The Alexandria Connection (21 page)

C
rowley sat at the centre of the polished mahogany board table with Rachel on his right. The rest of the places were taken up by some of the most highly paid executives on the planet: ‘Big Jack’ Allard, the CEO of EVRAN Coal, a huge multinational with interests in nearly half the world’s coal mines; Frank McFarland, the CEO of EVRAN Energy, a vast oil and gas multinational, dwarfing the likes of ExxonMobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell; Barclay Roberts, the lanky CEO of EVRAN Defense Industries, at the top of world rankings which included Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Boeing and Northrop Grumman; Marcelo Costa, the wily Brazilian CEO of EVRAN Timber; along with Professor Truman Stockton, the CEO of EVRAN Nuclear and Albin Martin Jr., EVRAN’s shady general counsel. Professor Marcus Ahlstrom sat on a chair against the wall, nervously looking on. None of Crowley’s CEOs received less than US $50 million a year.

‘You’ve all read the briefing notes. They’re to be returned before you leave the building,’ Crowley warned. ‘Since we last met, a number of threats to our operations have intensified, but the one that’s gaining the most traction in Washington right now is this climate change crap.’ Crowley turned toward Rachel. ‘Let’s have the video.’

Rachel switched on a recording of the previous night’s
Late Night Live,
a talk show out of New York. Hosted by the stylish and hugely influential Merrill Stewart, the controversial program commanded a viewing audience of over ten million, the largest since the finale of
Cheers
in 1993.

‘With the country suffering some of the worst snow storms in years,’ Stewart intoned, ‘many of President McGovern’s critics are furious over the president’s plans to deal with global warming, claiming it’s a myth and that any attempt to put a price on carbon will damage an already fragile economy. Please welcome Professor Megan Becker who, until she joined the team supporting former secretary of energy Hailey Campbell, was President McGovern’s scientific advisor.’

The left-leaning audience broke into enthusiastic applause as the red-haired, five-foot-ten, blue-eyed environmentalist strode on to the set.

‘Before we get to the president’s position on global warming, Megan, perhaps you can answer the question on everyone’s lips – is Hailey Campbell going to run?’ Stewart’s smile was disarming.

‘A curve ball right up front,’ Becker responded, her smile equally disarming. ‘You would have to ask Ms Campbell.’

‘Given that President McGovern can’t run for a third term, why have you joined Campbell’s team as an advisor?’ persisted Stewart.

‘The bases are loaded tonight, aren’t they?’ said Becker, smiling at the audience.

‘You can’t blame me for trying,’ replied Stewart. ‘Let’s move on to President McGovern’s new position on global warming. Do you think people understand what is meant by climate change and global warming?’

‘No, and that’s partly our fault,’ said Becker turning toward the studio audience again. ‘We scientists are sometimes not very good at putting arguments in terms that people in other professions can understand, but we’ve known the planet has been heating for a very long time. In the 1820s, the French mathematician Joseph Fourier calculated that because of its distance from the sun, our planet should be a lot cooler, which led him to the possibility of our atmosphere acting as a trap for the sun’s heat reflected off the earth: what we now call the greenhouse effect. And then in the 1860s, the Irish physicist, John Tyndall, carried out experiments with a number of gases to see which were the best at trapping heat, and he found that carbon dioxide had an interesting property: it allowed visible light to pass through unimpeded, but it was by far and away the best at trapping heat. The best analogy I can give you is your car. When you lock your car and leave it in the sun, the light goes through the windows and the car heats up, because the heat can’t escape, and it’s the same with the earth’s atmosphere. The Swedish Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius linked the changes in global temperature to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and those amounts have steadily increased as we burn more and more of the fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas.’

‘This fear about the burning of coal, oil and gas doesn’t seem to be shared by a large number of Americans,’ challenged Stewart. ‘The latest surveys indicate that nearly 50 per cent of Americans think that global warming can be attributed to natural fluctuations in the climate?’

