Green Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson

this yellow bulldozer is the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The magnifying glass is the GAO, and this, what is this, Barbie? That must be the OMB, those bimbos, or maybe this Pinocchio here. And your cowboy on a horse is the President of course, he’s your friend, he’s your friend.”

      They were both falling asleep. Joe batted the toy figures into a pile.

      “Careful Joe. Ooh, there’s your tiger. That’s the press corps, that’s a circus tiger, see its collar? Nobody’s scared of it. Although sometimes it does get to eat somebody.”

      Phil took the climate bill back to the Foreign Relations Committee, and the process of marking it up began in earnest. To mark up was a very inadequate verb: “carving,” “rendering,” “hacking,” “hatcheting,” “stomping,” any of these would have been more accurate, Charlie thought as he tracked the gradual deconstruction of the language of the bill, the result turned slowly into a kind of sausage of thought.

      The bill lost parts as they duked it out. Winston fought every phrase of it, and he had to be given some concessions or nothing would proceed. No further increase in fuel efficiencies, no acknowledgment of any measurements like the ecological footprint. Phil gave on these because Winston was promising that he would get the House to agree to this version in conference, and the White House would back him too. And so entire methodologies of analysis were being declared off-limits, something that would drive Anna crazy. Another example of science and capital clashing, Charlie thought. Science was like Beaker from the Muppets, haplessly struggling with the round top-hatted guy from the Monopoly game. Right now Beaker was getting his butt kicked.

      Two mornings later Charlie learned about it in the Post:

      CLIMATE SUPERBILL SPLIT UP IN COMMITTEE

      “Say what!” Charlie hadn’t even heard of this possibility. He read paragraphs per eye-twitch while he told his phone to call Roy:

      … proponents of the new bills claimed compromises would not damage effectiveness … President made it clear he would veto the comprehensive bill … promised to sign specific bills on a case-by-case basis …

      “Ah shit. Shit. God damn it!”

      “Charlie, that must be you.”

      “Roy what is this shit, when did this happen?”

      “Last night. Didn’t you hear?”

      “No I didn’t! How could Phil do this!”

      “We counted votes, and the biggie wasn’t going to get out of committee. And if it did, the House wasn’t going to go for it. Winston couldn’t deliver, or wouldn’t. So Phil decided to support Ellington on Ellington’s alternative fuels bill, and he put more of Ellington’s stuff in the first several shorter bills.”

      “And Ellington agreed to vote for it on that basis.”

      “That’s right.”

      “So Phil traded horses.”

      “The comprehensive was going to lose.”

      “You don’t know that for sure! They had Speck with them and so they could have carried it on party lines! Who cares what kind of fuel we’re burning if the world has melted! This was important, Roy!”

      “It wasn’t going to win,” Roy said, enunciating each word. “We counted the votes and it lost by one. After that we went for what we could. You know Phil. He likes to get things done.”

      “As long as they’re easy.”

      “You’re still pissed off about this. You should go talk to Phil yourself, maybe it will impact what he does next time. I’ve got to get to a meeting.”

      “Okay maybe I’ll do that.”

      And as it was another morning of Joe and Dad on the town, he was free to do so. He sat on the Metro, absorbing Joe’s punches and thinking things over, and when he got the stroller out of the elevator on the third floor of the office he drove it straight for Phil, who today was sitting on a desk in the outer conference room, holding court as blithe and bald-faced as a monkey.

      Charlie aimed the wadded Post like a stick at Phil, who saw him and winced theatrically. “Okay!” he said, palm held out to stop the assault. “Okay kick my ass! Kick my ass right here! But I tell you, they made me do it.”

      He was turning it into another office debate, so Charlie went for it full bore. “What do you mean? You caved, Phil. You gave away the store!”

      Phil shook his head vehemently. “I got more than I gave. They’re going to reduce carbon emissions anyway, we were never going to get more on that—”

      “What do you mean!” Charlie shouted.

      Andrea and some of the others came out of their rooms, and even Evelyn looked in, though mostly to say hi to Joe. It was a regular shtick: Charlie hammering Phil for his compromises, Phil admitting to all and baiting Charlie to ever greater outrage. Charlie, recognizing this, was still determined to make his point, even if it meant he had to play his usual part. Even if he didn’t convince Phil, if Phil’s group would bear down on him a little harder …

      Charlie whacked Phil with the Post. “If you would have stuck to your guns we could have sequestered billions of tons of carbon!”

      Phil made a face. “I would have stuck to my guns, Charlie, but then the rest of our wonderful party would have shot me in the foot with those guns. The House wasn’t there either. This way we got what was possible. We got it out of committee, damn it, and that’s not peanuts. We got out with the full roadless forest requirement and the Arctic refuge and the offshore drilling ban, all of those, and the President has promised to sign them already.”

      “They were always gonna give you those! You would have had to have died not to get those. Meanwhile you gave up on the really crucial stuff.”

      “Did not.”

      “Did too.”

      “Did not.”

      “Did too!”

      Yes, this was the level of debate in the offices of one of the greatest senators in the land. It always came down to that between them.

      But this time Charlie wasn’t enjoying it like he usually did. “What didn’t you give up,” he said bitterly.

      “Just the forests, streams, and oil of North America!”

      Their little audience laughed. It was still a debating society to them. Phil licked his finger and chalked one up, then smiled at Charlie, a shot of the pure Chase grin, fetching and mischievous.

      Charlie was unassuaged. “You’d better fund a bunch of submarines to enjoy all those things.”

      That too got a laugh. And Phil chalked one up for Charlie, still smiling.

      Charlie pushed Joe’s stroller out of the building, cursing bitterly. Joe heard his tone of voice and absorbed himself in the passing scene and his dinosaurs. Charlie pushed him along, sweating, feeling more and more discouraged. He knew he was taking it too seriously, he knew that Phil’s house style was to treat it as a game, to keep taking shots and not worry too much. But still, he couldn’t help it. He felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach.

      This didn’t happen very often. He usually managed to find some way to compensate in his mind for the various reversals of any political day. Bright side, silver lining, eventual revenge, whatever. Some fantasy in which it all came right. So when discouragement did hit him, it struck home with unaccustomed force. It became a global thing for which he had no defense; he couldn’t see the forest for the trees, he couldn’t see the good in anything. The black clouds had black linings. All bad! Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad.

      He pushed into a Metro elevator, descended with Joe into the depths. They got on a car, came to the Bethesda stop. Charlie zombied them out of the Metro car. Bad, bad, bad. Sartrean nausea, induced by a sudden glimpse of reality; horrible that it should be so. That the true nature of