Dr. Kelvin Heissmann was by no means a happy camper when he visited me today for a consultation. He’s the resident climate change expert at the Global Concern Institute, an NGO headquartered here in Washington, DC. True, that recent business with the e-mail hackers at the University of East Anglia didn’t do his blood pressure any good, but that wasn’t what he had on his mind this morning.
“Christ Almighty, Tom,” he complained, as he sorrowfully sank into my big, comfy couch by the window, “as if Climategate wasn’t bad enough, now I’ve got the [expletive] Danish Text to worry about.”
“Much ado about nothing,” I opined as I poured us both nice, stiff highballs of Macallan 18 and thoroughly chilled San Pellegrino over crackling Evian ice cubes. “Some bozo leaks a draft Copenhagen Climate Conference working paper – one of dozens, in fact – to the media, and everybody goes bananas. Absurd.”
“Thanks,” Heissmann replied as he accepted a highball glass of single malt scotch and mineral water from me. Fully a quarter of it disappeared in an instant. “Damn, Tom,” he murmured, holding up his drink to examine it in the golden sunlight streaming in through the window behind the couch, “you sure know how to put a little perspective on things.”
“Having proper perspective,” I remarked, as I raised my own glass of Dutch courage, “is essential in my line of work. It’s right up there with objectivity. Now what’s got your goat about this Danish Text?”
“Well,” he growled, “for starters, how about Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping?”
“That Sudanese jackanapes?” I asked. “The unofficial, self-appointed spokesman for the United Nations Group of Seventy-Seven assorted countries that considered themselves developing nations in 1964 but now have practically nothing in common?”
“Yeah,” Heissmann muttered ruefully, “those [expletive]. Our people in Copenhagen have been sending back urgent text messages about how Di-Aping is egging the Group of Seventy-Seven to walk out of the conference over what’s in the Danish Text. And he’s got Kevin Conrad, the delegate from Papua New Guinea, to join in with him.”
“That’s interesting,” I noted, “because the Group’s real, authentic and official spokesman, Mr. Majid Yousif, Minister Plenipotentiary to the United Nations for the Republic of Sudan, hasn’t said a word about Danish text, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gasses, global warming or climate change since the Copenhagen Conference started. All he’s been talking about is UN office facilities, UN human resources funding and the UN management budget.”
“Conrad’s claiming New Guinea should be compensated for not cutting down its rain forests,” Heissmann grumbled, “and therefore allowing them to absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide.”
“The last time,” I observed, “anybody cared what New Guinea had to say, they were looking for Amelia Earhart’s airplane.”
“Yesterday,” Heissmann confided, “Di-Aping told the media ‘The Danish Text is an extremely dangerous document for developing countries.’ After which, he attended an ‘informal meeting’ with Yvo De Boer, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who then called a press conference and announced that all of the Conference working papers, including the Danish Text, are ‘now off the table.’”
“’Informal meeting?’ That sounds to me,” I speculated, “like Di-Aping drank Yvo De Boer under the table.”
“I certainly wouldn’t be surprised,” Heissmann said with a nod. “They are diplomats, after all. But what are the Conference delegates supposed to use for reference materials now?”
“I don’t know,” I japed. “How about those stolen Climategate e-mails?”
“That’s not funny,” Heissmann grumbled, helping himself to another healthy swig of scotch and soda. “I’ve got a lot at stake here, you know. The Global Concern Institute sponsors and administers all kinds of programs, not just climate change. GCI has well water projects in rural hamlets all over the Third World, micro-finance initiatives, mosquito netting distribution, vaccination campaigns, community schools, agricultural improvements, refugee camp support – food, water trucks, tents, clothes, health care, you name it – the list goes on and on, like your wife’s list of your shortcomings…”
“I’m not married,” I proudly proclaimed.
“Good for you,” Heissmann sighed. “Look, Tom, I just don’t want to end up like the guy who ran the Third World condom distribution program, that’s all.”
“Third World condom distribution program?” I inquired, as curious as anyone would be, of course.
“Yeah,” Heissmann affirmed, “that’s what I said, all right. It’s a very sad story. The GCI program manager sent condom distribution teams to help the unfortunate, malnourished, disease-ridden, illiterate, benighted inhabitants of every Third World village in every impoverished, raggedy-[expletive], fly-specked, putrid, stagnant, backward, unwashed, reeking country in the world. His approach was simplicity itself: the team arrived with a competent interpreter, located the village head men and convened the inhabitants for a lecture. Then, while the interpreter delivered a carefully rehearsed speech about the virtues of condoms, the GCI team leader would demonstrate the proper method for putting one on, using the handle of a broom, after which, the rest of the team would distribute a year’s supply of condoms. The GCI program manager had bought a gross of brand spanking new kitchen brooms and dispatched every team with three of them, so they’d have a backup spare if they lost the primary demonstration broom, and another one if they lost the backup. That was pure genius too, I tell you, because three brooms turned out to be the magic number – not one team needed more than three, and six teams needed that third broom. This guy thought of everything, Tom! He could have taught a graduate-level course in NGO program management, I swear!”
