The Ministry for the Future

34

Notes for Badim again, on trip with B and Mary to India.

Fly into Delhi, met by Chandra, no longer in government, but asked by B to meet us and introduce us to new minister and staff. C takes us into government house and introduces us to her replacement and his staff. Meet and greet, then updates. Discussion of solar radiation management applied post–heat wave. They claim to have depressed temperatures in India two degrees and globally one degree, for three years, with decreasing effect, until six years later back to pre-operation levels. No discernible effect on monsoon during that time.

M questions this last assertion and C testy in response. Monsoon variability increasing for last thirty years, somewhat like California weather in that the average is seldom hit, most years much higher or lower than average, which is an artifact only. M objects, says thought monsoon was regular as rain in Ireland, crucial to crops and life generally, July through September daily rain, how variable could it be? Very variable, C replies. Not happy to be challenged on this. Daily rain a myth. Weeks can pass in August, etc. M looking skeptical, as is B.

B intervenes. What are graphs showing? Total rainfall year to year, monsoonwise. Why no graph?

Staff peck around a bit and bring up graph. Monsoon rain indeed fluctuating more through last two decades, and after their geoengineering maybe a bit more so. Second year after application particularly low, semi-drought, especially in the west. Another problem, C points out. Monsoon not the same east to west, always that way.

M asks what plan is going forward. Are they going to do it again? Because global average temperatures rising again. A few wet-bulb 34s in the previous few years, lots of deaths. Wet-bulb 35s very likely to happen again somewhere, and soon.

Exactly, C says. And wet-bulb 35 is deadly to all, but even wet-bulb 33 is also bad enough to kill lots of people.

Of course, M says. So does that mean you’re going to do it?

C defers to new minister, Vikram. V says, We are certainly ready to do it. It will be a more orderly procedure this time (not looking at C as he says this), involving democratic processes and expert consultation. But we are ready.

B asks, A double Pinatubo this time, I hear?

V: Probably yes. That is what first intervention was understood to be.

M and B not looking at each other. Finally M says, There are questions of sovereignty here, I know. But India signed the Paris Agreement along with all other nations, and the Agreement has protocols for this kind of thing that all signatories have agreed to adhere to.

We may break the treaty, V says. Again. That’s what we have to decide.

B points out penalties for this may be high. Won’t be like after heat wave.

V: We are aware of that. Part of the deliberative process. Is benefit worth cost?

C adds sharply, We won’t allow another heat wave just so we can be in compliance with a treaty written up by developed nations outside of tropics and their dangers.

Mary: Understood.

Meeting ends. No one looking happy.

Mary asks if she can be taken to see the site of the heat wave.

C says no. Nothing to see there. Not a tourist site.

Even less happiness.

B: Where to then? Anything you would like to show us?

V and C exchange look. Yes, V says. Must stay in Delhi himself, but C can take M and B out to see farms in Karnataka.

Farms?

New paradigm for farms. Come see.

Happy to, claim M and B unconvincingly. Not ag people really.

Next day in Karnataka after short flight. Green. Hills to east, also green. Terraces on slopes, but much land flat. Green of several shades, but also rectangles of yellow, orange, red, purple, dark brown, even pale blue. Flowers of spice crops apparently. Everything grows here, new local host says, name Indrapramit. Best soil and climate on Earth. Now banking 7 parts per thousand of carbon per year, immense drawdown. Also food for millions. Local tenure rights for local farmers, no absent landlords anymore except for India herself, the Indian people, as represented by Karnataka state, also the district and village. Stewards of land. Keep room for wild animals in the hedgerows and habitat corridors. Tigers back, dangerous but beautiful. Gods among us. And all organic. No pesticides at all. Sikkim model now applied to ag all over India. Kerala model for governance, the same.

Communist organic farmers, B notes. He thinks it’s funny, M doesn’t think he should joke. Locals happy to agree to his characterization. Also these changes mean end of caste’s worst impacts, they claim. Dalits now involved, women always half of every panchayat, an old Indian law now applied for real. Now there are farm tenure rights, full ownership of one’s work, its surplus value. Women and all castes equal, Hindu and Muslim, Sikh and Jain and Christian, all together in New India. Communist organic farmers just the tip of the iceberg.

Riots we heard about? B asks. Again M annoyed with him.

But again hosts happy to explain. Indra: Some absentee landlords, on being eminent-domained, hired BJP thugs from city to come here and beat people up. It was one-on-one, so satyagraha not so effective. Can’t lie down in front of a thug to much effect. Better tactic against armies, ironically. So had to fight it out, defend selves. Swarmed the invaders, beat them pretty thoroughly. Reported as riot but actually repelling of invaders. Sort of like organic ag; you have to use integrated pest management.

B: Is one tool of integrated pest management targeted assassinations? Global community not happy with murders of private citizens. A terror tactic, he says, like thugees of yore, these Children of Kali.

M again staring at him as if thinking he is deliberately trying to be offensive.

C also not pleased. Says sharply, Murder rate never really a concern when poor people are being killed by terrorists hired by rich people. Turnabout may not be fair play, but not everything that happens is government sponsored, as distinguished visitors well know. Lots of forces unleashed now. Kali just one of the gods in action now, remember that. So, integrated pest management—yes.

M seizes on this to change topic. How does it work if you get a crop infestation? Insects you don’t want, no insecticides to use, what do you do?

Indra: There are insecticides, they just aren’t poisonous chemicals. Other bugs, mainly. Biological warfare.

Does that work?

Not always, no. But when crops are lost to infestations we can’t stop, we clear the fields and send all the waste plant material to the vats. They are part of our system too, and include bugs on our side you might call them, that will eat spoiled crops no problem, eating also the pests that spoiled them. All of that is food for the vats. Vat amoeba don’t care what they eat, being omnivores. And from them we get a kind of flour, also the ethanol that powers any machine that still needs to run on liquid fuels. Then for some kinds of infestations we burn the land, let it lie fallow a season or two, then back in business. Try something different each time. We keep learning things, it’s a work in progress.

So you have microbacterial Children of Kali, B jokes. Again M annoyed.

Everything under the sun cycles, Indra says.

This perhaps also acknowledges we are all getting cooked in midday sun. Mad dogs and Englishmen, and Irish women. Even B looks overheated.

Locals bear down on their enthusiasm by pointing up. So much sun! It’s power, right? We can use solar power to pull water right out of the air, hydrogen out of the water, grow the plants that provide for bioplastics and biofuels for whatever still needs liquid fuel, use hydrogen to power turbines. Sun also helps grow forests that draw down carbon, and fuel the biochar burners, and provide the wood for building. We are a fully recycling solar powerhouse. A green power. Other countries don’t have our advantages in sunlight, and minerals, and people, especially people. And ideas.

M and B nodding as politely as they can manage. Heard it before. Preaching to converted. Hotter than hell out here.

The New India: all agree. Our Indian hosts very pleased with how things are going here. But there’s an edge to them too. M and B definitely aware of that edge, emanating strongly from C, also from locals. Aggressive pride. Don’t tread on me. No outsider gets to tell India what to do, not anymore. Never again. Post-colonial anger? Post-geoengineering defensiveness? Tired of the Western world condescending to India? All of the above?