Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Pachauri Principle

As head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning climate watchdog group, Rajendra Pachauri has presided over information-manipulation, research-suppression, fact-simulation, and just plain prevarication—enough of it to shock even the most cynical UN-watcher. I leave to others vastly more knowledgeable than I the most excellent job they’ve already begun of frog-marching the discredited Mr. Pachauri and his IPCC toward the truth about climate change, or some version of the truth, anyway. 
I’m more interested in his literary pursuits.
Himalayan glacier melt? Hah! As fictional as the most recent Pachauric fictional output—but not as hot.
Mr. Pachauri’s Return to Almora, a novel about “Sanjay Nath . . . an environmentalist and former engineer in his sixties,” is “raunchy,” says the Hindustani Times; it “mingles lectures on climate change with descriptions of Sanjay’s sexual encounters, including frequent references to ‘voluptuous breasts.’” Um . . . I’m torn: unable to decide which is worse—the thought of lectures on climate change “mingling” with “steamy references to the sexual urges of the protagonist,” or vice versa. Not so the Nobelist-turned-novelist, though. “Sometimes,” he says, “I’d be so overwhelmed trying to capture an incident of my life for the book that I would be moved to tears.”
The eco-alarmist penned his tear-stained 402-page semi-autobiographical Harlequin Romance/wonkfest during international business flights on which he “criss-cross[ed] the globe to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.” Carbon footprint, anyone?
The book's not yet available on Amazon. While you're waiting, read Mr. Pachauri’s official bio here. It’s only a page long. You won’t be sorry.

No comments:

Post a Comment