoma plains,” she said. “They show temperatures that are flat, or declining. And not only rural areas. Here is Boulder, Colorado. It’s only of interest because NCAR is located there—the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where so much global warming research is done.”
Boulder, CO 1930–1997
“Here are some more small cities. Truman, Missouri, where the buck stops…”
Truman, MO 1931–2000
Greenville, SC 1930–2000
Ann Arbor, MI 1930–2000
Evans said, “Well, you have to admit, it’s not very dramatic.”
“I’m not sure what you consider dramatic. Truman has gotten colder by 2.5 degrees, Greenville by 1.5 degrees, Ann Arbor by one degree since1930. If the globe is warming, these places have been left out.”
“Let’s look at some bigger places,” Evans said, “like Charleston.”
“I happen to have Charleston.” She thumbed through her graphs.
Charleston, SC 1930–2000
Evans said, “So, a bigger city gets warmer. What about New York?” “I have several records from New York, city and state.”
New York, NY 1930–2000
Syracuse, NY 1930–2000
Albany, NY 1930–2000
Oswego, NY 1930–2000
“As you see,” Jennifer said, “New York City is warmer, but many other parts of the state, from Oswego to Albany, have become colder since 1930.”
Evans was acutely aware of the cameras on him. He nodded in what he hoped was a judicious, thoughtful manner and said, “And where does this data come from?”
“From the Historical Climatology Network data set,” she said. “It’s a government dataset, maintained at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.”
“Well,” Evans said. “It’s quite interesting. However, I’d like to see the data from Europe and Asia. This is, after all, a global phenomenon.”
“Certainly,” Jennifer said. She, too, was playing to the cameras. “But before we do that, I’d like your reaction to the data so far. As you can see, many places in the United States do not seem to have become warmer since 1930.”
“I’m sure you cherry-picked your data,” Evans said.
“To some degree. As we can be sure the defense will do.”
“But the results do not surprise me,” Evans said. “Weather varies locally. It always has and always will.” A thought occurred to him. “By the way, why are all these graphs since 1930? Temperature records go much further back than that.”
“Your point is well taken,” Jennifer said, nodding. “It definitely makes a difference how far back you go. For example…”
West Point, NY 1931–2000
“Here is West Point, New York, from 1931 to 2000. Trending down. And…”
West Point, NY 1900–2000
“Here is West Point from 1900 to 2000. This time the trend is up, not down.”
“Ah-ha,” Evans said. “So you were massaging the data. You picked the interval of years that made you look good!”
“Absolutely,” Jennifer said, nodding. “But the trick only works because temperatures in many parts of the US were warmer in the 1930s than they are today.”
“It’s still a trick.”
“Yes, it is. The defense will not miss the opportunity to show the jury numerous examples of this trick from environmental fund-raising literature. Selecting specific years that appear to show things are getting worse.”
Evans registered her insult to environmental groups. “In that case,” he said, “let’s not permit any tricks at all. Use the full and complete temperature record. How far back does it go?”
“At West Point, back to 1826.”
“Okay. Then suppose you use that?” Evans felt confident proposing this, because it was well known that a worldwide warming trend had begun at about 1850. Every place in the world had gotten warmer since then, and the graph from West Point would reflect that.
Jennifer seemed to know it too, because she suddenly appeared very hesitant, turning away, thumbing through her stack of graphs, frowning as if she couldn’t find it.
“You don’t have that particular graph, do you?” Evans said.
“No, no. Believe me, I have it. Yes. Here.” And then she pulled it out.
West Point, NY 1826–2000
Evans took one look and saw that she had sandbagged him.
“As you predicted, this graph is quite telling,” she said. “For the last one hundred seventy-four years, there has been no change in the average temperature at West Point. It was 51 degrees Fahrenheit in 1826, and it is 51 degrees in 2000.”
“But that’s just one record,” Evans said, recovering quickly. “One of many. One of hundreds. Thousands.”
“You’re saying that other records will show other trends?”
“I’m sure they will. Especially using the full record from 1826.”
“And you are correct,” she said. “Different records do show different trends.”
Evans sat back, satisfied with himself. Hands crossed over his chest.
New York, NY 1822–2000
“New York City, a rise of 5 degrees Fahrenheit in a hundred seventy-eight years.”
Albany, NY 1820–2000
“Albany, a decline of half a degree in a hundred eighty years.”
Evans shrugged. “Local variations, as I said before.”
