The Deluge, page 28
It was after that most recent meeting in which Ms. McCowen threatened me with a bovine medical procedure that I decided to join the evening run. The weather was bitter cold, fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, and we well-bundled runners crunched across the thin veneer of leftover snow. Mostly this group consisted of staffers and lobbyists plugged into the D.C. ecosystem, who seem to use the club as much for networking as physical fitness. We jogged up Constitution Avenue, past the Washington Monument, and then cut over onto the Mall at the Smithsonian. I fell beside Seth, our legs falling into synchronized rhythm as we beat across the gravel. Seth not only leads these runs but is a rather impressive repository of D.C. history. When we ran past the Washington National Cathedral, he stopped and led us inside to show us the Space Window. The blue and black stained-glass window depicts constellations in motion, green planets and red stars, and even though the cuts of glass were obviously still, one’s eye seemed determined to watch them swell and swirl.
“Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin brought back a piece of the moon, and it’s actually embedded in the glass,” said Seth. “Not to get corny, but it’s remarkable, right? That a sliver of the moon would meet the sands of our planet and be joined together to create something beautiful.”
I’m not sure why, but when he said that I felt deeply emotional for a moment. That evening, as we rounded the path just shy of the Reflecting Pool outside the Capitol Building, most of the group dropped away. Seth finally stopped and laced his fingers behind his head. The five of us who’d stuck with him trotted alongside. Until:
“I usually only see you in the morning.”
I explained: “I had a maddening day at work.”
Seth grinned and briefly touched my arm. “You work on the Hill. They’re all maddening.”
Until that moment I was unaware that Seth knew of my position. When I inquired how, he shrugged, an almost bashful expression: “You’re sort of dork-famous to a certain set. All the wonks whisper. You’re the NOAA modeler working on the top secret bill. Trust me, Ashir, that makes you famous in this town. I was around that game once upon a time, remember?”
As the rest of the group said their goodbyes, Seth and I continued down the Mall until we reached the Potomac. The water glittered in the city’s lights. Though I’ve become adept at meeting people’s gazes to signal that they have my attention, Seth was difficult to look in the eye. He was Germanic, with bright blond hair and startlingly blue eyes that gave me anxiety. He said:
“I have such an urge to interrogate you about what Randall is up to.”
“I can’t share specifics of the negotiations for reasons I’m sure you understand.”
“No, no, I get it. Hard not to wonder, though. You leave the game, but the game never leaves you.”
“On the other hand, perhaps it would be helpful for me to ask about your experience.”
“What if we got dinner this weekend? You can pick my brain on all of the government’s doomed efforts to curb emissions, and I can tell bad jokes until maybe I see what your smile looks like.”
I felt an old terror claw. Whenever I have a moment like this, I think of my brother-in-law, Peter, who was the person who taught me to be myself unashamedly. I told Seth that was quite the hokey line—and that I’d gladly have dinner with him.
* * *
I bring up Seth Young only because our dinner included insight into his experience with the failed Obama-era effort. Many of us are optimistic that this time will be different. In the last year, with two Category 3 hurricanes making landfall, record-setting wildfire activity in California, and finally, the Great Plains dust storm blowing in from the west and coating D.C. in a pink-orange haze, the political establishment finally seems sufficiently terrified. Yet the politics of action remains a vipers’ nest of complications. Yes, clearly, the conservative movement and its proxies practice bad science, but the so-called climate hawk community is often guilty of the same.
It has become internalized in the climate activist culture that in order to alleviate destructive hurricanes and wildfires, certain social policies must be enacted, many of which have virtually nothing to do with greenhouse gas reduction. In other words, universal healthcare schemes are a dangerous distraction, though activists keep demanding they be attached to any bill. To point this out, however, has become heretical. As you may understand from some of the correspondence your office received upon hiring me, there is a contingent of political activists in online forums who believe me to be a “stalking horse for neoliberalism.” Online harassment has followed. As I’ve tried to make clear to politicians and activists alike, science and advocacy make poor bedfellows, no matter the circumstances. Dispassionate empiricism is the only methodological approach that should be pursued.
