Windfall

by McKenzie Funk

  We are always wowed by the smartest guys in the room—the Tellers, the Myhrvolds, the experts, and the engineers—when we are in the room. As the world changes into an environment at least as foreign to many of us as Alaska was to a Louisiana tug captain, some of our smartest are developing staggeringly complicated plans to deal with what is essentially a problem of basic physics: Add carbon, get heat. We should remember that there is also genius in simplicity. We should remember that we rarely recognize hubris until it is too late.

  • • •

  THE SUMMER OF 2012 was hot in Seattle, too. Jenny and the new baby and I often slept downstairs, because upstairs was too warm and we’d never had much need for air-conditioning before. We went swimming more than usual; it was nice. We bought a bigger car—a relative gas-guzzler, but it fits the whole family. Our house is near Seattle’s new light-rail, and during a remodel I made sure we insulated it well and got a high-efficiency furnace. But we drove all over that summer, and we bought a lot of Shell gas. The many flights I took, from a carbon perspective, were even worse.

  One afternoon, after I watched the Kulluk get towed north, I went to the “prediction market” Web site Intrade and put a $100 wager down in its Climate and Weather category. I could have bet on global temperature anomalies or on Sandy being the last named storm of the 2012 hurricane season, but instead I chose the melting polar ice cap: “Arctic sea ice extent for Sep 2012 to be less than 3.7 million square kilometres.” It was all in good fun, just a stunt to prove that any one of us, especially those in a comfortable place, could idly bet on climate chaos. But I won handily.

  There is something crass about profiting off disaster, certainly, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. I did not write this book to take aim at honest businessmen like Mark Fulton, Phil Heilberg, and Luke Alphey or at good soldiers like Sergeant Strong and Minik Kleist. If they are vilified because readers have not fully grappled with the landscape in which they live, the landscape in which we all live, then I have failed to describe it well enough.

  The hardest truth about climate change is that it is not equally bad for everyone. Some people—the rich, the northern—will find ways to thrive while others cannot, and many people will wall themselves off from the worst effects of warming while others remain on the wrong side. The problem with our profiting off this disaster is not that it is morally bankrupt to do so but that climate change, unlike some other disasters, is man-made. The people most responsible for historic greenhouse emissions are also the most likely to succeed in this new reality and the least likely to feel a mortal threat from continued warming. The imbalance between rich and north and poor and south—inherited from history and geography, accelerated by warming—is becoming even more entrenched.

  Environmental campaigners shy away from the fact that some people will see upsides to climate change—more minerals for miners, more famines for food sellers—because any local gains muddy the otherwise catastrophic picture of a world without emissions cuts. I have not shied away, for the people described in these pages reveal something important: In an unfair world, rational self-interest is not always what we wish it would be. In economic terms, global warming is not merely an externality that we have failed to price in. The free market can only get us so far. This makes it a truly wicked problem, but it also gives us a more perfect moral clarity. We are not simply borrowing against our own future. For the most part, we are not our own victims. To rely on empathy to shape our response to climate change is often considered naive—the victims of warming are distant in space, distant in time, and the bullets are invisible—but I believe it is more naive to hope that we in the north will significantly cut emissions or consumption or give needed adaptation funding to distant countries because we personally feel threatened.

  In the world ahead, the politics of anger are not likely to work without the corresponding empathy. It is not enough to get mad at the oil companies—though it might help a little bit. There have been various postmortems about why the U.S. Senate has not passed a climate bill, or why the UN cannot get a treaty, but the reason is fairly straightforward: In the wealthy north, where we still talk more about polar bears than about people, there is no true constituency. Hardly anyone cares that much. Not yet.

  When I was halfway through this project, I was checking facts with a source, an investment banker in New York who had acquired some foreign farmland. We got into an argument. What had happened along the way to his getting his tracts—a series of swindles by middlemen, of small farmers bought out by forces much larger than they could imagine—was not his fault, he said. It happened before the bank was involved. “It’s like I bought some weed from a guy who bought it from another guy who bought it from another guy who bought it from a guy in Guatemala who killed someone for it,” he said. But you knew, I argued back. Before he bought it, he knew where it had come from. He knew what his boon had cost someone else.