“But I wonder,” Jennifer said, “how these local variations fit into a theory of global warming. As I understand it, global warming is caused by an increase in so-called greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and prevent it from escaping into space. Is that your understanding?”
“Yes,” Evans said, grateful he did not have to summon a definition on his own.
“So, according to the theory,” Jennifer said, “the atmosphere itself gets warmer, just as it would inside a greenhouse?”
“Yes.”
“And these greenhouse gases affect the entire planet.”
“Yes.”
“And we know that carbon dioxide—the gas we all worry about—has increased the same amount everywhere in the world…” She pulled out another graph:*
CO2 Levels, 1957–2002
“Yes…”
“And its effect is presumably the same everywhere in the world. That’s why it’s called global warming.”
“Yes…”
“But New York and Albany are only a hundred forty miles apart. You can drive between them in three hours. Their carbon dioxide levels are identical. Yet one got a lot warmer and the other got slightly colder. Is that evidence for global warming?”
“Weather is local,” Evans said. “Some places are warmer or colder than others. And always will be.”
“But we are talking about climate, not weather. Climate is weather over a long time period.”
“Yes…”
“So I would agree with you if both locations got warmer, albeit by different amounts. But here, one got warmer and one got colder. And as we saw, West Point—which is midway between them—remained unchanged.”
Evans said, “I think the theory of global warming predicts that some places will get colder.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“I’m not sure, but I read it somewhere.”
“The Earth’s entire atmosphere warms, and as a result some places get colder?”
“I believe so.”
“As you think about it now, does that claim make sense to you?”
“No,” Evans said, “but you know, climate is a complex system.”
“Which means what, to you?”
“It means it’s, uh, complicated. It doesn’t always behave the way you think it will.”
“That’s certainly true,” Jennifer said. “But going back to New York and Albany. The fact that these two locations are so close, yet their temperature records are so different, could lead a jury to wonder whether we’re really measuring something other than a global effect. You would agree that in the last hundred eighty-five years, New York has grown to a city of eight million, whereas Albany has grown much less?”
“Yes,” Evans said.
“And we know that the urban heat island effect makes cities hotter than the surrounding countryside.”
“Yes…”
“And this urban heat effect is a local effect, unrelated to global warming?”
“Yes…”
“So, tell me: how do you know that the dramatic increase in temperature in New York is caused by global warming, and not just from an excess of concrete and skyscrapers?”
“Well.” Evans hesitated. “I don’t know the answer to that. But I assume it is known.”
“Because if cities like New York become larger and hotter than they were before, they will raise the average global temperature, will they not?”
“I assume they will.”
“In which case, as cities expand all around the world, we might see an increase in average ground temperature simply because of urbanization. Without any global atmospheric effect at all.”
“I am sure the scientists have thought of that already,” Evans said. “I’m sure they can answer that.”
“Yes, they can. Their answer is that they have subtracted a factor from the raw data to compensate for the urban heat effect.”
“Well, there you are.”
“Excuse me? Mr. Evans, you’re a lawyer. Surely you are aware of the extraordinary efforts that are made in a lawsuit to be certain the evidence is untainted.”
“Yes, but—”
“You don’t want anybody to be able to change it.”
“Yes…”
“But in this case, the evidence is the raw temperature data. And it is tainted by the very scientists who claim global warming is a worldwide crisis.”
“Tainted? It’s adjusted downward.”
“But the question the defense will ask is, have they adjusted downward enough?”
“I don’t know,” Evans said, “this is getting very specialized and nitpicky.”
“Hardly. It’s a core issue. Urbanization versus greenhouse gases as the cause of the increased average surface temperature. And the defense will have a good argument on their side,” Jennifer said. “As I said before, several recent studies suggest the reduction for urban bias has, in fact, been too small.* At least one study suggests that half of the observed temperature change comes from land use alone. If that’s true, then global warming in the past century is less than three tenths of a degree. Not exactly a crisis.”
Evans said nothing. He tried to look intelligent for the cameras.
“Of course,” Jennifer continued, “that study can be debated, too. But the point remains: as soon as anybody adjusts the data, they open themselves to the claim that their adjustment was incorrect. That’s better ground for the defense. And the larger point the defense will make is that we have allowed the data to be adjusted by the very people who have the most to gain from that adjustment.”
“You’re saying that climate scientists are unethical?”
“I’m saying it is never a good policy for the fox to guard the hen house. Such procedures are never allowed in medicine, for example, where double-blind experimental designs are required.”
