“Holy shit,” Pearl whispered. “I think he just said Noah’s flood is a scientific fact.”
“Sri, you’re wrong,” Sal said. “This isn’t about god. This is about money. Frank Luntz is why Pavano is going to become a very rich man.”
“Frank Luntz?” Bonnie asked. “Sounds like a hot dog company.”
“Frank Luntz advises the Bush administration about various policy decisions. Last year somebody got hold of a memo he’d written about how to handle what he called this ‘global warming problem.’ Luntz and everyone else in the White House knows global warming is real, that it’s man-made. Luntz told them the scientific debate is closing against them, but isn’t fully closed—that there’s just enough time to keep the public uncertain, to keep it thinking that there’s no consensus in the scientific community. No big policy changes need to be made if the public thinks there’s widespread disagreement. Pavano enters stage right.”
Pavano shuffled behind the podium—his face had drained of color.
“So you’re saying, what?” Pearl asked, her brows furrowed. “That he doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying? That he’s gonna make stuff up while he’s down here?”
“To believe in climate change—” Pavano tried, but Sal interrupted him.
“See, look at his language. He’s talking about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny. Scientists don’t believe in things. They either know things or they don’t.”
Cooper could tell that Sal had just walked into a trap, because Pavano suddenly seemed very focused. “Just like those who once promoted the Big Bang as fact—as the gospel of how the universe began—suddenly change their minds? Tell me if this sounds familiar, Dr. Brennan: ‘Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest.’”
“Don’t take Hawking’s words in vain,” Sal said.
“So Stephen Hawking’s your prophet, and yet you desecrate what many others find sacred.”
“And now we’ve fallen down the nerd-hole,” Bonnie groaned behind Cooper. “In like, a minute, they’re gonna start talking Elvish.”
“He’s putting up a good fight, though,” Pearl murmured over her shoulder.
“You guys have gone way off the rails,” Dwight said, exasperated. “Can we get back to Bonnie’s question about ice cores?”
“Yes, tell us what research you’re trying to thwart while you’re down here,” Sal said.
“Unlike other grantees on the ice this season, I’m not trying to thwart anyone’s research,” Pavano said. “Alarmists are finding it difficult to explain away the fact that Antarctica’s sea ice is at record levels. It’s not melting. To the contrary, it’s quite robust.”
“The record amount is only three-point-six percent over the 1981 to 2002 mean,” Sri cried. “I mean, this year the edge of the ice extends out only thirty-five kilometers farther than it does in an average year. It’s actually getting thinner.”
“In climate science, it seems to me, anything is possible,” Pavano said.
“Could Antarctica melt?” Pearl asked. Cooper noticed a couple research techs roll their eyes.
Pavano chuckled. “I think the scientists in this room would agree that even if man-made climate change was real, it would take thousands of years for it to grow warm enough for the Antarctic ice shelf to melt. In fact, that kind of catastrophic ice melt would require heat of apocalyptic proportions. But because I dispute the assumption that the earth is warming, it’s nothing I worry about.”
“So what you’re saying,” Pearl replied, “is that the earth is not warming up like everyone says, that global warming isn’t real?”
“What I’m saying is that very little research has ever been funded to look for natural mechanisms for climate change. It has simply been assumed, by the scientific community, that global warming is man-made.”
“I would actually prefer that the earth was not warming,” Pearl said.
“It may not be,” Pavano said.
“That makes me feel better.”
“No, Pearl,” Sri shouted, “don’t go over to the Dark Side!” This resulted in a chorus of protestation. Amid the shouts, Cooper noticed Sal quietly stand up and walk out of the galley.
That night Pavano pinned to the large bulletin board in the galley an abstract from a just-published paper by Willie Soon from the journal Climate Research, which claimed “the twentieth century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.” By the next morning, it was gone, and in its place was a hand-drawn flyer: Breaking News Update: Climate Change Jesus super-excited about new developments, says “you’re getting warmer!” Next to this was a muscle-bound superhero Jesus, with a bubble coming from his mouth containing what one of the Beakers later told Cooper was the Schr?dinger equation. Climate Change Jesus was set upside down, coring ice with his crown of thorns.
PRODUCTION COOK: 5:00am–3:00pm and 4:30pm–10:00pm
PREPARES HOT BREAKFAST: including pastries, fills juice machine and breadbox
PREPARES LUNCH. Soup Daily Assists with dinner.
Shops for own menu items on regular basis and general kitchen use items every other week on rotating basis with Head Cook (Bonnie)
Menu will be provided. Both cooks are accountable for the food and adhering to the APPROVED menu. Special occasions/holidays are excepted from the menu.
Food is to be used from Berm B first. Call in items from Berm A only after ensuring they are not available from Berm B. Food rotation is very important to its quality.
COOKBOOK KEY
EBF: Enchanted Broccoli Forest
MW: Moosewood
MWC: Moosewood Cooks for a Crowd
SL: Still Life with Menu
SP: South Pole 3-Ring Binder
BASIC ROTATIONS
Pasta 2 × week
Mexican 1 × week
Italian 1 × week
Seafood 1 × week
Alt every other cycle: Italian chicken fingers with patty, Tuna Melt with Seafood Croissant
enchanted broccoli forest
There were many ways to make things disappear at South Pole Station. After all, there were twenty-three different categories of waste. “Dormitory biological waste”—bloody bandages, used tampons, snot-soaked Kleenex—was stored in fifty-five-gallon open-top drums. Galley food waste—like onionskins, uneaten oatmeal, and trimmed fat—was packaged in Tri-Walls lined with three layers of polyethylene gusseted bags. But the category that Pearl found most relevant to her purposes was the “domestic combustibles,” also known as the “burnables.” This category included paper towels, cigarette butts, food wrappers—and cookbooks that had been carefully dismantled, page by page.
Enchanted Broccoli Forest was the first to go.