  Climate change is often framed as a scientific or economic or environmental issue, not often enough as an issue of human justice. This, too, needs to change. From this moment on, many of us could get rich. Many of us could get high. Life will go on. Before it does, we should all make sure we understand the reality of what we’re buying.

  A Canadian soldier stands guard at the edge of the Northwest Passage, an emerging shipping lane as the Arctic melts.

  Alaska’s shrinking Chukchi Sea, where Shell began drilling in 2012, could yield as many as twelve billion barrels of oil.

  Norway’s Snøhvit, or Snow White, is the northernmost natural gas facility in the world—and some oil companies’ model for the future of the Arctic.

  As Greenland’s glaciers recede, revealing mineral deposits, mines like Black Angel are expected to help fund its push for independence from Denmark.

  Fjords in Greenland are melting earlier and freezing later, extending the season for shipping and icebergs.

  On the hunt for potable water, the Israeli desalination engineer Avraham Ophir invented the world’s greatest snowmaker, a product now in use in the melting Alps.

  Private firefighters working for private insurers race to protect a client’s home in Los Angeles.

  During a historic drought in Southern California, the All-American Canal was reengineered so that less water would seep across the border to Mexico. San Diego gets the savings.

  Volunteers march in celebration after the first full season of planting trees for Africa’s 4,700-mile Great Green Wall, an attempt to block the expanding Sahara.

  As food prices spiked, American investor Phil Heilberg (RIGHT) cut a deal with Gabriel Matip, the son of a South Sudanese general, for millions of acres of farmland.

  Dhaka, Bangladesh, grows by half a million people a year as migrants flee cyclones and rising seas. The world’s longest border fence awaits those who continue to India.

  The Netherlands, protected from storm surges by massive barriers like the Maeslant, pictured here, is selling its flood-fighting expertise to a worried world.

  After crashing into the shore near Kodiak Island, Alaska, Shell’s main Arctic drill ship, the Kulluk, awaits repairs in a protected bay.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  She’s too nice to think about it like this, but Jennifer Woo and I got to live only a few weeks of our new life together in Seattle before she was suddenly sharing me with a book project. I thank her for eventually agreeing to marry me anyway and for her near-infinite patience. This book, my first, took a long time, especially considering that it took her little more than nine months to produce a first who gives us much greater pride.

  Without the early guidance of two people, I might not have understood the scale of the story I was chasing. My friend and first editor at Harper’s Magazine, Luke Mitchell, sent me on my first trip to the Arctic—and then, once I was back, helped me see that the antics of gun-wielding Canadians were important not because of what they revealed about climate change or
Canadian American relations but because of what they revealed about human nature. Heather Schroder, my agent at ICM, then helped me focus on the obvious but crucial fact that the warming, along with the humans it affects and who are affecting it, is global. The story of the book would have to be much bigger than the Arctic.

  At Penguin, Eamon Dolan took a gamble on a first-time author and provided invaluable advice—certainly much more helpful than he could have known—before moving on to a new post. Virginia Smith replaced him as editor, steering a somewhat wayward project toward the end with a wonderful mix of humor and discipline. Her insights and willingness to dig deep on problems small and big made this a much better book. Kaitlyn Flynn, meanwhile, has done tremendous work to get us all the way to the finish line.

  As I began reporting, the luckiest break I had was in hiring the journalist Damon Tabor to work with me as a researcher for a year. It didn’t take either of us long to realize that I should have been the one working for him. Next time, I probably will be. Before he went on to bigger things, Damon made many of these chapters possible, whether by tracking down contacts or, in some cases, by identifying stories I didn’t even realize were there. Also, he works out with bricks. Really.

  Unwittingly and not, various organizations helped support my reporting or kept me and my family clothed as I completed this project. I owe a tremendous debt to Charles Eisendrath, Birgit Rieck, Mary Ellen Doty, Patty Meyers-Wilkens, Candice Liepa, and Melissa Riley of the Knight-Wallace Fellows at Michigan; to Oliver Payne, Peter Miller, Lynn Addison, Susan Welchman, Nick Mott, Marc Silver, Glenn Oeland, and Rebecca Martin of the National Geographic Society; to Esther Kaplan of the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute; to Jon Sawyer and Tom Hundley of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; and to Columbia University and the family of John B. Oakes. Harper’s Magazine, which in addition to Luke Mitchell gave me excellent editors in the form of Genevieve Smith, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, and Christopher Cox, funded and originally published versions of the chapters “Cold Rush” and “Too Big to Burn,” along with a section of “Uphill to Money.” One of my favorite magazine editors, Alex Heard of Outside, first commissioned what would become the chapter “Greenland Rising.” A version of the chapter “Farmland Grab” was first published in Rolling Stone, where it was edited by the dogged and excellent Eric Bates.

