Sarah felt relieved when Jennifer Haynes went to the front of the cabin to take a nap, falling instantly asleep. But she found it awkward to have Ann and Ted onboard. Conversation in the cabin was stilted; Kenner was not saying much. Ted was drinking heavily. He said to Ann, “Just so you know, Mr. Kenner doesn’t believe in anything that normal people believe in. Not even global warming. Or Kyoto.”
“Of course he doesn’t believe in Kyoto,” Ann said. “He’s an industry hit man. Representing coal and oil interests.”
Kenner said nothing. He just handed her his card.
“Institute for Risk Analysis,” Ann read aloud. “That’s a new one. I’ll add it to the list of phony right-wing fronts.”
Kenner said nothing.
“Because it’s all disinformation,” Ann said. “The studies, the press releases, the flyers, websites, the organized campaigns, the big-money smears. Let me tell you, industry was thrilled when the US didn’t sign Kyoto.”
Kenner rubbed his chin, and said nothing.
Ann said, “We’re the world’s largest polluter, and our government doesn’t give a damn.”
Kenner smiled blandly.
“So now the United States is an international pariah, isolated from the rest of the world and justifiably despised because we failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol to attack a global problem.”
She continued to goad him in this way, and finally, it seemed, he had had enough. “Tell me about Kyoto, Ann,” he said. “Why should we have signed it?”
“Why? Because we have a moral obligation to join the rest of the civilized world in reducing carbon emissions to below 1990 levels.”
“What effect would that treaty have?”
“The whole world knows that. It would reduce global temperatures in the year 2100.”
“By how much?”
“I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“Don’t you? The answer is well known. The effect of Kyoto would be to reduce warming by .04 degrees Celsius in the year 2100. Four hundredths of a degree. Do you dispute that outcome?”
“I certainly do. Four what? Hundredths of a degree? That’s ridiculous.”
“So you don’t believe that would be the effect of the Kyoto Protocol?”
“Well, maybe because the United States didn’t sign it—”
“No, that would be the effect if we did sign it. Four hundredths of a degree.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe that’s true.”
“The figure has been published a number of times in scientific journals. I can give you the references.”*
Raising his glass, Bradley said to Ann, “This guy is real big on references.”
“As opposed to rhetoric,” Kenner said, nodding. “Yes. I am.”
Bradley belched. “Four hundredths of a degree? In a hundred years? What a bunch of bullshit.”
“One could say so.”
“I just did,” Bradley said.
“But Kyoto’s a first step,” Ann said, “that’s the point. Because if you believe in the precautionary principle, as I do—”
“I didn’t think the purpose of Kyoto was to take a first step,” Kenner said. “I thought the purpose was to reduce global warming.”
“Well, it is.”
“Then why make a treaty that won’t accomplish that? That won’t, in effect, do anything at all?”
“It’s a first step, as I said.”
“Tell me: do you think it’s possible to reduce carbon dioxide?”
“Of course. There are a host of alternative energy sources just waiting to be adopted. Wind power, solar, waste, geothermal—”
“Tom Wigley and a panel of seventeen scientists and engineers from around the world made a careful study and concluded it is not possible. Their paper was published in Science. They said there is no known technology capable of reducing carbon emissions, or even holding them to levels many times higher than today. They conclude that wind, solar, and even nuclear power will not be sufficient to solve the problem. They say totally new and undiscovered technology is required.”*
“That’s crazy,” Ann said. “Amory Lovins laid it all out twenty years ago. Wind and solar, conservation, energy efficiency. There’s no problem.”
“Apparently there is. Lovins predicted that thirty-five percent of US power would come from alternative energy by the year 2000. The actual figure turned out to be six percent.”
“Not enough subsidies.”
“No country in the world produces thirty-five percent renewable energy, Ann.”
“But countries like Japan do much better than we do.”
Kenner said, “Japan is five percent renewable. Germany is five percent. England two percent.”
“Denmark.”
“Eight percent.”
“Well,” she said, “it just means we have more work to do.”
“No question about that. Wind farms chop birds to pieces, so they might not be so popular. But solar panels would work. Silent, efficient…”
“Solar is great,” she said.
“Yes,” Kenner said. “And all we need is about twenty-seven thousand square kilometers of panels to do the job. Just cover the state of Massachusetts with solar panels and we’d be done. Of course by 2050 our energy needs will triple, so maybe New York would be a better choice.”
“Or Texas. Nobody I know cares about Texas,” Ann said.
“Well, there you are,” Kenner said. “Cover ten percent of Texas, and you’re in business. Although,” he added, “Texans would probably prefer to cover Los Angeles first.”