At our dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak, Seth Young was eager to share his experience in D.C.
“I still can’t stop reading Roll Call. It’s pathetic. But when I was in politics, I was twenty-three and had an ulcer that wouldn’t go away. I was snorting Adderall every day, working seventy hours a week. Starting my business probably saved me from dying of a heart attack at forty. Also, I’m like the only guy from the Obama era who didn’t get a lobbying job or become a bro media guru. But I still can’t help but live and die on the gossip.”
The waitress came, and Seth ordered for us. He’d declared that he would be paying for the meal, but I did not see how that entitled him to choose for me an animal-free steak grown from cell culture with plant-based imitation butter-bacon sauce. When she left, I asked:
“Any gossip you could potentially share that might be of help in passing the legislation?”
Seth let out a low whistle and sipped his wine. He was on his second glass to my first.
“You guys have a tougher climb than you think. When I was meeting with USCAP, everyone thought we’d get something passed, at least the framework of a cap-and-trade system.”
“I’m aware. I’ve read the Skocpol report.”
Our meals arrived. Seth dug into his while I allowed mine to sit for the moment. Through a mouthful of plant protein, Seth went on:
“I train this congressman, a Dem from a gas state who wants this bill gone. Whichever version the Senate passes, whether it’s cap and trade or a tax-and-dividend scheme or a set of regulations, he’s going to back something else. It’s clever. You have these mechanisms which enviros have disagreed on going back to the nineties, and it’s a surefire way to divide and conquer. Then you’re back to another IRA with nothing to punish emissions.”
“That’s already what’s happening in our meetings. In my estimation, simply phasing out fossil fuels is no longer adequate. We need to embark on major R&D to push forward gigaton-scale carbon sequestration and utilization. There is still a great deal of momentum for the tax-and-dividend approach.”
Seth favored me with a skeptical glare. “This is the ‘shock collar’ fantasy?”
“Yes. Tom Levine has been invited to participate on behalf of A Fierce Blue Fire.”
“Oh Jesus. That degenerate Bernie bro. I’ll grant you they’ve created the political opportunity in a surprising way, but no one has proven yet that the GOP will actually play poker. Randall thinks she’s going to get a pass because she has an R beside her name, which is lunacy if you ask me. Once all those industries are threatened, money will start flowing to other options. The base is primed to turn on her the second it gets a signal from Fox News and the right-wing armada.” He pointed behind me to the TV playing on mute over the bar where a striking woman with bright red lipstick and lustrous black hair chopped a hand in the air to make her point. “This Jen Braden floozy is taking it to Randall. People think outlets like Renaissance Media are the white supremacist, conspiratorial fringe, but they’re the vanguard now. Aren’t you going to eat your steak?”
“Actually, I prefer real cow flesh.”
I betray Seth’s confidence here only because I think it’s vital for you to understand that the granular details of the bill matter almost nothing until we have a better understanding of what’s going on within the unreported, unchecked halls of the influence peddlers behind the façade of the state. At heart, though, I remain a mathematician, and when I look at passage of this bill I see simple math: In the Democratic-controlled House, 35 percent of the prospective yes votes will come from New York, California, Oregon, and Washington, low-carbon states that stand to lose little economically from the legislation. However, these states represent merely one-twenty-fifth of the Senate, or 4 percent. Your body, Senator Fitzpatrick, an anachronistic and vigorously antidemocratic institution, will, as it has throughout history, prove the most intractable obstacle to major reform.
* * *
Three weeks later, Dr. Tufariello felt the need to recruit me for a subaltern mission involving a scientist no longer welcome in the public sphere. In the privacy of her office, she confided to me: “The Randall transition team has a white paper ready, and they want us to take it to outside sources. You’ve worked with Tony Pietrus?”