  For support of an often less tangible sort, I thank David and Duane Funk, Ronald and Lisa Woo, Grace Funk and Benson Wilder, James and Margaret Woo, Jason and Condor Woo, James and Nadine Harrang, and our friends in Seattle, New York, Eugene, Bellingham, and Ann Arbor.

  Many hundreds of people spoke with me by phone, answered e-mail queries, or agreed to sit down for interviews. Some are named in the book. Most are not. I am deeply grateful to all. A few people went even further, allowing me to travel with them for days or weeks or to otherwise invade their lives to try to see the world from their perspective. Without the extraordinary generosity of Minik Kleist, Chief Sam, John Dickerson, Phil Heilberg, Pape Sarr, Enamul Hoque, Luke Alphey, and Nathan Myhrvold, I could not have written quite this book, and I would not have enjoyed the experience half as much. I hope I got it all right, and wherever I did not, any mistakes are my own.

  Others I would like to single out for special thanks: Sergeant Strong, Dennis Conlon, Doug Martin, John Ferrell, Mead Treadwell, Peter Schwartz, Ron Macnab, Michael Byers, Scott Borgerson, Matt Power, Larry Mayer, Andy Armstrong, Brian Van Pay, Luciano Fonseca, Tasha Gentile, Jimmy Jones Olemaun, Alexander Sergeev, Artur Chilingarov, Luda Mekertycheva, Garrik Grikurov, Victor Poselov, Trine Dahl-Jensen, Martin Jakobsson, Brenda Pierce, Dave Houseknecht, Jeremy Bentham, Adam Newton, Sverre Kojedal, Geoff Dabelko, Vanee Vines, Juliane Henningsen, Kuupik Kleist, Jens B. Frederiksen, Rikka Jensen Trolle, Nick Hall, Tim Daffern, Giora Proskurowski, Moshe Tessel, Rafi Stoffman, Abraham Ophir, Willi Krüger, Eric Gilliland, Marco Ernandes, John Winkworth, Joe Flynn, Paul Johnson, Susie Diver, Garry Wills, Bill Heffernan, Todd Shields, René Acuña, Stephanie Pincetl, Merlin Camozzi, Clay Landry, Bob Heward, Daniel Snaer Ragnarsson, Eric Sprott, Gudjon Engilbertsson, Jeremy Charlesworth, Jon Steinsson, Kenneth Krys, Kevin Bambrough, Ric Davidge, Serge Kaznady, Shirley Won, Sigrún Daviiosdoottir, Sverrir Palmarsson, Terry Spragg, Uli Kortsch, Sean Cole, Carl Atkin, David Raad, John Prendergast, Peer Voss, Phil Corzine, Phil Warnken, Jonathan Davis, Nate Schaffran, Nick Wadhams, Jenn Warren, Ethan Devine, Nkem Ononiwu, Abdoulaye Dia, Desneige Hallbert, Chad Cummins, Tim Krupnik, Clara Burgert, Noam Unger, Caroline Wadhams, Antonio Mazzitelli, Alessandra Giannini, Jean-Marc Sinnassamy, Gil Arias Fernandez, Simon Busuttil, Joseph Cassar, Darrel Pace, Wayne Hewitt, Josie Muscat, Ivan Consiglio, Emmanuel Mallia, Atiq Rahman, Ryan Bradley, Rohit Saran, Ajai Sahni, Nazmul Islam, Atique Islam Chowdhury, Reza Karim Chowdhury, Binoy Bhattacharjee, Bibhu Prasad Routray, Samujjal Bhattacharjee, Jennifer Marlow, Jeni Krenciki Barcelos, Spencer Adler, D’lorah Hughes, Franco Maschietto, Piet Dircke, Peter Wijsman, Thijs Molenaar, Frans Barends, Richard Pelliccan, Rene Peusens, Jort Struik, Koen Olthuis, Conny van der Hijden, Marnix de Vriend, Daniel Pepitone, Johan Cardoen, Piotr Puzio, Susanne Benner, Paul Epstein, Rip Ballou, Thomas Scott, Danilo Carvalho, Michael Doyle, Mikki Coss, Chris Tittel, Emily Zielinski-Gutierrez, Alun Anderson, Greg Huang, Shelby Barnes, Marelaine Dykes, Casey Tegreene, Samuel Thernstrom, Lee Lane, Kenneth Green, David Schnare, Michael Ditmore, Aaron Donohoe, David Battisti, Neil Adger, Heather McGray, Roger Harrabin, Andy Hoffman, Andy Buchsbaum, and Richard Rood. Apologies in advance to those I’ve mistakenly left off this list.