“You’re making a joke.”
“Not at all. Let’s settle on Nevada. It’s all desert anyway. But I’m curious to hear about your personal experience with alternative energy. What about you yourself, Ann? Have you adopted alternative sources?”
“Yes. I have solar heating for my swimming pool. The maid drives a hybrid.”
“What do you drive?”
“Well, I need a bigger car for the kids.”
“How big?”
“Well, I drive an SUV. Sometimes.”
“What about your residence? You have solar panels for your electricity?”
“Well, I had consultants come to the house. Only, Jerry—my husband—says it’s too expensive to install. But I’m working on him.”
“And your appliances…”
“Every single one is Energystar. Every one.”
“That’s good. And how large is your family?”
“I have two boys. Seven and nine.”
“Wonderful. How big is your house?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“How many square feet?”
She hesitated.
“Ah hell, tell him, Ann,” Bradley said. “She has a huge fucking house. Must be ten, fifteen thousand square feet. Absolutely beautiful. And the grounds! Got to be an acre, acre and a half. Sprinklers going day and night. And such gorgeous landscaping—she has fund-raisers there all the time. Always wonderful events.”
Kenner looked at her.
“Twelve thousand,” Ann said. “Square feet.”
“For four people?” Kenner said.
“Well, my mother-in-law lives with us, sometimes. And of course the maid in the back.”
“And do you have a second home?” Kenner said.
“Shit, she’s got two,” Bradley said. “Got a fabulous place in Aspen, and a great house in Maine as well.”
“That we inherited,” Ann said. “My husband—”
“And that apartment in London,” Bradley said, “is that yours or your husband’s company or what?”
“The company.”
Kenner said, “How about travel? You use private jets?”
“Well, I mean we don’t own one, but we catch rides, whatever. We go when people are going anyway. We fill the plane up. Which is a good thing.”
“Of course,” Kenner said. “But I must admit I’m a little confused about the philosophy—”
“Hey,” she said, suddenly angry. “I live in a milieu where I have to keep up a certain standard. It’s necessary for my husband’s business, and—anyway, where do you live?”
“I have an apartment in Cambridge.”
“How big?”
“Nine hundred square feet. I do not own a car. I fly coach.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“I think you’d better,” Bradley said. “This guy knows what he’s—”
“Shut up, Ted,” Ann said. “You’re drunk.”
“Not yet, I’m not,” he said, looking wounded.
“I’m not judging you, Ann,” Kenner said quietly. “I know you’re a dedicated advocate. I’m just trying to figure out what your real position is on the environment.”
“My position is human beings are heating the planet and poisoning the planet and we have a moral obligation to the biosphere—to all the plants and animals that are being destroyed, and to the unborn generations of human beings—to keep these catastrophic changes from taking place.” She sat back, nodding her head.
“So our moral obligation is to others—other plants, animals, and other people.”
“Exactly.”
“We need to do what is in their interest?”
“What is in the interest of all of us.”
“Conceivably their interest is not the same as ours. Conflict of interest is the usual case.”
“Every creature has a right to live on the planet.”
“Surely you don’t believe that,” Kenner said.
“I do. I’m not speciesist. Every living creature.”
“Even the malaria parasite?”
“Well, it is part of nature.”
“Then do you oppose the elimination of polio and smallpox? They were part of nature, too.”
“Well, I would have to say it’s part of the arrogant pattern of mankind, changing the world to suit his purposes. A testosterone-driven impulse, not shared by women—”
“You didn’t answer me,” Kenner said. “Do you oppose the elimination of polio and smallpox?”
“You’re playing with words.”
“Hardly. Is changing the world to suit one’s purposes unnatural?”
“Of course. It is interfering with nature.”
“Ever seen a termite mound? A beaver dam? Those creatures change the environment dramatically, affecting many other creatures. Are they interfering with nature?”
“The world is not in danger,” she said, “from termite mounds.”
“Arguably it is. The total weight of termites exceeds the total weight of all the humans in the world. A thousand times greater, in fact. Do you know how much methane termites produce? And methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.”
“I can’t continue this,” Ann said. “You enjoy arguing. I don’t. I just want to make the world a better place. I’m going to go read a magazine now.” She went to the front of the plane and sat down, her back to Kenner.
Sarah stayed where she was. “Her intentions are good,” she said.
“And her information is bad,” Kenner said. “A prescription for disaster.”
Ted Bradley roused himself. He had watched the debate between Kenner and Ann. He liked Ann. He was pretty sure he had gone to bed with her; when he was drinking, he sometimes couldn’t remember, but he had a vaguely fond memory of Ann, and he assumed that was the reason for it.