‘Yes, and in Australia, there is strong support to abolish their carbon tax, but that’s hardly the point. Ninety-seven per cent of climate scientists are convinced that the science is rock-solid. The planet is heating to dangerous levels. Americans, Australians, Europeans – many of them have fallen victim to unseen but powerful forces that are funding public relations programs to convince them that climate change is a myth. It’s not unlike the tobacco industry’s efforts in the eighties and nineties to convince people that smoking wasn’t harmful.’

‘I saw a report just recently that the Nobel Laureate and clean energy proponent, Professor Marcus Ahlstrom, may have been lured over to work for EVRAN?’ Stewart asked.

‘He wouldn’t be the first scientist to be lured into the fold. I suspect Ahlstrom is going to be part of the EVRAN public relations campaign to derail the science, because EVRAN is one of the biggest polluters in the world. You only have to look at the scale of their coal operations in Wyoming.’

The shot cut to some footage of the rare beauty of the snow-capped eastern Rocky Mountains.

‘Wyoming might be one of our least populous states, second only to Alaska, but it’s also one of the richest mining states in the country,’ continued Becker. ‘Last year, out of the billion tonnes of coal dug up by the US alone, nearly 400 million tonnes came out of the cowboy state.’

Stewart picked up that some in the audience looked shocked, and she judged it was time to allow some audience participation. ‘We’re going to open things up for some Q and A . . . yes,’ she said, pointing to a young woman in the front row.

‘My name’s Sarah Kable, and I’m in my first year of environmentalscience at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. I’m curious to know how our energy consumption compares to the rest of the world?’

‘With 300 million people, we represent five per cent of the world’s population,’ said Becker, ‘but we’re also the most developed and we use 25 per cent of the world’s energy, albeit that is changing. By 2028, India will have surpassed China as the most populous nation on the planet, and by 2050, Nigeria will have a larger population than the US. By that time there will be nearly ten billion people on planet earth, and unless we change our habits and our sources of energy, fossil fuels are predicted to supply 80 per cent of the world’s energy.’

‘And you were saying before we came on that this threatens, of all things, our fisheries?’ said Stewart.

Becker nodded. ‘That’s the elephant in the room. EVRAN is mining high sulfur coal from states like Illinois. When that’s burned in power stations, it gives off sulfur dioxide, which then combines with water vapour in the air, producing sulfuric acid. That returns as acid rain, destroying forests and the marine environment. Already, brook trout and other species in some of our rivers have been completely wiped out.’

‘Yes . . .’ said Stewart, pointing to an elderly man two rows back.

‘Surely with the advent of fracking, we’re now getting cleaner energy, not to mention the creation of thousands of jobs?’

‘Which is horizontal drilling, for those at home,’ said Stewart, turning to Becker.

‘Yes. A lot of people don’t understand what’s involved with fracking, but hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is a process of drilling, at first vertically, often through a precious water table, and then horizontally into seams of shale or coal to release oil and natural gas. Millions of gallons of water are trucked in and mixed with chemicals and sand, which is injected under very high pressures into the ground to fracture the shale or coal and release the gas. These chemicals include dangerous levels of lead, mercury, uranium and hydrochloric acid, much of which is left in the ground adjacent to the water tables. If —’

Rachel flicked off the video and waited for the explosion. She wasn’t disappointed.

Crowley glared around the room. ‘So we have an EVRAN bottom line worth billions that’s being threatened by Sarah Shagnasty from the University of Bumblefuck-nowheresville, and she’s getting airtime,’ Crowley growled, his mood darkening. ‘It’s time to ratchet up the heat on these dickheads.’

‘I agree,’ said ‘Big Tom’ Allard. ‘The new fracking technologies are paying off handsomely, particularly in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, and we’re doing equally well with the large deposits in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Canada, where we’ve got a large number of teams in the field, getting the folks to sign up. But we still need to deal with the loonie Left, who have hit us with a barn full of lawsuits.’

