Sixty Days and Counting sitc-3

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  That wouldn’t have been good for any of us. I know there’s a fringe in the response columns saying that the worse things went for the Chinese the better off we would be, but it doesn’t work that way. The carbon and particulates that they were putting into the air were going everywhere on Earth, even if China took the brunt of them. And in any case they were desperate enough to be in need of our aid, and to ask us for it—so we were obliged to help, just as fellow human beings. The fact that it gave us bargaining leverage that we hadn’t had before with them was just the silver lining on a very big black cloud.

  So, we all had an interest in helping the Chinese to escape what was really looking to the Chinese and American scientific communities like an imminent regional acute extinction event. The Chinese Academy of Sciences contacted our National Science Foundation with the relevant data and analysis, and NSF came to me and made the situation clear. We needed to help and the situation was so urgent that ordinary procedures weren’t going to do it. So I talked to President Hu (and yes, he was on first, and yes, we cut to the Chase), and our diplomatic teams hammered out a deal in record time—a deal that the Senate immediately approved 71 to 29, because it was that good a deal.

  At the invitation of the Chinese government, we docked some sixty ships of our nuclear fleet in Chinese ports, and provided them with almost five hundred megawatts of power for essential services. This helped them to shut down their dirtiest coal plants in the affected watersheds, and replace them with new clean plants built at high speed, sometimes in two weeks. We also helped to pay for these plants. We agreed also to give China all the scientific and technological help we could, everything our environmental science community has learned, from integrated pest management and organic agriculture to toxic waste removal from streams and soil. Americans from our Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Agriculture went there to consult, and our teams that were already helping with their drought problems and their Salton Sea projects continued with their aid. We’ll also be sending over a crack team of security experts to help keep track of expenditures and such, so that we don’t have any of the contract corruption that occurred under some lax previous administrations. My recent reorganization of our nation’s intelligence services (see previous post) has created some redundancies that give us the personnel to fulfill some of these crucial Chinese-American cooperative security responsibilities, both in Beijing and on-site in the drought-affected areas themselves.

  So we’re doing a lot for them, and yes, they’re doing a lot for us, and everyone is benefiting. What are they doing for us? They’ve agreed to a cap on their carbon emissions that is impressively low, making them buyers in the carbon trading market, at least for a while longer. They will be challenging the rest of the Asia Pacific Six, which is us, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India, to match their low cap, and are committed to helping achieve that reduction by investing in clean renewables in the other five countries in the group. As part of that effort they will be building a full set of their clean coal-burning plants for us in the United States, to be built on federal land and run by the Department of Energy. Quickly clean renewables will become part of the public trust.

  The Chinese have also negotiated a successful compromise with the Dalai Lama, so that Tibet will take its rightful place as one of the semi-autonomous ethnic regions that are an important feature of both China and the United States, in the form of our Native American reservations. I think you could say that the Chinese leadership, in this part of the deal, has “embraced diversity.” The world rejoices at the Tibetan settlement, and I particularly appreciate the extension of civil liberties and personal security to the Falun Gong and all other Chinese religious groups, including Buddhist monks and nuns and their leaders, in Tibet and elsewhere. That’s all been very good accommodation of everyone’s interests.

  I’ll add more on that later, but now Diane says it’s time for bed. Thanks to everyone for their best wishes, by the way!

  Response to response 3,581,332:

  I will definitely appreciate the big gains in the House and Senate that will be given to us in the midterm elections. I’ll take it to be a vote of confidence from the American people in the programs that we have been trying to enact together ever since the first sixty days. And I know people have been saying I have put my foot to the gas pedal on many of these matters ever since I got shot, and you know what? It’s true. So sue me! (But don’t.) I know people also say I’ve gotten to be like Paul Revere—you know, a little light in the belfry—but that is not true. I am more sane now than I have ever been.

  So, thanks in advance. A major part of our work will continue to be aiming the amazing productivity of the American people and the global community toward stabilizing the Earth’s climate, as you know. That will remain true for many years to come. But now, well before the election, I want to repeat what I’ve been saying all along, so that no one can later claim to misunderstand:

  A major part of sustainability is social justice, here and everywhere. Think of it this way: justice is a technology. It’s like a software program that we use to cope with the world and get along with each other, and one of the most effective we have ever invented, because we are all in this together. When you realize that acting with justice and generosity turns out to be the most effective technology for dealing with other people, that’s a good thing.

  Previous post:

  What I do is mix soy sauce and a dry white wine about half and half, and then add a big dash of tarragon vinegar, and some heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar, and a tablespoon of olive oil, about a teaspoon each of ginger and mustard powder, and a dash of garlic powder. Mix that up and the longer you marinate things in it the better, but just dipping it in will do too. Best on veggies, chicken, and flank steak. Sear the meat and then cook at a lower heat.

  56,938,222 responses. Cookbook to follow.

