Empire Builders Read Online Free PDF Page B

Antarctic and Greenland caps will start to melt down. Ten years after that, sea levels all around the world will be five-ten meters higher than they are now.”
    “Fifteen to thirty feet?” Dan’s voice sounded hollow, even to himself. Freiberg nodded.
    “What can we do about it?” “Not a helluva lot,”Freiberg said. “There must be something!”
    Freiberg pulled himself up to a sitting position and faced Dan. He had been a planetary geochemist ten years earlier, when Dan had hired him. Since then he had been forced to dabble in so many disciplines that now Dan thought of him as Astro’s resident genius: a man who understood what made planets work.
    “Dan,” he said slowly, “it’s taken a couple of hundred years for the greenhouse effect to make itself felt.
    It’s an accelerating phenomenon. Every year it goes faster. It builds and builds. And then it hits a discontinuity. In ten years it’ll reach the point where the ice caps start to go.”
    “But I thought the greenhouse was mostly due to industrial pollution: carbon dioxide and other crap that we pour into the atmosphere.”
    Freiberg nodded.
    “Then, if we stop polluting the atmosphere,” Dan said, “won’t the greenhouse effect stop, too?”
    The nod turned into a weary shake of his head. “Nice try, boss. But there are two problems with it: One, the greenhouse effect is already here. Global temperatures are already high enough to cause disastrous changes in climate, worldwide.”
    “Yeah, I know,” said Dan impatiently. “But if we stop” Pulling himself up to a sitting position,Freiberg said, “That’s the second problem.” His round-cheeked face went tense, grim. “How the fuck are you going to stop twelve billion people from shitting up the atmosphere? In ten years or less.”
    Dan leaned back in his chair, shocked at the younger man’s sudden fury.
    “I’ve done my homework, boss,”Freiberg said. “I’ve gone through the numbers. You know what we’re up against? We’d have to cut down on the cee-oh-two we put into the atmosphere by ninety percent.
    Ninety percent! For starters?’
    “Well,” Dan said weakly, “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
    Freiberg’s anger dissipated. He went back to being melancholy. “It can’t be done, Dan. There’s nothing that you or I or anybody can do. Mother Nature’s going to solve the problem for us—by killing several billion people.”
    But Dan said, “Goddammit to hell and back, I’m not going to sit here and watch the world drown! There must be something we can do!”
    “Like what?”
    “Shut down all the goddamned factories. Move ‘em into orbit.
    Stop burning fossil fuels. Convert every motor on the planet to electricity. Use fusion and solar power. We’ve got the technology, for god’s sake!”
    “How’re you going to get the whole flipping world to change over in ten years?” “The Global Economic Council,” Dan said. Then he snorted with disdain.
    “The GEC? Don’t make me laugh.”
    “They’re the only organization in the whole world that has anywhere near the clout to get the job done. You’ve got to show findings to them.”
    “I already have.”
    “Huh? What’d they say?”
    “They laughed in my face,”Freiberg said. “What?”
    “I said they laughed at me. Their scientists told me I’m crazy.” Dan felt the breath rush out of him. “Son of a bitch,” he said slowly.
    Freiberg inhaled. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am crazy.” Dan shook his head. “If I have to choose between them and you, I’d say they’re the ones who’ve nuts.”
    “I did have all this checked out by the best people I know,”Freiberg said.
    Dan rapped nervously on his desktop with his knuckles. “No. If the GEC refuses to listen to you, it’s for some reason.”
    “They can’t want half the world to drown!” Dan said nothing; he was thinking furiously. “Can they?”Freiberg asked plaintively.
    “We’ll find out,” said Dan. Leaning across his desk, he