‘Fuck ’em,’ Crowley growled. ‘What’s the prognosis?’ he asked, turning to EVRAN’s general counsel. Albin Martin Jr. had previously served as the attorney general of Texas, where he’d been caught up in insider trading and forced to resign. Crowley had been quick to bring him on board.

‘They’re wasting their time and money,’ Martin replied in his gruff Texan drawl. ‘They’re trotting out the usual bullshit, claiming fossil fuels should be left in the ground, but they’re pissing into the wind and the courts will throw that out. To back it up, they’re claiming God knows how many endangered species are threatened – anything from the double-breasted split-tailed mattress thrasher to the horny-toed frog, and they get every fucking wilderness do-gooder to protest outside the courts, but that won’t hold things up for very long.’

Crowley turned to Rachel. ‘Remind me to have a word with Louis Walden about that. We’ll see these motherfuckers off the field, whatever it takes. Perhaps now’s a good time for a summary of our new PR approach.’

‘You’ve all met Professor Ahlstrom,’ said Rachel, nodding toward the Nobel Laureate who was still looking decidedly uncomfortable.

‘The professor will be making a number of media appearances to promote your companies. Our research is showing there’s an enormous amount of confusion in the public’s mind about climate change, and we intend to capitalise on that. As you can see from this graph,’ Rachel said, flicking up a PowerPoint, ‘a recent poll in the UK showed that only 31 per cent thought that climate change was definitely happening, and that’s down from the 44 per cent who were worried about it previously.’

‘We’ll need to keep the PR pressure right up their ass,’ said Crowley. ‘Australia’s consigned climate change to the trashcan, and their prime minister was here only the other day, talking up the benefits of coal. The European Union’s backing right off on rules for emissions, so if they can do it in Europe and Australia, which is a coal bucket, we can do it here.’

‘Our PR campaigns here are having a similar effect,’ Rachel said, backing her boss and flicking up a second slide. ‘Over a quarter of Americans think global temperatures aren’t rising, and given the recent record low temperatures and snowfalls, we’ll ram that home. Our PR policy will not only build on the confusion in the public’s mind, but we can push the idea that volcanoes produce far more CO
2
than human activity. Recent scientific data also shows the Antarctic ice is growing, rather than shrinking, and we have a leaked draft of a report from the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, which shows the planet’s temperature is flat-lining.
All
media requests are to be sent to me,’ Rachel said, a touch of steel in her voice, ‘and unless otherwise approved, Professor Ahlstrom will be our spokesperson on climate change. And you will note we refer to this as climate change, not global warming. Global warming runs the risk of giving a subliminal message contrary to the one we want out there.’

At the end of the board meeting, Crowley leaned over and whispered in Rachel’s ear. ‘Ask that dopey Truman Stockton to step into my office, and get me that latest report on that little shit, Costa . . . I’ll see him as soon as I’ve dealt with Stockton.’

‘Have a seat, Truman,’ Crowley said to Professor Stockton, nodding to Rachel to activate the recording system. As CEO of EVRAN Nuclear Laboratories in California, the nuclear physicist was out of his depth, but that was precisely why Crowley had appointed him. He’d wanted someone who would comply with the movement of controlled stores without questioning their destination too closely. The more classified research was done up in EVRAN Idaho, where Idaho’s chief nuclear physicist reported directly to Crowley.

‘How’s the new reactor coming along?’

‘Going very well, Mr Crowley.’ The professor adjusted his thick black glasses, which had a habit of riding onto the end of his nose. ‘We should be ready to start our experiments by the end of the year, which will be well in front of the international effort.’ Those experiments, Crowley knew, would revolve around a doughnut-shaped reactor known as a Tokamak. The reactor was encased in superconducting magnets designed to squeeze and heat a plasma of hydrogen isotopes to a temperature of 150 million degrees, generating 500 megawatts of electricity in the process. The output of energy was ten times the input, something that had never been achieved before.