  Response to response 34:

  Why, you ask? Why? Because we were burning a quarter of the world’s burn of carbon when we were only five percent of the world’s population, that’s why! That was only possible because we were so rich and stupid. We were like the guy who uses Franklins to light cigars and blow smoke into everyone’s face. We only did it to show we could. Our imaginations had atrophied from disuse. Because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and a little bit of power corrupts a little bit, and a lot of power corrupts a lot. So, we were pretty corrupt. Empires always are. And read some postcolonial studies if you want to know how long the damage lasts in the colonies after the empire is over! The historical record seems to indicate that the damage lasts for about a thousand years. Empires are one of the most evil and destructive of human systems. We could not become an empire and stay the America that had been up until that point one of the great achievements of history, in that we were the country made up of people from all the other countries, the country that had a new idea of justice and tried to live by it. It was so successful that we became an empire by accident. Then we had to stand down. We had to divest.

  13,576,990 responses

  Response to response 589:

  Because in our system there’s no such thing! There is only capital accumulation. You know the drill: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. There is no word or phrase in the language to describe the opposite process. That’s part of the emptiness of our imagination. Once or twice I’ve seen the phrase capital decumulation, but that means a kind of accident or mistake, which isn’t what I have in mind. I’m talking about a deliberate act, a positive act. I’ve tried calling it capital dispersal—capital dissemination—capital disbursement—capital dispersion—you see the problem. Nothing sounds right even at the level of language. Profit redistribution; but see how all our words for it describe actions that come after the capital accumulation. Dispersing capital right at the moment of its creation—it almost seems to contradict reality, and in a sense that’s right; in our system there is no word or theory to explain dispersing capital without it being
some kind of payment due.

  Preemptive dividending? Usufruct? I leave it as an exercise to the responders to find the right words for this.

  33,322,518 responses

  Previous post:

  I say it’s simple, at least at the level of fundamentals. Everyone’s part of the team and should have a part to play. Capital is created by everyone, and should be owned by everyone. People are owed the worth of what they do, and whatever they do adds to humanity somehow, and helps make our own lives possible, and is worth a living wage and more. And the Earth is owed our permanent care. And we have the capability to care for the Earth and create for every one of us a sufficiency of food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and human rights.

  To the extent our economic system withholds or flatly opposes these values and goals, it is diseased. It has to be changed so that we can do these things that are well within our technological capabilities. We have imagined them, and they are possible. We can make them real.

  Of course they can happen. You thought they couldn’t happen, but why? Because we aren’t good enough to do it? That was part of the delusion. Underneath the delusion, we were always doing it.

  That’s what we’re doing in history; call it the invention of permaculture. By permaculture I mean a culture that can be sustained permanently. Not unchanging, that’s impossible, we have to stay dynamic, because conditions will change, and we will have to adapt to those new conditions, and continue to try to make things even better—so that I like to think the word permaculture implies also permutation. We will make adaptations, so change is inevitable.

  Eventually I think what will happen is that we will build a culture in which no one is without a job, or shelter, or health care, or education, or the rights to their own life. Taking care of the Earth and its miraculous biological splendor will then become the long-term work of our species. We’ll share the world with all the other creatures. It will be an ongoing project that will never end. People worry about living life without purpose or meaning, and rightfully so, but really there is no need for concern: inventing a sustainable culture is the meaning, right there always before us. We haven’t even come close to doing it yet, so it will take a long time, indeed it will never come to an end while people still exist.

  All this is inherent in what we have started, which is why I hope the American electorate delivers big progressive majorities in the congressional elections. We have to become the stewards of the Earth. And we have to start doing this in ignorance of the details of how to do it. We have to learn how to do it in the attempt itself. It is something we are going to have to imagine.

  “This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.” Our time has to be understood as a narrow gate, a window of opportunity, a crux point in history. It’s the moment when we took responsibility for life on Earth. That’s what I say. And I’ll have more to say about it later.

  -

  FRANK AND CAROLINE FLEW TOGETHER out to San Diego.

  There was an awkwardness between them now that Frank didn’t understand. It was as if, now that they were free to do what they wanted, they didn’t know what it was. It reminded Frank in a rather frightening way of his old inability to decide—of how that had felt. They had no habits. They sat side by side, and long silences grew.

  Before they had left, Frank had dropped by the office. He had walked into Edgardo’s office and given the Argentinian a big hug, his cheek crushed against the tall man’s skinny chest. “Thanks Edgardo.”

  Edgardo had smiled his wry smile. “You are welcome, my friend. It was my pleasure, believe me.”

  They had then discussed the situation as conveyed by Umberto; it sounded like things would be okay. Phil was untangling the intelligence community, though that would take some doing. Frank then explained his plan, and Edgardo had raised a finger. She might not want to talk about this last year, he had warned. She may never want to. A lot of us are like that. I don’t know if she is, but if so, be ready for it. It may always be a case of limited discussion.

  Frank had nodded, thinking it over.

  Besides, Edgardo had continued—even if she did fix the election single-handedly, and frame her ex to make it look like he framed her, what’s anyone to do about that now?

  Frank’s uneasy shrug had sparked Edgardo’s most delighted and cynical laugh. It echoed in his mind all the way across the country.

