“Of course, though I suppose it depends on what you mean by—”
“My client is concerned about the fact that climate scientists are intentionally suppressing alternative findings regarding global climate fluctuations. He also believes the political response to climate issues should be based on sound science, not alarmism or emotions. As a scientist—even a disgraced one—you surely agree.”
The barb stung, and gave the conversation a different tone. “Forgive me, Eric, but, again, I feel compelled to point out that while I find the discussion on global warming fascinating—”
“We prefer to use the term climate change. It provokes less emotion than global warming. Global warming is scary. We don’t want to scare people.”
It took me a moment to process this, and he took another long sip of his wine. Finally, I spoke. “While I am a curious bystander, my research interests are not aligned with this topic. Frankly, I’d be a bit out of my depth.”
Eric opened his jacket and pulled the conference brochure from an inner pocket. He searched it for the description of my presentation. Once he found it, he tapped it with his finger.
“It says here you’re speaking on the impact solar variations have on global climate fluctuations.”
“My focus will be primarily on total solar irradiance,” I said uneasily.
Eric slipped the brochure back into his pocket. “Perfect. This aligns with my client’s interests.”
“I can’t imagine how.”
“Dr. Pavano, my client is proposing an opportunity that would allow you to reenter academia, regain control of your career, and do meaningful research with the kind of financial support most scientists don’t even dare to dream about.”
Eric went on to tell me that his client was prepared to endow a professorship at a university to which he already had strong ties. This university would provide me with generous research grants for more study into the subjects about which we’d spoken. I quickly realized this would require a substantial shift in my current research interests.
As we spoke, I thought about Annie lying on the bed upstairs in our stateroom, watching Survivor, so grateful for the fruit basket that she hadn’t taken off the yellow cellophane. The decision was not difficult.
* * *
My cruise ship lecture was so well received that within a week of returning home, I had six invitations to present the same talk at various conferences around the country. The fees offered were substantial. Until I’d embarked upon the cruise, I had had no idea that a parallel scientific world existed, one separated from mainstream science by a matter of degrees. It was a place where science was expertly mimicked and, at rare moments, even practiced. I was entering the fold. And I found the inhabitants of this world to be, without exception, kind, welcoming, in earnest, and thrilled to find a “real scientist” in their midst.
Eric Falleri kept in touch regularly, and by April 2002, although I was not affiliated with any accredited university, I was a fairly well established “climate change skeptic.” In this parallel universe, “expertise” came quickly. Although some bloggers who had taken notice of my work referred to me as a “denialist,” my reputation was bolstered by the fact that I did not entertain the conspiracy theories that had gripped some corners of this world—charges of scientific and criminal misconduct resulting in a general consensus that climate change existed and was caused by humans.
I made one misstep at this time, which was agreeing to counsel a young biblical archaeologist on a paper about the structural stability of Noah’s ark. I considered it an interesting puzzle—how does one research the buoyancy and bilge radius of an imaginary seafaring vessel? To my dismay, the student added my name to the subsequent research paper. Although Eric was vexed, he felt that the journal in which it appeared was so obscure that it wouldn’t pose any problems.
In late May, I was booked on a flight to Washington for a meeting with the Client, whom by this point I had come to consider a proper noun. The meeting was held in the Royal Suite at the Washington, D.C., Four Seasons, at a long dining table and over an opulent meal. Falleri was there, but the easy insouciance that I had come to consider his trademark was nowhere to be found. Terse now, he asked for the confidentiality agreement he’d sent me the week before the meeting. Once I’d produced it, he grimly escorted me to a seat on the left side of the table.
Shortly after, a group of men emerged from an adjoining room. There was little to distinguish one from the other. They were of similar age—between fifty and sixty—and wore suits of a similar cut and of similar quality. Three were balding, two had full heads of silver hair. It would take a keener eye than mine to determine which one, upon a glance, was the Client. My only indications were the facts that he entered the room a full minute after everyone else and that he walked directly to the seat at the head of the table. His firm handshake lasted only the length of a breath, as if the ritual were inherently distasteful to him.
Throughout the first course, a Waldorf salad, the Client remained silent while the others spoke about trivial matters—golf scores, recent vacations, the Preakness. He finished his salad with astonishing celerity. One by one, the others at the table noticed and set their forks down, too.
In the break between the main course—Maine lobster thermidor—and coffee, the Client finally turned his eyes toward me. The table conversation dissipated at once.
“Dr. Pavano, we meet at a time of great change,” the Client said. He looked at me steadily, waiting, as if I might contradict him. I decided to respond with “Indeed.” This met with his approval, and he continued, “I trust Eric has given you an idea of where our interests lie.” He gestured to the other men at the table without looking at them. “These men represent some of the largest energy companies in the world. We are here together tonight because we have agreed that the defining issue of the coming decades, not just in our industry, but also in federal and global policy, will be climate change. We are aware that the majority of the science emerging from this area of study indicates that the earth is warming, and that it’s warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. The responsibility for this warming, and its attendant repercussions, will be laid at our feet.” He paused here to take a drink from his ice water. “We would like to approach this issue proactively. One way we can do this is by directing our resources toward sound science that looks dispassionately at the data, which our own company scientists tell us do not support the idea of man-made climate change. Unfortunately, they are unable to place any research papers in reputable journals, so we are losing control of the messaging. This issue has become politically charged. And that’s why you’re here with us tonight.”