If I have not made it clear, Dr. Tufariello has earned my utmost respect. After growing up in rather discomfiting circumstances in West Baltimore, she has become one of the most energetic scientists in her field. I would honor any request within reason, yet this one seemed strange.
“I did. We met at the Global Change Research Program modeling forum. We did not exchange life stories, as they say, but we’re well aware of each other.”
She said, very carefully: “The president-elect wants Tony’s opinion. Without anyone knowing about it.”
This made halting sense. Dr. Pietrus became something of a celebrity based on his popular book One Last Chance, and then a pariah. Scientifically, his work on the parameterization of clathrates has been key to some models. He’s contributed to process and observational understandings of methane clathrates, one of the key unresolved climate-relevant processes. However, when the Seventh Assessment Report came out in early 2028, he called the IPCC “a joke that still bends to the whims of petrostates like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, and the US.” Pietrus gave interviews denouncing the report as a “genocidal document” and promoted his histrionic “Tombstone Domino Theory.” He alienated himself completely with an outburst at a World Economic Forum panel, when “he called the future president of the United States an ‘affirmative action hire,’ ” as Dr. Tufariello put it. He’s been labeled a racist by detractors, a truth-teller by admirers. He remains a controversial figure, and his early retirement from Yale has not calmed his critics.
“I’d be glad to meet with him,” I said. “But why not use Marty Rathbone? I believe the two are colleagues and friends.”
“Rathbone is an ape. He knows how to get himself on TV and duck a sexual harassment complaint. But also, no way can the head of the NEC talk to Pietrus. The wingnuts are already dreaming up conspiracy theories about Randall’s win in the primaries, and Tony would be even more toxic on the right than the left. You’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to be at the center of a politicized issue, but nothing like this guy.”
“But Mary Randall wants his blessing on the bill?”
“She wanted to nominate him for the EPA actually. I guess she liked him for whatever insane reason. But McCowen shut that down because obviously getting him confirmed would be a nightmare no one wants. He’s seen as the most hardline scientist alive, so if he’s on board, it can protect our scientific flank. But we also have to protect our social justice flank. We keep those intact, and the Left as a whole will follow, even if the bill isn’t perfect. Which it won’t be.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, Jane, it feels as though we’re consistently attempting to craft a coalition before we even have the policy in place.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to politics. And listen, Ash, you need to exercise extreme discretion about meeting with Pietrus. Don’t use anything that goes out on a broadband connection. No phone, email, HoloChat, or Slapdish. In person. Make it a hotel and pick the conference room the day of.”
Perhaps this was paranoid of her, but everyone in Washington frets about being monitored or hacked, and working on sensitive legislation means that assumption is not without merit. Private spy networks, corporate data collection, and foreign espionage are all possibilities. Xuritas Corporate Services has rapidly increased its market share by promoting and gaming fears of terrorism, and it’s hardly a coincidence that its founder, Loren Victor Love, managed to secure himself a Democratic Senate seat in Montana. Meanwhile, Russia’s FSB, China’s MSS, and Mossad have now penetrated multiple presidential administrations and countless senatorial and congressional offices.
For instance, when I walked from my office to the Metro stop that would take me to Seth Young’s apartment, I passed through the sights of dozens of video analytics programs scanning multiple security cameras and processing huge amounts of data, including facial muscle observation, walking speed, heart rate, and other biometric data that might indicate if an individual was nervous or ill. People move through D.C. as if it were still a free city, but there is not a word, motion, website, photo, or sneeze that is not monitored, catalogued, and shuffled through the scrutiny of governmental and corporate AIs. That night, I told Seth we could not see each other for the week following, as my sister and her husband would be staying with me.