  I recruited friends and family members to help me brainstorm a title for this book, but publisher Ann Godoff bested all of us with Windfall. (To be fair to Ben Pauker, he came up with it, too, but I didn’t notice.) Ben, Mike Benoist, Dave Shaw, Alex Heard, Japhet Koteen, Benson Wilder, Vanessa Gezari, Tim Marchman, Aisha Sultan, Mike Laris, Damon Tabor, Ethan Devine, Tamar Adler, Wilson Kello, Noam Unger, Kalee Thompson, James Vlahos, Adam Allington, Evan Halper, Madeleine Eiche, Kihan Kim, Aaron Huey, Giora Proskurowski: Thank you. I’m sorry your puns can’t be published.

  At the Seattle Public Library, Chris Higashi lent me a locker and a quiet room to write, for which I’m very grateful. Even closer to home, Aaron Huey and Kristin Moore moved in across the street, and Aaron—who was with me in Russia when I was readying the proposal for this book—offered me a spare desk in his office so he could see me finally complete it. I thank him as well as the good people of Empire, just down the block, who have provided yet another office away from the office, this one with coffee.

  NOTE ON SOURCES

  I reported this book in person over many years, and the majority of it is based on what I saw and heard. Wherever possible, I have checked the material against my thousands of pages of handwritten and typed notes and against the photographs and voice recordings I often make in the field. In many cases, I have been able to further confirm details by consulting others who were present.

  Before and after my travels, I tried to read every article I could about each place and topic, and I owe much to the journalists who went before me and the news organizations—the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, NPR, BBC, Guardian, Economist, Der Spiegel, Maclean’s, Globe and Mail, Sydney Morning Herald—still paying to send them out into the world. I have borrowed from their reporting and their ideas, and I keep digital copies of their articles in an overstuffed folder on my laptop’s hard drive. Also invaluable were more localized sources of news. To name a few: Barents Observer, Alaska Dispatch, Sermitsiaq, Haaretz, Imperial Valley Press, Africa Confidential, Le Soleil, IRIN, ReliefWeb, Times of Malta, Times of India, Daily Star, and Palm Beach Post.

  As I set out to understand the effects of climate change, I read The Economics of Climate Change by Sir Nicholas Stern (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006), The Weath
er Makers by Tim Flannery (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005), and Six Degrees by Mark Lynas (London: Fourth Estate, 2007). I later relied on Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009) as I considered humankind’s response to climate change.

  The history of Arctic exploration and the Northwest Passage is covered in Resolute by Martin Sandler (New York: Sterling, 2006) and Dangerous Passage by Gerard Kenney (Toronto: Natural Heritage, 2006). To understand Canada’s uneven relationship with its own north, I read Canada’s Colonies by Kenneth Coates (Toronto: Lorimer, 1985) and Tammarniit (Mistakes) by Frank Tester and Peter Kulchyski (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1994).

  For a month in the frozen Chukchi Sea, scientists and State Department representatives aboard the U.S. icebreaker Healy kept me and themselves entertained with informal lecture nights—the source of much of what I have learned about the Law of the Sea, the melting polar ice cap, and the jockeying between various coastal states for control of the Arctic and its oil-rich seabed. Chief Scientist Larry Mayer, the director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire, has been a particular resource. In Russia, Yuri Kazmin provided further insights, as did Canada’s Ron Macnab, Denmark’s Trine Dahl-Jensen, Sweden’s Martin Jakobsson, and other sources in Washington and Moscow who would prefer not to be identified. At the U.S. Geological Survey, Don Gautier, Brenda Pierce, and Dave Houseknecht helped me fathom the potential size of the petroleum prize.