Russell Moran - A Climate of Doubt

“Yes, Rick, a story is definitely in the making. I’ll share the plot with you, even though my agent would shoot me if he knew I told you about it.”

“Please go on, hon,” Sarah said. “We’d love to hear how you can explain this insanity using fiction.”

“I often tell people that reality is overrated, and that’s why I write novels,” Mike said. “Well, the reality we’re confronted with is stranger than any science fiction than I’ve ever written. I watched Ellen’s show when she interviewed that climate-change fanatic and I thought she was great. That guy is better than me at fiction. So, how’s this for a story line? One day during a heat wave with high temperature and humidity, the air suddenly starts to chill. Within a half hour, the temperature drops 50 degrees. The climate-change crowd closed ranks and started to chant that mankind has brought on the change in the weather by pumping carbon dioxide into the air, even though that’s been happening for hundreds of years. Fiction, yes, but boring fiction, spouted by people who have an agenda to push. So, how’s this for excitement? Maybe just as crazy as blaming the immediate weather on long-range trends, but I think it’s a lot more interesting. In my story, the sudden drop in temperature is caused by a group of people who manipulate the weather on purpose , people who want to conquer the earth. They do this by refocusing the sun’s rays so that the earth is deprived of normal solar warming. After they kill off all the inhabitants, the evil characters take over and return the atmosphere to normal. So how do you like it? My agent thought it was great.”

There was silence around the table for an uncomfortable minute or so. I looked at Sarah, whose face indicated that she just heard something startling. I then looked at Ellen, who registered the same emotion.

“Hey, Mike,” Ellen said. “You and I are married to a couple of high-placed government sceptics, but I get a feeling that they’re still thinking about your story line. I know I am.”

“Well, that’s great news for my novel, but I’m afraid that I’m going to risk a bunch of readers tossing the book across the room. Science fiction is great, but it must be based on some known facts to be a believable story. I’m afraid that’s as far as I’ve gotten with my story, because my research showed me that the idea just doesn’t work. We keep trying to manipulate weather, but it works only in small increments. A lot of well-meaning scientists are studying the idea of changing the weather, but they keep coming up empty. So that’s the excitement of creating fiction. I just make up new facts. In the case of science fiction, it’s easy. I just create a new thing, or process, or method, or species. It lets the reader know that it’s a ‘made-up’ fact, and it’s time to keep reading.”

“Mike has a PhD in physics from Cal Tech, and all of his fans know that. So, if he makes up some science, who’s to argue?” Sarah said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t get to make up stories here in reality,” I said. “We have to take what’s there and live with it.”

“But there’s a big exception in reality,” Mike said. “Occasionally something new comes along that we never knew about. What if this unique weather event was caused by something we never knew existed?”

“So where does that leave us?” Ellen asked.

“Where I always leave you,” Mike said. “Buy my next book to find out.”

July 21

“Do you realize that whenever people hear the name Rosetta Corporation they’ll laugh,” said Frank Morgan, CEO of Rosetta to his operations VP, Phil Duncan. Today is July 21 and it’s been snowing for five fucking days. We’re used to seeing weather like this—in January. Not only has it been snowing for five days, but I’ve been waiting for an answer for that long. What the hell happened?”

Phil Duncan had been with Rosetta since he finished graduate school at MIT with a Master’s Degree in aeronautical engineering at the age of 23. He’s now 45 and is senior in command after Frank Morgan. Duncan is 5’10” and about 20 pounds overweight. He has a receding hairline which he tries to mask with a comb-over. He blows his nose constantly out of habit whether he needs to or not. Frank Morgan was formerly an Air Force general and a NASA astronaut. Rosetta’s mission is to use satellites for communications as well as weather monitoring. Rosetta has more satellites in orbit than any other private firm.

“Frank, you know I’m not a bullshitter, so I won’t start now. I haven’t the foggiest idea what happened. Not only that, I have no idea what will happen. I’m as much in the dark as anybody. I met with all five department heads this morning, and nobody knows what’s going on. We’ve run engineering tests on all our major systems and everything checks out okay. I spoke to our two astronauts on Stargazer and they’re going through their usual system and satellite tests. They report no problems. We’re dealing with something that none of us understands and we’ve got to admit something—we may have nothing to do with this. It could be pure coincidence.”

“Phil,” Morgan said, “you may not be a bullshitter, but the report you’ve just given me is pure bullshit and you know it. This strange weather began within 15 minutes after one of our major satellite tests, the one where we also tested the solar panels. You can’t tell me that’s pure coincidence.”

Rosetta Corporation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is considered one of the leading defense contractors in the country. Morgan began expanding Rosetta’s mission 10 years ago, to concentrate more on civilian uses of satellite technology. He assembled a team of scientists that the Wall Street Journal calls the “smartest bunch of technologists in American industry.” Morgan prides himself on his fanatical attention to detail. He once began a corporate meeting by predicting that one of Rosetta’s satellites was degrading in orbit and would soon burn up. Nobody in the meeting agreed with him. The satellite entered the earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated before the meeting was over. If there is one thing that Morgan hates above all else, it’s not knowing the answer to why a problem has occurred.

“Frank, I gotta believe this problem is a pure coincidence and has nothing to do with our satellites. If we were somehow involved, we’d know why and what happened. As of right now we know less than a local meteorologist knows.”

“Do you recommend that we contact NASA or Homeland Security?” Morgan asked.

“We could contact them, but we’d have nothing to say. I recommend that we say nothing, because that’s exactly what we have to tell them.”

“Phil, what about the problem that the astronauts reported with the retractable solar panels on one of our satellites? It happened close in time to the big weather event.”

“The problem lasted just a few seconds, Frank. They think that some space junk may have hit one of the panels. But the panel retracted, and no further problem was reported.”

“I may just be pissing into the wind,” Morgan said, “but I want you to order another panel retraction test of all of our satellites.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about pissing into the wind, Frank, because the tests will be performed in space.”

“Very funny, wiseass. Let me know as soon as the test results are in.”

July 22

“You know, Bill, we’ve been doing things backwards,” Nancy Mullin said.

“What do you mean? Are you questioning my engineering expertise?”

“No, I mean you and me. Normally two single people meet, feel attracted to one another, then like each other, fall in love, and have sex. We started with the sex before we barely knew one another. Now, I feel like, I don’t know, I’m really starting to like you—a lot. We’ve been screwing like a couple of lab rats, and I feel more strongly about you each time.”