To his right, one of the balding men gathered that the Client was finished for now and that he was expected to speak.
“Dr. Pavano,” he said, “I represent Americans for Responsible Petroleum, a coalition of oil and energy companies. We are deeply concerned about the science coming out of the federal research programs, which is indicating, overwhelmingly, that climate change is verifiable fact and that its causes can be connected directly to our industries.”
At this point, he pushed aside a vase of purple hydrangeas and laid out a map of Antarctica. Small red stars had been carefully affixed to various parts of the continent. “The majority of federal and university-funded climate change research takes place in Antarctica, specifically at South Pole Station and the West Antarctic Divide. This work is overseen by the National Science Foundation, a taxpayer-funded federal agency. To date, there has not been a single climate researcher who doesn’t go down there already convinced that climate change is caused mainly by fossil fuel emissions.”
“Of course you know that a consensus exists among climate scientists that the fluctuations are, in fact, human-caused,” I said.
The man smiled. “And you’ve played right into their hands, Dr. Pavano.”
Chastened, I said, “I admit I know very little about the kind of research undertaken in the polar regions.”
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“Which is the other reason why you are here tonight,” the Client broke in. “This coordinated alarmist campaign could have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy and lead to destructive government regulations. Think about the other alarmist campaigns that have been much ado about nothing. The population crisis. The so-called energy crisis. The hole in the ozone. We’ve sat on the sidelines long enough. To do so any longer would be irresponsible.”
By the time the dessert plates were cleared away, I had recovered enough to begin asking questions, and they began to lay out the Plan. It had five phases:
Phase One: Apply for a National Science Foundation–funded research position at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (known as WAIS, or, colloquially, the Divide).
Phase Two: When, as anticipated, the application is rejected, identify at least two of the 135 known climate change skeptics currently serving in the U.S. Congress who might be willing to make National Science Foundation bias a platform issue.
Phase Three: Argue, in a coordinated media campaign, that the National Science Foundation, as a federal agency, is bound by law not to demonstrate bias (if bias is verifiable), or imply bias exists among National Science Foundation leadership (if no documented history of bias is available). If necessary, launch local and national campaigns to support the placement of a nonconformist climate scientist at the research base at South Pole.
Phase Four (assuming Phase Three is successful): Receive federal funding from the National Science Foundation, along with additional private monies from the companies represented at the dinner, via existing pass-through organizations, to explore the idea that climate change is caused by solar variations, not CO2 emissions. (It had been previously concluded that countering the idea that the climate was warming at all was a “zero-sum game.”)
Phase Five: Once funded and sited at WAIS, produce compelling data and, if the data do not support the Plan, manipulate it. Expect, and even welcome, obstruction from researchers and administrators. Document these actions but do not resist them. At the same time, disrupt the existing ecosystem in a manner that attracts the attention of the national media and solidifies the message of bias.
As I was mulling over the Plan (as with the Client, I gave it proper noun status), the discussion took the turn for which Eric had prepared me in the months leading up to this meeting: the Client asked if I was a “god-fearing man.” Next to me, I could feel Eric shift in his seat, expectant but nervous. In our conversations, the lie to which we’d both agreed, and which I was about to tell the Client, had been difficult for Eric to accept. I knew he was raised Baptist, but was not “evangelical,” as he put it. He knew I was an atheist, because Annie had mentioned it in passing to him at one point on the cruise. But when Eric told me what I would be expected to do—the spiritual mantle I’d have to wear if I were to be successful—I had no qualms. The burden of having failed to fulfill immense promise was substantial; I had thought many times over the years of what John Brennan said to me when I’d declined to join his department at Stanford: “No one is more unnecessary than a man who has failed to realize his gift.” I had done many things since to escape the fact that I had failed to realize mine. Being something other than a profound disappointment seemed to me at that moment sublime, even if it required lying about something that, to me, was wholly unimportant. Faith was not so odious an idea that I wouldn’t use it in the name of my own personal redemption.
At the time Eric first brought up the idea of turning me into a “god-fearing man,” I sensed he was both relieved and repulsed by my easy acquiescence. “We’ll have to build a narrative,” he warned. “Otherwise, it will be too easy for the press to pick the story apart.” This narrative-building required a crisis—an atheist scientist who has been thrown out of the halls of academia because of moral and ethical failings directly attributable to his lack of faith. A series of meetings had been arranged with a Pentecostal church in northern Virginia, which, Eric told me, had been chosen because it was fundamentalist in nature but modern in approach. I shared my manufactured narrative with the assistant general bishops, both of whom were deeply moved by the story of a scientist wrestling with his faith. I then met with the general bishop, who, toward the end of our meeting, grew animated and insisted I attend Sunday’s service. “You are,” he told me, “our Prodigal Son.”
