Climate wars 5: What fresh hell is this?

The mission was proceeding to plan, and then some very bad news broke. Can the Djindans save the day?

Captain Cyan

With a swerve and a quick squirt of air up the woman's skirt, Mimi avoided the woman who tried to stomp on her in her guise as a paper bag, and scooted over to a nearby church - St Stephen's. The woman laughed with her companions as she said, "drat that breeze and drat the people who drop their rubbish in the street. I hadn't intended to do a Marilyn Monroe imitation today! Someone else will have to pick up that rubbish and bin it".

Finding no trace of CliDens at the church, Mimi moved on to St Petrock's, which she soon ruled out too. Next, she turned to face Exeter cathedral and saw that her work would be cut out. She set about examining every statue on the West side, and the large stones on the lawn surrounding the cathedral, before moving to check the other faces and inside, under cover of darkness.

West face of Exeter cathedral by Sue Nethercott

Mimi came on deck. "Sorry captain, I looked all over Exeter and there were no signs of CliDens, and there are a lot of places they could hide - the cathedral, churches, other old buildings, statues and lots of stones just for people to sit on, some of which are moved from time to time.

"I'm afraid this approach won't work. I could spend a lifetime searching all the possible places they could hide on Earth. We need to narrow it down much further.

"I'm pleased to report, however, that there was a large pro-climate march while I was there. At least some of the humans are alert to the danger they are in."

"Very good, Mimi", praised Captain Cyan. "A very good mission. It does not matter that you did not find any CliDens. The important thing is that we learned a lot that will stand us in good stead." Looking around the room, she added "you all saw at least part of Mimi's stream. Any observations?"

In the school room, Brock raised all his "hands" excitedly.

"Yes, brock?"

"Captain, I observed that where there were a lot of humans, there were a lot of birds, mostly grey. The Clidens could imitate them."

"Well done, Brock. They are called pigeons," said the captain, "however, only very small young CLidens could do that, and they could not imitate the way pigeons move. So we would only need to look at fairly static pigeons which would stand out.

"We, on the other hand, have a lot of adults who are small enough to imitate pigeons very well."

"Captain," broke in Briar. Breaking news" We need to act fast!

"Two items of climate news on social media this morning. Both from the USA. First, the US Global Change Research Program's website, including all its sub-domains that host the National Climate Assessments and related reports, is now offline.

"How stupid can these Americans be?" wondered the captain, moderating her language because children were watching. Kaurna, do you have the data saved? Briar, do you have a persona set up online that could believably have saved the data and set up a site?"

"Yes, captain," both responded.

"Then do it. Top priority!

What was the second piece of news?

"Proposed NOAA budget zeros out ALL climate laboratories and cooperative institutions." that includes the Mauna Loa, the oldest continuous carbon dioxide monitoring site on Earth." replied Brock.

"All hands on deck for that one, too. Draft who you need to minimise the damage." ordered Captain Cyan. It's clear we need duplicate as much of the U.S. government climate- and pollution-related data and data collection as possible, so we need to set up a front with masses of money, fast! The humans who understand the danger that Earth is in need and deserve our support.

To be continued...