“He got killed over a rumor?”
Cravas took a sip of his Pimm’s. “I would think at least part of that would be obvious.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“He found something someone didn’t want known.”
Jason drank from his glass. “A piece of a grapevine on a glacier. And what was likely a tool?”
“Quite damning, don’t you think?”
Jason put down his glass and placed both elbows on the table. “Why don’t you explain that to me.”
Cravas reached for his glass, withdrew his hand, and sat back. “As you are no doubt aware, the current scientific bugaboo is so-called global warming, possibly industrially caused by spewing carbon gases into the air. Finding a grapevine in that glacier, particularly an ancient species of grape, would indicate that the climate, at some time, was conducive to growing grapes. In other words, warm. That, in turn, would indicate that warming periods have nothing to do with human activity. There are a number of respected scientists who question the existence of global warming and certainly question any human causation.”
At one time scientists thought the earth was flat, too, Jason thought. But he said, “I thought the polar ice caps are receding.”
“Not quite. In 2007, Antarctica set a record for more new ice since 1979. Only along the Antarctic Peninsula is there significant melting, an area about one-fiftieth the size of East Antarctica, where ice has been growing.
“Just as glaciers in Iceland, Norway, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, and the Himalayas are advancing. Even some in your country, like the Nisqually and Emmons glaciers on Mount Rainier are growing, as are some in Alaska. In fact, over ninety percent of the world’s ice caps are growing, not shrinking. Hardly conclusive evidence of global warming.”
Was this guy drunk, or was what he was saying real? “But I’ve seen pictures …”
This time Cravas did take a drink. “Dear boy, the pictures are rubbish. You take a photo in the winter when the glacier is at its greatest size, then photograph it again in the summer. The loss of ice is entirely seasonal. Have you heard of the hockey stick?”
Jason wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “Hockey stick? The thing hockey players use?”
Cravas reached under the table and retrieved a briefcase Jason had not noticed. He drew out a sheaf of papers, spreading them on the table. He pointed to a horizontal squiggly line that curved upward at one end like the blade of a hockey stick.
“This is a graph prepared from various data fed into a computer by a geoscientist from the University of Massachusetts named Michael Mann in, I believe, 2004.” He pointed. “See the dates along the bottom? You will note the sudden upward swing in about 1900, just the time widespread use of coal and natural gas for heating were putting significant amounts of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere. This graph gave credence to every man-caused global warming advocate on Earth.
“The problem is, Mann mishandled his data, as revealed by a couple of Canadian scientists a few years later. In fact, Mann’s programs magnified data that tended to increase the hockey-stick effect while minimizing that which didn’t. Mann and his theories have been pretty well debunked. Just like the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia here in Britain.”
“Climatic Research Unit?”
“Back in ’09, someone hacked into the center’s computers, published a number of e-mails that clearly demonstrated data adverse to the theory of man-made global warming was being destroyed, particularly when Information Act requests were made. The advocates of man-made global warming have a history of, shall we say, less than academically honest research. For that matter, the disgraced CRU director, Phil Jones, admitted global temperatures have remained essentially the same for the last fifteen years.”
“There are a lot of politicians that don’t know that.”
“Or don’t want to admit they do.”
“But what about the melting glaciers causing rising sea levels, inundating small Pacific islands?”
“What islands?”
“I read about—”
Cravas waved a dismissive hand. “More rubbish! Dr. Paul Kench of Auckland University measured twenty-seven small Pacific islands where historical data showed sea-level increases of two millimeters a year over the last twelve to sixty years. Only four of the twenty-seven had diminished in size. The other twenty-three had remained the same or increased. The natives of those islands know an opportunity when they see it: The industrialized world has caused something that threatens their land. They want ‘compensation.’ In American vernacular, ‘Pay up, sucka!’”
Jason took another sip of his insipidly warm bitters, not sure what to believe. “I still don’t understand why someone would kill over something that is, at best, a theory.”
Cravas looked at him the same way he probably regarded one of his students who had come up with a wrong answer. “Good God, man! Do you have no idea of the billions, if not trillions, of dollars spent by private industry on the ‘green’ craze? Low- or no-emissions automobiles and hugely expensive modifications to power plants are just a couple of examples. Not to mention the amount of money various governments have and will continue to spend to rid the air of CO2? To suddenly announce that global warming was so much bunk or that mankind had nothing to do with it would cause entire economies to collapse. Worse, it would make politicians look foolish, not to mention a great number of scientists who have staked their reputations on the phenomenon. And think of the institutions like Greenpeace and the Greenies! Why—”
Jason’s head jerked up. “Say that again.”
Cravas was confused. “Say what? About the ruined reputations?”
“No, I thought I heard you say ‘Greenies.’”
“Oh, that’s what we call Grünwelt, one of the biggest, most aggressive, and well-funded environmental organizations in the world.”
Not weenies, not meanies, but Greenies. Jason finally understood what Boris had been trying to tell him.
“What can you tell me about Grünwelt?” he asked.
Cravas went a long way toward emptying his glass. “Not much that I haven’t already. Extremely vocal about environmental causes. Some consider the blokes ecoterrorists. Hasn’t been proved, of course, but there are those who connect them with ‘accidents’ in coal mines in Wales, sabotaging oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve had more than one threat I suspect they might be behind. Chaps aren’t real good at tolerating views that don’t coincide with theirs.”
“Threats?”
“Nothing the police can act on. ‘We will take action,’ ‘Your lies will not be tolerated,’ that sort of rubbish. Plus, anytime anyone at the Institute of Science and Climatology speaks somewhere, they always have their yobs there to try to shout him down. There have been a couple of scuffles.”
“I’ll look them up on the computer.”
This time Cravas drained his Pimm’s. “You won’t find much, other than the propaganda they put there.” He regarded his glass sorrowfully. “Say, don’t you want dinner? Jake will be turning the grill off soon.”
Jason thought of what he had seen on the professor’s plate. He started to wiggle out of the booth. “I’m staying at the Marriott. I’ll get a bite there. If you find anything …”
“Oh, I have plenty of Grünwelt’s own adverts for contributions. If you like, I’ll bring them ’round in the morning. Say about oh-eight-hundred?”