“I think you’re being harsh,” Bradley said, in his presidential tone. “Why should you call someone like Ann ‘a prescription for disaster?’ She cares very much about these issues. She has devoted her life to them, really. She cares.”
“So what?” Kenner said. “Caring is irrelevant. Desire to do good is irrelevant. All that counts is knowledge and results. She doesn’t have the knowledge—and, worse, she doesn’t know it. Human beings don’t know how to do the things she believes ought to be done.”
“Like what?”
“Like managing the environment. We don’t know how to do that.”
“What are you talking about?” Bradley said, throwing his hands in the air. “This is nonsense. Of course we can manage the environment.”
“Really? Do you know anything about the history of Yellowstone Park? The first national park?”
“I’ve been there.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Could you just get to the point?” Bradley said. “It’s pretty late for Q-and-A, Professor. You know what I mean?”
“All right, then,” Kenner said. “I’ll tell you.”
Yellowstone Park, he explained, was the first wilderness to be set aside as a natural preserve anywhere in the world. The region around the Yellowstone River in Wyoming had long been recognized for its wondrous scenic beauty. Lewis and Clark sang its praises. Artists like Bierstadt and Moran painted it. And the new Northern Pacific Railroad wanted a scenic attraction to draw tourists west. So in 1872, in part because of railroad pressure, President Ulysses Grant set aside two million acres and created Yellowstone National Park.
There was only one problem, unacknowledged then and later. No one had any experience trying to preserve wilderness. There had never been any need to do it before. And it was assumed to be much easier than it proved to be.
When Theodore Roosevelt visited the park in 1903, he saw a landscape teeming with game. There were thousands of elk, buffalo, black bear, deer, mountain lions, grizzlies, coyotes, wolves, and bighorn sheep. By that time there were rules in place to keep things as they were. Soon after that, the Park Service was formed, a new bureaucracy whose sole job was to maintain the park in its original condition.
Yet within ten years, the teeming landscape that Roosevelt saw was gone forever. And the reason for this was the park managers—charged with keeping the park in pristine condition—had taken a series of steps that they thought were in the best interest of preserving the park and its animals. But they were wrong.
“Well,” Bradley said, “our knowledge has increased with time…”
“No, it hasn’t,” Kenner said. “That’s my point. It’s a perpetual claim that we know more today, and it’s not borne out by what actually happened.”
Which was this: the early park managers mistakenly believed that elk were about to become extinct. So they tried to increase the elk herds within the park by eliminating predators. To that end, they shot and poisoned all the wolves in the park. And they prohibited Indians from hunting in the park, though Yellowstone was a traditional hunting ground.
Protected, the elk herds exploded, and ate so much of certain trees and grasses that the ecology of the area began to change. The elk ate the trees that the beavers used to make dams, so the beavers vanished. That was when the managers discovered beavers were vital to the overall water management of the region.
When the beavers disappeared, the meadows dried up; the trout and otter vanished; soil erosion increased; and the park ecology changed even further.
By the 1920s it had become abundantly clear there were too many elk, so the rangers began to shoot them by the thousands. But the change in plant ecology seemed to be permanent; the old mix of trees and grasses did not return.
It also became increasingly clear that the Indian hunters of old had exerted a valuable ecological influence on the park lands by keeping down the numbers of elk, moose, and bison. This belated recognition came as part of a more general understanding that native Americans had strongly shaped the “untouched wilderness” that the first white men saw—or thought they were seeing—when they first arrived in the New World. The “untouched wilderness” was nothing of the sort. Human beings on the North American continent had exerted a huge influence on the environment for thousands of years—burning plains grasses, modifying forests, thinning specific animal populations, and hunting others to extinction.
In retrospect, the rule forbidding Indians from hunting was seen as a mistake. But it was just one of many mistakes that continued to be made in an unbroken stream by park managers. Grizzlies were protected, then killed off. Wolves were killed off, then brought back. Animal research involving field study and radio collars was halted, then resumed after certain species were declared endangered. A policy of fire prevention was instituted, with no understanding of the regenerative effects of fire. When the policy was finally reversed, thousands of acres burned so hotly that the ground was sterilized, and the forests did not grow back without reseeding. Rainbow trout were introduced in the 1970s, soon killing off the native cutthroat species.
And on and on.
And on.
“So what you have,” Kenner said, “is a history of ignorant, incompetent, and disastrously intrusive intervention, followed by attempts to repair the intervention, followed by attempts to repair the damage caused by the repairs, as dramatic as any oil spill or toxic dump. Except in this case there is no evil corporation or fossil fuel economy to blame. This disaster was caused by environmentalists charged with protecting the wilderness, who made one dreadful mistake after another—and, along the way, proved how little they understood the environment they intended to protect.”