* * *
When I returned to MIT to pursue my doctorate in applied mathematics, I left behind a lucrative career as a professional gambler. My partner, Peter O’Connell, remained a good friend, and in my final year of doctoral work, my sister, Haniya, moved to Cambridge to pursue her doctorate in economics at MIT. This is how she met Peter. I moved on to work at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and then my mentors Dr. Sri Thankankur and Dr. Tufariello steered me toward work at NOAA. It was during my first months there that I received a call from Peter. We talked about basketball for a great deal of time, which usually indicates that he has something else troubling him:
“It’s the kind of thing where you could hate me, and it’ll rip the guts out of our friendship, get me?”
“Please continue.”
“Argh. Shit. All right. Ash, I love you dude. Okay: Haniya and I have been hooking up.”
This was indeed quite surprising: “Really.”
“Yeah, like a lot. For a long time.”
“Okay.” I paused for perhaps too long, lost in thought and forgetting how this cue might be interpreted.
“That’s like the bad news, dude. The really bad news is I’m pretty sure I’m head over heels fucking in love with her.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, man. At first, I just thought she was a fucking sexy whack job in bed, but… Nah. She’s Haniya. The Han dynasty. Han Solo. Harrison Ford. Ford Fusion EV, range of three hundred forty miles. When I told her how I felt, all she said to me was ‘I know.’ I fucking love her, Ash.”
At first, I harbored not just trepidation about this relationship but jealousy. They’d been having sex for nearly two years without telling me, and I resented this. After our father died, I became closer to my sister, our youthful misunderstandings dissipating. Peter, meanwhile—I’ll only say that I met him at a point in my life when I still harbored a great deal of anxiety and loneliness. Only years later did I understand what his friendship meant to me, the ways he taught me to be unafraid, to approach life with humor and bravery. Beyond that, I came to realize I was attracted to him, a problematic episode that I’ve never broached and never will. For a time, I kept my distance from both of them, hoping the relationship would run its course, until they visited me in Tennessee. I remember giving them a tour of my lab in Oak Ridge. I had a whiteboard hanging on the door and while I explained to Haniya how we were attempting to tackle the extreme-scale computing challenges of increasing spatial resolutions and representations of parameterizations, Peter, behind our backs, doodled an intricate portrait of the Millennium Falcon doing battle with a TIE fighter. The caption read, The Al-Hasan Brainbox Showdown. It made Haniya laugh very hard, and she took multiple pictures of it with her iPhone. After they left, I sat to write about the episode, as I sometimes do when attempting to work through moments of psychological complexity and decided that it was low of me to resent these two. They have become my closest confidants ever since. It so happened that while working on the white paper, Haniya and Peter visited me in D.C. It was their first vacation since the birth of my niece, Noor, and though I was eager to see her again, Haniya and Peter were more eager for respite and a few alcoholic beverages. My mother flew to Boston to spend the weekend with Noor. Peter, always a playful, slippery, logic-defying linguist, had dubbed my mother, Amala, “Grandmamala,” and it was one of Noor’s favorite words to hear. Perhaps the most surprising element of Peter’s romance with my sister was that my mother seemed to genuinely like him. It also helped that Peter had undergone “a half-conversion to Islam.”
Haniya, by this point, had stopped wearing hijab, but this was not an easy journey. She’d been independent-minded and rebellious the moment she could stand on two feet, and as a teenager had started a website with photographs displaying the difference between worship facilities for men and women in various mosques around the US: women’s prayer spaces baking with no windows or air-conditioning or only one dirty sink to perform wudu. My parents and the imam were far from pleased. This defiance continued into college, when Haniya started a Muslim women’s group at Michigan. Most of her activism involved combating misogyny, sexual violence, and domestic abuse, and I know Haniya received a great deal of online vitriol, both from Muslims and their just-as-strident Islamophobic counterparts. She was caught between the imperative to defend her faith, which was precious to her, and to try to change the things within that faith community that she saw as unjust. She claimed that Peter, raised Irish Catholic, had been instrumental in helping her through this crisis.