“So,” I prodded, “what screwed him?”
“Ah [expletive],” Heissmann spat out, “it was like this: when the follow-up teams arrived at the villages a year later, guess what they saw? In every damn one of them, Tom, they found the same thing.”
“Which was?”
“Condoms on every [expletive] broom handle in the [expletive] village! That was it,” he moaned disconsolately as he slowly drew his right index finger across his throat, “no more Third World condom distribution program; and no more Third World condom distribution program manager, either!”
“So you’re worried,” I concluded, “that if anthropogenic greenhouse planetary warming policy turns into a circus where nothing positive gets accomplished, then the Global Concern Institute will become embarrassed to associate itself with the issue and cancel its climate change program, after which, you’ll be out of a job?”
“Yeah,” Heissmann confessed, polishing off his drink, then giving me an expectant look. I poured him another immediately – a double. The poor devil was a wreck, no doubt about it.
“Thanks,” he whispered as I handed it to him. “As I’m sure you know, Tom, the phrase ‘non-profit organization’ doesn’t mean its employees work for free, and I’ve got a house in Reston to pay off, as well as a wife who’s never had a job in her entire [expletive] life and spends three days a week at spas, and thinks it’s her God-given right to throw money away like a drunken sailor at Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales and Saks Fifth Avenue; plus three totally bratty, spoiled, ungrateful overprivileged kids – a daughter in Sidwell Friends and two boys at Georgetown Prep. If I lost my job, Tom, I’d have to… I donno… kill myself, that’s all.”
“Oh, my goodness,” I smirked, “then the world would have one less bleeding-heart liberal ivy-league elitist do-gooder left-wing Socialist egghead with a six figure income in it! Whatever shall mankind do then?”
“Oh, [expletive], Tom,” he protested as he broke into tears, “don’t kid with me like that!”
“Your problem,” I advised, “is that both your parents were trust fund babies.”
“Yeah, probably,” he mumbled, slurping a bit more fine highland nectar, “I’ve been in psychoanalysis for the last twenty years and just a couple of months ago, my psychiatrist and I reached the same conclusion. I guess I could have saved myself about a quarter of a million dollars if I had just asked you.”
“Twenty years ago,” I pointed out, “I was in prep school.”
“Oh, well,” he shrugged, “you know what I mean. The fact remains,” he persisted, “that I’ve got to contend with this Sudanese [expletive] who’s going to hose up everything by saying stuff like the British-American working paper is ‘incredibly imbalanced text intended to subvert, absolutely and completely, two years of negotiations. It does not recognize the proposals and the voice of developing countries.’ [Expletive]! What the [expletive] kind of horse [expletive] nonsense is that, anyway?”
“Pretty lame horse [expletive] nonsense,” I shot back smartly. “Tell me,” I pressed him, “does your position at the GCI involve any… slush funds?”
“Er, ah, um…” he coughed, clearing his throat ostentatiously, “you mean, ‘program reserves?’”
“Sure,” I agreed, “why not? You have, say, forty or fifty grand in your… ‘program reserve,’ I suppose?”
“Tom,” Heissmann huffed, “I’ve got three point six million dollars in my program reserve.”
“My compliments,” I quipped, “to your organization’s wealthy bleeding-heart liberal ivy-league elitist do-gooder left-wing Socialist egghead donors.”
“Pardon me,” Heissmann replied, with just a hint of sarcasm, “if I don’t convey them. What the [expletive] are you suggesting I do with that [expletive] money?”
“First,” I explained, “you should transfer one million and ten thousand dollars of it to a Swiss Bank with an affiliate in Denmark. Then, you should withdraw one million dollars from the Danish affiliate bank, in Euros. Then you should, in the company of an appropriate security entourage, arrange to meet with Mr. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping somewhere in beautiful, beautiful Copenhagen and show him the money. Then offer him one hundred thousand Euros as a down payment towards the entire million dollar bribe, provided that he sings your song and dances to your tune.”
Heissmann fortified himself with another swig. “So you’re saying,” he proposed, “that this Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping character is nothing more than a sleazy, corrupt, amoral mountebank charlatan bent on making as much money for himself as possible?”
“If there ever was such a person,” I posited, “then Mr. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping is one, and, as you dole out the Euros for his labile services, I guarantee you, sir, you will get him to sell out his country, his heritage and his government for considerably less than the entire million dollars. Then, once you have satisfied yourself that Mr. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping has served your purposes to his fullest extent, you should transfer all but one thousand dollars back from that Swiss account to whatever bank maintains the GCI program reserves. Then, after a year, you should travel to Switzerland on a suitable pretext, close out the account, receive the one thousand dollars from the polite and well-groomed Swiss bank teller, transport the money to a nearby public park, throw it on the ground and depart smartly.”
“… and depart smartly.” At this point, Heissmann had commenced taking notes, which indicates, in my opinion, that he has nothing to worry about, as long as he can find the appropriate advisors, such as, ahem… myself, for example. “Anything else?” he implored.
“Well,” I joshed, “don’t forget to pay me, too.”