“This is absurd,” Bradley said. “To preserve a wilderness, you just preserve it. You leave it alone and let the balance of nature take over. That’s all that is required.”
“Absolutely wrong,” Kenner said. “Passive protection—leaving things alone—doesn’t preserve the status quo in a wilderness, any more than it does in your backyard. The world is alive, Ted. Things are constantly in flux. Species are winning, losing, rising, falling, taking over, being pushed back. Merely setting aside wilderness doesn’t freeze it in its present state, any more than locking your children in a room will prevent them from growing up. Ours is a changing world, and if you want to preserve a piece of land in a particular state, you have to decide what that state is, and then actively, even aggressively, manage it.”
“But you said we don’t know how to do that.”
“Correct. We don’t. Because any action you take causes change in the environment, Ted. And any change hurts some plant or animal. It’s inevitable. Preserving old-growth forest to help the spotted owl means Kirtland’s warbler and other species are deprived of the new-growth forest they prefer. There is no free lunch.”
“But—”
“No buts, Ted. Name an action that had only positive consequences.”
“Okay, I will. Banning CFCs for the ozone layer.”
“That harmed Third World people by eliminating cheap refrigerants so that their food spoiled more often and more of them died of food poisoning.”
“But the ozone layer is more important—”
“Perhaps to you. They might disagree. But we’re talking about whether you can take an action that does not have harmful consequences.”
“Okay. Solar panels. Water recycling systems for houses.”
“Enables people to put houses in remote wilderness areas where formerly they could not because of lack of water and power. Invades wilderness and thus endangers species that were previously unmolested.”
“Banning DDT.”
“Arguably the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century. DDT was the best agent against mosquitoes, and despite the rhetoric there was nothing anywhere near as good or as safe. Since the ban, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. All together, the ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths.* Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler, Ted. And the environmental movement pushed hard for it.”†
“But DDT was a carcinogen.”
“No, it wasn’t. And everybody knew it at the time of the ban.”†
“It was unsafe.”
“Actually, it was so safe you could eat it. People did just that for two years, in one experiment.* After the ban, it was replaced by parathion, which is really unsafe. More than a hundred farm workers died in the months after the DDT ban, because they were unaccustomed to handling really toxic pesticides.”†
“We disagree about all this.”
“Only because you lack the relevant facts, or are unwilling to face up to the consequences of the actions of organizations you support. Banning DDT will someday be seen as a scandalous blunder.”
“DDT was never banned.”
“You’re right. Countries were just told that if they used it, they wouldn’t get foreign aid.” Kenner shook his head. “But the unarguable point, based on UN statistics, is that before the DDT ban, malaria had become almost a minor illness. Fifty thousand deaths a year worldwide. A few years later, it was once again a global scourge. Fifty million people have died since the ban, Ted. Once again, there can be no action without harm.”
A long silence followed. Ted shifted in his seat, started to speak, then closed his mouth again. Finally he said, “Okay. Fine.” He adopted his most lofty, presidential manner. “You have persuaded me. I grant you the point. So?”
“So the real question with any environmental action is, do the benefits outweigh the harm? Because there is always harm.”
“Okay, okay. So?”
“When do you hear any environmental group speak that way? Never. They’re all absolutists. They go before judges arguing that regulations should be imposed with no consideration of costs at all.‡ The requirement that regulations show a cost-benefit was imposed on them by the courts after a period of wretched excess. Environmentalists screamed bloody murder about cost-benefit requirements and they’re still screaming. They don’t want people to know how much their forays into regulation actually cost society and the world. The most egregious example was the benzene regulations in the late 1980s that were so expensive for so little benefit that they ended up costing twenty billion dollars for every year of life saved.* Do you agree with that regulation?”
“Well, when you put it in those terms, no.”
“What other terms are there, Ted, besides the truth? Twenty billion dollars to save one year of life. That was the cost of the regulation. Should you support organizations that push for such wasteful regulation?”
“No.”
“The lead benzene lobbying group in Congress was NERF. Are you going to resign from its board?”
“Of course not.”
Kenner just nodded slowly. “And there we have it.”
Sanjong was pointing to the computer screen, and Kenner came over, sliding into the seat next to him. The screen showed an aerial image of a tropical island, heavily forested, and a broad curving bay of blue water. The photo seemed to be taken from a low-flying airplane. Around the bay were four weathered wood shacks.
“Those are new,” Sanjong said. “They went up in the last twenty-four hours.”
