"What are you talking about, Nicholas? It's a snap to sell. The public already believes that industry is behind any contrary view." He sighed. "In any case, I promise you there will soon be more computer models showing that extreme weatheris increasing. The scientists will get behind this and deliver what is needed. You know that."
Drake paced. He looked unhappy. "But it just doesn't make sense," he said. "It's not logical to say that freezing weather is caused by global warming."
"What's logic got to do with it?" Henley said. "All we need is for the media to report it. After all, most Americans believe that crime in their country is increasing, when it has actually been decliningfor twelve years. The US murder rate is as low as it was in the early 1970s, but Americans are more frightened than ever, because so much more airtime is devoted to crime, they naturally assume there is more in real life, too." Henley sat up in his chair. "Think about what I am saying to you, Nicholas. A twelve-year trend, and they still don't believe it. There is no greater proof that all reality is media reality."
"The Europeans are more sophisticated--"
"Trust me--it'll be even easier to sell abrupt climate change in Europe than in the US. You just do it out of Brussels. Because bureaucratsget it, Nicholas. They'll see the advantages of this shift in emphasis."
Drake did not reply. He walked back and forth, hands in his pockets, staring at the floor.
"Just think how far we have come!" Henley said. "Back in the 1970s, all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming. They thought the world was getting colder. But once the notion of globalwarming was raised, they immediately recognized the advantages. Global warming creates a crisis, a call to action. A crisis needs to be studied, it needs to be funded, it needs political and bureaucratic structures around the world. And in no time at all, a huge number of meteorologists, geologists, oceanographers suddenly became 'climate scientists' engaged in the management of this crisis. This will be the same, Nicholas."
"Abrupt climate change has been discussed before, and it hasn't caught on."
"That's why you are holding a conference," Henley said patiently. "You hold a well-publicized conference and it happens to coincide with some dramatic evidence for the dangers of abrupt climate. And by the end of the conference, you will have established abrupt climate change as a genuine problem."
"I don't know..."
"Stop whining. Don't you remember how long it took to establish the global threat of nuclear winter, Nicholas? It tookfive days. On one Saturday in 1983, nobody in the world had ever heard of nuclear winter. Then a big media conference was held and by the following Wednesday the entire world was worried about nuclear winter. It was established as a bona fide threat to the planet. Without a single published scientific paper."
Drake gave a long sigh.
"Five days, Nicholas," Henley said. "They did it. You'll do it. Your conference is going to change the ground rules for climate."
The screen went black.
"My God," Sarah said.
Evans said nothing. He just stared at the screen.
Sanjong had stopped listening some minutes before. He was working with his laptop.
Kenner turned to Evans. "When was that segment recorded?"
"I don't know." Evans slowly came out of his fog. He looked around the room in a daze. "I have no idea when it was recorded. Why?"
"You've got the remote in your hand," Kenner said.
"Oh, sorry." Evans pressed the buttons, brought the menu up, saw the date. "It was two weeks ago."
"So Morton's been bugging Drake's offices for two weeks," Kenner said.
"Looks like it."
Evans watched as the recording ran again, this time with the sound off. He stared at the two men, Drake pacing and worried, Henley just sitting there, sure of himself. Evans was struggling to assimilate what he had heard. The first recording had seemed reasonable enough to him. There, Drake was complaining about the problems of publicizing a genuine environmental threat, global warming, when everybody naturally ceased to care about the topic in the middle of a snowstorm. All that made sense to Evans.
But this conversation...He shook his head. This one worried him.
Sanjong clapped his hands together and said, "I got it! I have the location!" He turned his laptop so everyone could see the screen. "This is NEXRAD radar from Flagstaff-Pulliam. You can see the precipitation center forming northeast of Payson. There should be a storm there by midday tomorrow."
"How far is that from us?" Sarah said.
"About ninety miles."
Kenner said, "I think we better get in the helicopter."
"And do what?" Evans said. "It's ten o'clock at night, for God's sake."
"Dress warmly," Kenner said.
The world was green and black, the trees slightly fuzzy through the lenses. The night-vision goggles pressed heavily against his forehead. There was something wrong with the straps: they cut into his ears and were painful. But everybody was wearing them, looking out the windows of the helicopter at the miles of forest below.