  ———

  In San Diego, Frank drove their rental car up to La Jolla. First to the top of Mount Soledad, to show her the area from on high; then down to UCSD, where he found parking and walked her through the eucalyptus groves in their ranks and files and diagonals. Then up the great promenade between the big pretty buildings, the ocean often visible out to the west. Up the curving path on the east side of the library, an inlaid piece of sculpture made to resemble a snake’s back. An inscription from Milton carved into the snake’s head made it clear just which snake it was. Central Library as the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: very apt.

  Caroline smiled when she saw it, and kissed Frank on the cheek. “Want an apple?” That was the best sign he had gotten from her all day, and his spirits expanded a bit.

  Then out across the street, onto the bluff overlooking the Pacific. He pointed out his bedroom nook, and watched her look out at the view. You could see San Clemente Island on the horizon, seventy miles out to sea. He could see that she liked it. Then they returned to the streets, and up Torrey Pines to the new institute.

  Into Leo’s lab. Leo regarded Caroline with interest as Frank introduced them.

  “Leo, this is my friend—”

  “Carrie Barr,” Caroline said, and put out her hand.

  “Hi,” Leo said, taking it. “Leo Mulhouse. Good to meet you.”

  After a bit of chat about their trip out:

  “Are the insertions still going well?” Frank asked.

  “They’re good,” Leo said. “Results are really good right now.”

  Frank explained to Caroline some of what they were doing, and tried to answer her questions with the right amount of technical detail, never an easy thing to judge. She looked different to Frank now, as if she had instantly become a Californian now that she was here. Maybe it was that he had seldom seen her in the sun. It was hard to believe how little time they had actually spent together. He didn’t know how much biology she knew, or whether she was interested in it.

  After that, Frank had a meeting on campus. “Do you want to join me for it, or do you want to have a look around while I talk to him?”

  “I’ll have a look around.”

  “Okay. Let’s meet back at Leo’s lab in an hour, okay?”

  “Fine.” Off she went.

  Frank walked over to the coffee kiosk in the eucalyptus grove at the center of campus, where he had arranged to meet with Henry Bannet of Biocal. They shook hands, and in short order were looking at Frank’s laptop and the PowerPoint show that Frank had cobbled together for him. As Frank spoke, he added stuff Leo had just told him a few minutes before. Bannet proved to be much as Leo had said: pleasant, professionally friendly, all in the usual way—but he had a quickness of eye that seemed to indicate some kind of impatience. Once or twice he interrupted Frank’s explanations with questions about Yann and Eleanor’s methods. He knew a lot. This guy, Frank thought, wanted gene therapy to work.

  “Have you talked to your tech transfer office about this?” Bannet asked.

  “It’s Eleanor Dufours who is the P.I.,” Frank said. “She’ll be the one leading the way with any start-up.”

  “Okay,” Bannet said, looking a bit surprised. “We can discuss that later.”

  By the time Frank got back to Leo’s lab, Caroline was already there, and so were Marta and Eleanor, with Marta looking most intrigued.

  “Frank!” Marta said. “I didn’t know you were going to be out here again so soon.”

  “Yes, I am. Hi, Eleanor. Have you guys met my friend—”

  “Yes,” Caroline said.
“Leo introduced us,” and for a second everyone was saying something at once.

  After a brief laugh, they fell silent. “Well!” Marta said. She had a gleam in her eye that Frank had seen before. “What a lucky coincidence! We were just going to grab Leo for dinner in Del Mar, to celebrate the latest results—did he tell you about those? Why don’t you two join us?”

  Frank said, “Oh, well—”

  “Sure,” Caroline said, “that sounds great.”

  So there they were at one of the beach restaurants in Del Mar, talking away cheerfully. Given the results in the lab, they had a lot to be cheerful about. Caroline was seated on one side of Frank, Marta on the other. It made him uneasy, but there was nothing he could do. And besides he too had cheerful news, in the form of his meeting with Henry Bannet.

  “So does that mean you’re moving back?” Marta said to Frank when the others were all talking among themselves.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “You’ve been out there a long time—what has it been, three years?”

  “Almost,” Frank said. “It feels like more.”

  After dinner, Marta invited them to come along with them to the Belly-Up, and again Caroline agreed before Frank could beg off. So there they were, in the crush of dancers on the floor of the Belly-Up, Frank dancing with three women, watching Marta and Caroline shouting over the music into each other’s ears and then laughing heartily, before excusing themselves and going off to the ladies’ room together. Frank watched this appalled. He had never even imagined Marta and Caroline meeting, much less becoming friendly. Now he was surprised to see that they looked somewhat alike, or were in some other way similar. And really, now that he thought of it, it was gratifying that Marta liked Caroline—a kind of approval of his judgment, or his D.C. life. Part of a more general amnesty. But it also felt like trouble, in some obscure way Frank could not pin down. At the very least it probably meant he was going to get laughed at a lot. Well, whatever. Nothing to be done about that. There were worse fates.