“They look old.”
“Yes, but they’re not. Close inspection suggests that they are artificial. They may be made out of plastic instead of wood. The largest one appears to be a residence, and the other three house equipment.”
“What kind of equipment?” Kenner said.
“Nothing has been visible in the photographs. The equipment was probably offloaded at night. But I went back and got a decent description from Hong Kong customs. The equipment consists of three hypersonic cavitation generators. Mounted in carbon matrix resonant impact assembly frames.”
“Hypersonic cavitation equipment is for sale?”
“They got it. I don’t know how.”
Kenner and Sanjong were huddled together, speaking in low tones. Evans drifted over, leaned in close. “What’s a hypersonic whatever-it-is?” he said quietly.
“Cavitation generator,” Kenner said. “It’s a high-energy acoustic device the size of a small truck that produces a radially symmetric cavitation field.”
Evans looked blank.
“Cavitation,” Sanjong explained, “refers to the formation of bubbles in a substance. When you boil water, that’s cavitation. You can boil water with sound, too, but in this case the generators are designed to induce cavitation fields in a solid.”
Evans said, “What solid?”
“The earth,” Kenner said.
“I don’t get it,” Evans said. “They’re going to make bubbles in the ground, like boiling water?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Why?”
They were interrupted by the arrival of Ann Garner. “Is this a boys-only meeting?” she said. “Or can anyone sit in?”
“Of course,” Sanjong said, tapping the keyboard. The screen showed a dense array of graphs. “We were just reviewing the carbon dioxide levels of ice cores taken from Vostok and from North GRIP in Greenland.”
“You guys can’t keep me in the dark forever, you know,” Ann said. “Sooner or later we will land this plane. And then I’m going to find out what you’re really up to.”
“That’s true,” Kenner said.
“Why not tell me now?”
Kenner just shook his head.
The pilot clicked the radio. “Check your seat belts, please,” he said. “Prepare for landing in Honolulu.”
Ann said, “Honolulu!”
“Where did you think we were going?”
“I thought—”
And then she broke off.
Sarah thought: She knows where we are going.
While they refueled at Honolulu, a customs inspector came onboard and asked to see their passports. He seemed amused by the presence of Ted Bradley, whom he referred to as “Mr. President”; Bradley in turn was pleased by the attention from a man in uniform.
After the customs officer checked their passports, he said to the group, “Your destination is filed as Gareda in the Solomon Islands. I just want to make sure you’re aware of the travel advisory for Gareda. Most embassies have warned visitors against going there in view of the current conditions.”
“What current conditions?” Ann said.
“There are rebels active on the island. There have been a number of murders. The Australian army went in last year and captured most of the rebels, but not all. There have been three murders in the last week, including two foreigners. One of the corpses was, uh, mutilated. And the head was taken.”
“What?”
“The head was taken. Not while he was alive.”
Ann turned to Kenner. “That’s where we are going? Gareda?”
Kenner nodded slowly.
“What do you mean, the head was taken?”
“Presumably, it was for the skull.”
“The skull,” she repeated. “So…you’re talking about head-hunters…”
Kenner nodded.
“I’m getting off this plane,” she said, and gathering up her hand bag, walked down the stairs.
Jennifer was just waking up. “What’s her problem?”
“She doesn’t like good-byes,” Sanjong said.
Ted Bradley was stroking his chin in what he imagined was a thoughtful manner. He said, “A foreigner had his head cut off?”
“Apparently, it was worse than that,” the customs officer said.
“Jesus. What’s worse than that?” Bradley said, laughing.
The customs officer said, “The situation on the ground is not entirely clear. The reports are conflicting.”
Bradley stopped laughing. “No. Seriously: I want to know. What’s worse than beheading?”
There was a brief silence.
“They ate him,” Sanjong said.
Bradley rocked back in his chair. “They ate him?”
The customs officer nodded. “Parts of him,” he said. “At least, that’s the report.”
“Holy shit,” Bradley said. “Which parts? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Jesus Christ. They ate the guy.”
Kenner looked at him. “You don’t have to go, Ted,” he said. “You can leave, too.”
“I have to admit, I’m thinking about it,” he said, in his judicious, presidential tone. “Getting eaten is not a distinguished end to a career. Think of any of the greats. Think of Elvis—eaten. John Lennon—eaten. I mean, it’s not how we want to be remembered.” He fell silent, lowering his chin to his chest, sunk deep in thought, then raising it again. It was a gesture he’d done a hundred times on television. “But, no,” he said finally. “I’ll accept the danger. If you’re going, I’m going.”
“We’re going,” Kenner said.