At the service, I was brought to the front of the church and surrounded by several individuals, including the general bishop, and experienced what I later learned was the “laying on of hands.” I became a member in good standing of Olive Grove Christian Fellowship.
Annie had watched this unfold with growing unease. Being an atheist herself, she openly ridiculed my new membership at Olive Grove. She even spoke critically of the Client. Eric soon noticed that she was not, as he put it, “on board.” This, he indicated, was a problem. In fact, things between Annie and me had grown strained since I’d undertaken the Plan. Annie had become distant—during the weeks I was in Washington and Virginia, she chose not to fly out on the weekends to join me. In the meantime, Eric wanted to know what could be done to influence her to become a more visible part of the narrative. I decided to ask her myself, and our conversation transformed into a fairly intense domestic squabble, in which Annie said things along the lines of “I don’t know who you are anymore.” Eric and I agreed to leave the Annie question alone for the time being, but I continued my active participation in Olive Grove, and even came to find the spiritual work invigorating, if not convincing. So by the time of the dinner in the Royal Suite at the Four Seasons, I was able to answer the Client’s question with an assertion that I was an active member of Olive Grove Christian Fellowship. He then said that he understood I had been an atheist (specifically, he used the term irreligionist) and felt this was somewhat inconvenient, but acknowledged that it was difficult to find a reputable scientist who was a believer. Eric told the Client about my religious redemption, and how the story of an atheist scientist coming to Christ would be far more powerful than that of a churchgoing man experiencing an intensification of his faith.
“Luke fifteen,” the Client said approvingly.
In the cab to the airport, Eric handed me an envelope containing a check. It was more than I’d made in the last five years combined.
When I submitted my proposal to the National Science Foundation, I chose Kibsairlin’s ice cores as my research subject, with a secondary focus on methane levels in the Antarctic sedimentary basins. I suspected, or said I suspected—I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to suspect—that the levels were not as high as had been reported. I remained surprised at the speed with which I had become an expert in the world of climate change denial. In other disciplines, my lack of published and peer-reviewed articles would preclude me from such a rapid ascension. My reliance on meta-analysis rather than original research would be seen as a grave liability. In this collegial community of like-minded individuals, however, meta-analysis was the most effective tool for picking apart inconsistencies and sowing doubt.
“The idea,” Eric told me, “is to make people think that there is controversy within the scientific community on whether climate change is human-caused. We won’t be in trouble until the public thinks the conversation is closed.” It was my job to keep the conversation going.
In early September 2002, the expected rejection letter from the NSF arrived, citing an overabundance of quality proposals. It was now time to move onto Phase Two of the Plan. In mid-November, I answered the door to find Fred Zimmer standing on my stoop. I managed to hide my shock, and invited him in. He asked after Annie, and I told him she was visiting her parents in Bismarck—going into the details about why she was no longer living in the house felt too complicated. I brewed a pot of coffee and we sat together at the kitchen table. I noticed how frail Fred was looking, how sunken his cheeks were, as if he’d been hollowed out from the inside and his skin had collapsed to fill the spaces. His thick glasses magnified his pale blue eyes so that t
hey seemed to overtake his face, and his lips had curled inward, threatening to disappear completely.
“Colon cancer,” he told me. “Metastatic. But I didn’t come here to talk about that.” He scraped his chair forward so he could lean on the table with both elbows. “I got a call from the New Scientist yesterday, asking me about the circumstances of your resignation. What the hell’s going on, Frank?”
When I feigned incomprehension, he hit the table with his fist. I mopped up the spilled coffee with a napkin, and noticed Fred’s hands were shaking. I felt gripped by something—compassion, perhaps, or pity—and I gently laid my hands on his.
He kept them under mine for only a moment before snatching them away angrily. “What’s happened to you, Frank, that you’re running around with these tinfoil-hat-wearing reptiles?” Although I was used, after all these years, to Fred’s candor, I winced at this and he noticed.
“Cui bono, Frank?” he said.
“Taxpayers want disinterested science, Fred, not political alarmism.”
Zimmer’s eyes widened and a look of inexpressible sadness crossed his old and gnarled face. He said nothing for some minutes. “The stealing, the plagiarism—did you do it?” For only an instant did I consider lying to my old mentor. I could tell that the question was merely a formality, even though Zimmer was not known to stand on such things. He already knew.
I looked down at the coffee spoons, which I had set on top of one another, the bowls and the stems in perfect alignment. I didn’t raise my eyes again until I heard the front door slam shut.
* * *
The Plan steadily grew in scope. The Group (the consortium of energy companies with whom I’d met that night in the Royal Suite) had started meeting with the two conservative legislators who’d been chosen to take up the cause, in exchange for several generous campaign donations. I met the men once—a representative from Kansas named Sam Bayless and a representative from Tennessee named Jack Calhoun. Bayless was the younger, and more serious, of the two men—groomed, handsome, but not oleaginous. Calhoun was a husky man with crooked teeth, but a more sincere bearing. Bayless’s participation was clearly an act of opportunism, while Calhoun’s seemed like a last gasp. Both expected formidable challenges in the 2004 elections, and were eager to develop a major platform issue that would speak to their constituents.
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