Reply #16: Actually, it's even worse than that... [View All]

[phantom power]

The basic plot is that the head of a prominent environmental organization (NERF) commissions an ecoterrorist outfit (ELF, or something) to engineer four extreme events, timed to coincide with a big, highly-publicized environmental conference on abrupt climate change. The backstory is that they secretly know that they don't have any real data, and they are having trouble making enough money from their yearly donations. They need to increase the public's "State of Fear" so that their environmentalism industry continues to get funding.

The four events are:

1) break off a huge chunk of an Antarctic ice sheet, with engineered explosives
2) enhance a weather front into an extreme storm in a national park, with rocket-deployed lighting rods
3) deploy ammonia-producing bacteria (or something, whatever) to steer a hurricane into florida
4) (and here's the punch-line) cause a massive tsunami by triggering a huge undersea landslide off of a pacific island, timed to hit California the morning of the conference, killing huge numbers of people.

Extra credit: how many of you good people can point out why (4) is especially goddamned stupid, and pretty much discredits anything Crichton might claim to have learned about climate change?

Like I said, this is Clive Cussler material. It's embarrassing.

And remember, this is the guy who was invited by Congress to testify as an expert witness on climate change. I need to go drink heavily now.
:banghead: