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Held your own against the entire Climate Council. Though it would help if you were a bit more tactful, Tania. I’m only one voice. If you rile up all the snakes at once, I can’t save you.”
    The waiter brought menus. Tania looked for the vegetarian section. “It figures,” she grumbled. “I make a fuss about meat consumption, and the UN restaurant turns out to be a steakhouse.”
    “Steak sounds good,” said Molari. “No offense Tania. It’s the tragedy of the commons you see. I’ll only stop eating steak when everybody else does, and they’ll only stop when I do.”
    A few minutes of small talk. The waiter returned with their food, a steaming pile of rare meat for Molari, mounds of tofu and vegetables for Tania. Tengri took soup. Tania skewered a chunk of tofu. Overcooked.
    “So tell me Tetabo. Why does Molari Industries have a research project on sunlight control?”
    Molari sawed off a piece of steak and popped it into his mouth, chewing it to satisfied humming sounds. “Do you know where I was born, Tania?”
    Tania tried to recall what she’d heard on the various clips she’d seen over the years. I’m having dinner with Tetabo Molari! “You were born on one of those islands in the South Pacific,” she said. “It had to be evacuated because of rising sea levels. Kili…”
    “Kiribati. We were one of the earliest climate victims, though after the Antarctic collapse, we’re just a footnote now.” He leaned back in the booth, eyes fixed beyond his companions. “All through my youth I watched the sea rise, centimeter by centimeter as the world’s leaders – so called leaders,” he added with bitterness – “signed one environmental treaty after another.” He stabbed a beet slice. “We had to evacuate Kiribati when I was eighteen. I spent two years behind barbedwire in Australia while those same… leaders… bickered over who should take us.”
    Molari attacked his steak. “Fortunately, I scored high on China’s Skilled Refugee tests. I got a university scholarship in Beijing, moved to China, and started Molari Industries. I vowed to dedicate part of my profits to geoengineering research. Our leaders are clearly incapable of foresight. Somebody has to build the safety net.”
    Tania forked another piece of tofu, but it crumbled off the tines. She reached for a spoon. “I was afraid you were in it for money or power, like everyone else in that room.”
    “The money will be excellent,” said Molari, mopping the sauce off his plate with a dinner roll. “But it’s a happy side effect. I know what a sea level rise looks like. I’ve been there. I’ve seen the face of famine.” He patted his ample stomach. “Not recently, mind you.”
    Outside, a crane lowered another kaleidoscopic compressed garbage block onto the levee.
    “Your disk array plan is brilliant,” said Tania. “But without a longterm vision and a commitment to protecting the UNBio preserves – it’s just a wealth transfer tool. I’ve talked to my team. We can’t fund it from the preserve budget. We just can’t. And we don’t have five years to build it either.”
    Molari nodded. “We agree, Tania. Tetabo and I miscalculated. We’d hoped that the catastrophe last summer had given us a window for actual cooperation. That’s why we proposed this variation of our sunlight control technology to the Climate Council. It’s got the lowest technical risk, and there’s enough pork in the form of new launch facilities that it creates a balance of political power. Which means there’s a good chance of it getting through the UN General Assembly. Wong’s suggestion that we could use the UNBio preserve funds to pay for it caught us by surprise.”
    Tania felt a flicker of hope. “ This variation of your sunlight control technology? You’re implying there are other options beside the disk array.”
    “I’m not promising anything,” said Tengri. “The famine last summer forced our delivery date years ahead of our