“So you’re saying climate scientists are unethical.”
“No, I’m saying that there are good reasons why double-blind procedures are instituted. Look: Every scientist has some idea of how his experiment is going to turn out. Otherwise he wouldn’t do the experiment in the first place. He has an expectation. But expectation works in mysterious ways—and totally unconsciously. Do you know any of the studies of scientific bias?”
“No.” Evans shook his head.
“Okay. Simple example. A group of genetically identical rats are sent to two different labs for testing. One lab is told that the rats were bred for intelligence and will run a maze faster than normal. The other lab is told that the rats are dumb and will run a maze slowly. Results come back—faster in one lab, slower in the other. Yet the rats are genetically identical.”
“Okay, so they fudged.”
“They said they didn’t. Anyway, there’s much more,” she said. “Next example. A group of survey takers are told, Look, we know that pollsters can influence results in subtle ways. We want to avoid that. So you knock on the door, and the minute someone answers you start reading only what is on this card: ‘Hello, I am doing a survey, and I am reading from this card in order not to influence you…et cetera.’ The poll takers say nothing except what is on the card. One group of pollsters is told, this questionnaire will get seventy percent positive answers. They tell another group, you can expect thirty percent positive answers. Identical questionnaires. The results come back—seventy and thirty.”
“How?” Evans said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “All that matters is that hundreds of studies prove again and again that expectations determine outcome. People find what they think they’ll find. That’s the reason for ‘double-blind’ experiments. To eliminate bias, the experiment is divided up among different people who do not know each other. The people who prepare the experiment do not know the people who conduct the experiment or the people who analyze the results. These groups never communicate in any way. Their spouses and children never meet. The groups are in different universities and preferably in different countries. That’s how new drugs are tested. Because that’s the only way to prevent bias from creeping in.”
“Okay…”
“So now we’re talking about temperature data. It has to be adjusted in all kinds of ways. Not just for urban heat bias. Lots of other things. Stations move. They upgrade, and the new equipment may read hotter or colder than before. The equipment malfunctions and you have to decide whether to throw out certain data. You deal with lots of judgment calls in putting together the temperature record. And that’s where the bias creeps in. Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“You don’t know,” Jennifer said, “but whenever you have one team doing all the jobs, then you’re at risk for bias. If one team makes a model and also tests it and also analyzes the results, those results are at risk. They just are.”
“So the temperature data are no good?”
“The temperature data are suspect. A decent attorney will tear them apart. To defend them, what we intend to do is—”
Abruptly, the camera crew got up and left the room. Jennifer rested her hand on his arm. “Don’t worry about any of that, the footage they shot was without sound. I just wanted it to look like a lively discussion.”
“I feel foolish.”
“You looked good. That’s all that matters for TV.”
“No,” he said, leaning closer to her. “I mean, when I gave those answers, I wasn’t saying what I really think. I’m, uh…I’m asking some—I’m changing my mind about a lot of this stuff.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said, speaking quietly. “Those graphs of temperature, for instance. They raise obvious questions about the validity of global warming.”
She nodded slowly. Looking at him closely.
He said, “You, too?”
She continued to nod.
They lunched at the same Mexican restaurant as before. It was almost empty, as before; the same Sony film editors laughing at the corner table. They must come here every day, Evans thought.
But somehow everything was different, and not just because his body ached and he was on the verge of falling asleep any moment. Evans felt as if he had become a different person. And their relationship was different, too.
Jennifer ate quietly, not saying much. Evans had the sense she was waiting for him.
After a while, he said, “You know, it would be crazy to imagine that global warming wasn’t a real phenomenon.”
“Crazy,” she said, nodding.
“I mean, the whole world believes it.”
“Yes,” she said. “The whole world does. But in that war room, we think only about the jury. And the defense will have a field day with the jury.”
“You mean, the example you told me?”
“Oh, it’s much worse than that. We expect the defense to argue like this: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you’ve all heard the claim that something called ‘global warming’ is occurring because of an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But what you haven’t been told is that carbon dioxide has increased by only a tiny amount. They’ll show you a graph of increasing carbon dioxide that looks like the slope of Mount Everest. But here’s the reality. Carbon dioxide has increased from 316 parts per million to 376 parts per million. Sixty parts per million is the total increase. Now, that’s such a small change in our entire atmosphere that it is hard to imagine. How can we visualize that?”
Jennifer sat back, swung her hand wide. “Next, they’ll bring out a chart showing a football field. And they’ll say, Imagine the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere as a football field. Most of the atmosphere is nitrogen. So, starting from the goal line, nitrogen takes you all the way to the seventy-eight-yard line. And most of what’s left is oxygen. Oxygen takes you to the ninety-nine-yard line. Only one yard to go. But most of what remains is the inert gas argon. Argon brings you within three and a half inches of the goal line. That’s pretty much the thickness of the chalk stripe, folks. And how much of that remaining three inches is carbon dioxide? One inch. That’s how much CO2 we have in our atmosphere. One inch in a hundred-yard football field.”
She paused dramatically, then continued. “Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said, “you are told that carbon dioxide has increased in the last fifty years. Do you know how much it has increased, on our football field? It has increased by three-eighths of an inch—less than the thickness of a pencil. It’s a lot more carbon dioxide, but it’s a minuscule change in our total atmosphere. Yet you are asked to believe that this tiny change has driven the entire planet into a dangerous warming pattern.”
Evans said, “But that’s easily answered—”
“Wait,” she said. “They’re not done. First, raise doubts. Then, offer alternative explanations. So, now they take out that temperature chart for New York City that you saw before. A five-degree increase since 1815. And they say, back in 1815 the population of New York was a hundred twenty thousand. Today it’s eight million. The city has grown by six thousand percent. To say nothing of all those skyscrapers and air-conditioning and concrete. Now, I ask you. Is it reasonable to believe that a city that has grown by six thousand percent is hotter because of a tiny increase in little old carbon dioxide around the world? Or is it hotter because it is now much, much bigger?”
She sat back in her chair.
“But it’s easy to counter that argument,” Evans said. “There are many examples of small things that produce big effects. A trigger represents a small part of a gun, but it’s enough to fire it. And anyway, the preponderance of the evidence—”
“Peter,” she said, shaking her head. “If you were on the jury and you were asked that question about New York City, what would you conclude? Global warming or too much concrete? What do you think, anyway?”
“I think it’s probably hotter because it’s a big city.”
“Right.”
“But you still have the sea-level argument.”
“Unfortunately,” she said, “the sea levels at Vanutu are not significantly elevated. Depending on the database, either they’re flat or they’ve increased by forty millimeters. Half an inch in thirty years. Almost nothing.”
“Then you can’t possibly win this case,” Evans said.
“Exactly,” she said. “Although I have to say your trigger argument is a nice one.”
“If you can’t win,” Evans said, “then what is this press conference about?”
“Thank you all for coming,” John Balder said, stepping up to a cluster of microphones outside the offices. Photographers’ strobes flashed. “I am John Balder, and standing with me is Nicholas Drake, the president of the National Environmental Resource Fund. Here also is Jennifer Haynes, my lead counsel, and Peter Evans, of the law firm of Hassle and Black. Together we are announcing that we will be filing a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States on behalf of the island nation of Vanutu, in the Pacific.”
Standing in the back, Peter Evans started to bite his lip, then thought better of it. No reason to make a facial expression that might be construed as nervous.
“The impoverished people of Vanutu,” Balder said, “stand to become even more impoverished by the greatest environmental threat of our times, global warming, and the danger of abrupt climate changes that will surely follow.”
Evans recalled that just a few days before, Drake had called abrupt climate change a possibility on the horizon. Now it had been transformed into a certainty in less than a week.
Balder spoke in vivid terms about how the people of Vanutu were being flooded out of their ancestral homeland, emphasizing the tragedy of young children whose heritage was washing away in raging surf caused by a callous industrial giant to the north.
“It is a matter of justice for the people of Vanutu, and of the future of the entire world now threatened by abrupt weather, that we’re announcing this lawsuit today.”
Then he opened the floor to questions.
The first one was, “When exactly are you filing this lawsuit?”
“The issue is technically complex,” Balder said. “Right now, we have in our offices forty research scientists working on our behalf day and night. When they have finished their labors, we will make our filing for injunctive relief.”
“Where will you file?”
“In Los Angeles federal district court.”
“What damages are you asking?” another said.
“What is the administration’s response?”
“Will the court hear it?”
The questions were coming quickly now, and Balder was in his element. Evans glanced over at Jennifer, standing on the other side of the podium. She tapped her watch. Evans nodded, then looked at his own watch, made a face, and exited the podium. Jennifer was right behind him.
They went inside the warehouse and past the guards.
And Evans stared in amazement.