Go make yourself a plan and be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, for neither will come right.
(Bertolt Brecht)
It was almost impossible to make ends match. In the Midwest, trees were growing; up north, the ice was growing; in the Southwest, it was getting wetter; along the East Coast, there seemed to be no change at all. Rupert Gordon McCormick found it difficult to interpret the diverging signals. Ice in the north and increasing humidity in the south-western deserts were pointing to a cooling down. Trees in the Mississippi’s catchment area were pointing to a moderate warming; and constancy on the East Coast was pointing to no change at all.
The North American continent being formed as it was, the Midwest was the classic passage way for blizzards and glaciers. So, any cooling down should show prominently in this area. But fledgling forests were quite to the opposite effect; they were indicating a warm stage. – Now, B2G2 was undeniably growing – and the Republic of Quebec was undeniably freezing to death. Where was the mistake? The facts were there. Hence, the theory had to be emended.
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the eternal candidates for joining the US, were doing quite fine. Newfoundland, however, was suffering from the cold ocean drift originating from B2G2, a kind of super Labrador Current. The latter, however, should also cool down the East Coast – but didn’t. It was an enigma. Perhaps, the conception of time for a cold stage needed to be corrected.
After all, one didn’t really know what happened in the earliest phase of a cooling down. The Sangamonian, the last interglacial, had ended, somehow; it had become colder, trees had died, yet the Wisconsinan glaciers had taken a long time to grow – about thirty thousand years. That was – in a nutshell – all one knew. It wasn’t much – and it didn’t provide a vivid picture of the long transition period.
Well, he would research the phenomenon, that was his job. But the politicians wanted advice. And from what he could tell right now, his counsel was: no imminent cold stage ahead. You can carry on as usual.