State of Fear
Michael Crichton
 The story takes place in 2004. The plot is built around a group of eco-terrorists who are attempting to create a state of fear to further advance their agenda regarding global warming. The protagonist is an environmentalist lawyer named Peter Evans. Evans is a junior associate at a large Los Angeles law firm that represents many environmentalist clients (although they also have clients in industry). Evans is described as someone who eagerly accepts all conventional wisdom about global warming, but not unquestioningly. He is also described as something of a weak-willed person who has lukewarm relationships with women. Evans' chief client is a millionaire philanthropist, George Morton, who donates large sums to environmentalist causes. Evans' main duties are managing the legal affairs surrounding Morton's contributions to an environmentalist organization, the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF) (modeled after the Natural Resources Defense Council [NRDC]). Morton becomes suspicious of NERF and its director, Nicholas Drake, after he discovers that NERF has misused some of the funds he has given the group. Soon after, Morton is visited by two men, John Kenner and Sanjong Thapa, who appear on the surface to be researchers at MIT, but, in fact, are international law enforcement agents on the trail of an eco-terrorist group, the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) (modeled on the Earth Liberation Front). The ELF is attempting to create "natural" disasters to convince the public of the dangers of global warming; all these events are timed to happen during a NERF-sponsored climate conference that will highlight the "catastrophe" of global warming. The eco-terrorists have no qualms about how many people are killed in their manufactured "natural" disasters and ruthlessly assassinate anyone who gets in their way (their preferred methods being ones few would recognize as murder; the venom of a rare Australian blue-ringed octopus which causes a form of paralysis most hospitals mistake for a disease and therefore never successfully treat, and "lightning attractors" which cause their victims to get electrocuted in electrical storms). Kenner and Thapa suspect Drake of involvement with the ELF to further his own ends (garnering more donations to NERF from the environmentally-minded public). Morton pulls his funding from NERF and has Evans rewrite the contract so that Drake can't access the money except in small amounts. This earns Drake's wrath resulting in strained relations between Evans and the partners at his firm (Drake is a major client of the firm and accuses Evans of being a spy for corporate industry). NERF holds a banquet in Morton's honor citing him as "NERF's Concerned Citizen of the Year"; at the event Morton gives a rambling speech in which he announces the pulling of his funding. Morton subtly makes this look due to his having drunk too much on the flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco where he was accompanied by two of NERF's biggest supporters (Ted Bradley, an actor and celebrity endorser of NERF, and Ann Garner, a wealthy socialite) and Evans. Soon after the speech, Morton dies in a car accident under mysterious circumstances. Following Morton's last instructions, Evans teams up with Kenner and Thapa on a globe-spanning trip to thwart various ELF disaster schemes. Also along for the ride is Morton's beautiful assistant, Sarah Jones. Evans is intimidated by Sarah because of her beauty and because she possesses a self-confidence Evans lacks. By the same token, Sarah also finds Evans attractive, but is put off by his lack of bravado. A subplot parallels the main plot and is the driving force for many of Evans' actions later on, at the behest of Morton. Morton has promised to donate $10 million to support a class action lawsuit on behalf of the people of the fictional island nation Vanutu (not to be confused with non-fictional Vanuatu.) The suit claims that by its inaction to curb global warming the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has doomed Vanutu to destruction, technically an act of war, because when sea levels increase by the amount that most climate models predict the nation will be underwater. At Morton's behest, Evans pays a visit to the offices of the legal team that is preparing the suit, where he volunteers to be a pre-jury selection interviewee. The interviewer is Jennifer Haynes, who presents him with various pieces of evidence that she feels the defense will use in an attempt to discredit the "science" behind the lawsuit. Later she reveals that the lawsuit is just an elaborate publicity stunt. The parties who initiated it know that it will never succeed. They only want to create a legal action that will drag on for years, giving them numerous opportunities to dramatize the plight of the islanders as they cope with the "catastrophe" of global warming. They also plan to continue diverting funds earmarked for the lawsuit to other ventures - which is what made Morton suspicious of their motives in the first place. Later, Haynes reveals herself to be Kenner's niece and in league with him. Kenner, Sanjong, Evans and Sarah travel to various locations to sabotage the ELF's planned "natural" disasters: first, the detonation of several explosives in an Antarctic ice shelf to release an enormous iceberg, then the use of special rockets and filament wire to produce a man-made lightning storm and flood in a crowded national park. During his travels, Evans finds his convictions about global warming challenged by Kenner and Sanjong who present him with reams of data suggesting that global warming may not be happening at all, may be insignificant if it is, and may not be caused by human activity. Evans' convictions are further shaken as he observes the ELF trying to manufacture disasters that will kill thousands of people, discovers that Drake is directing these terrorist acts, and narrowly escapes several ELF assassination attempts. He also begins to shed his weak-willed demeanor and grows more enamored of Sarah after he saves her life on several occasions. After NERF disbands the legal team that was preparing the Vanutu suit Jennifier joins the group for the final leg of the trip. In the finale of the story, the group travels to a remote island in the Solomons to stop the ELF's "piece de resistance", a tsunami that will inundate the coastline of California just as Drake is winding up the international conference on the "catastrophe" of global warming. Along the way they battle man-eating crocodiles and cannibalistic tribesmen (who feast on Ted Bradley, whom Drake had sent to spy on Kenner and his team). The rest of the group are rescued in the nick of time by Morton who resurfaces. It turns out that he faked his own death to throw Drake off the trail so that he could keep watch on the ELF's activities on the island while he waited for Kenner and his team to arrive. The group has a final confrontation with the elite ELF team on the island during which Jennifer is almost killed and Evans kills one of the terrorists who had tried to kill both him and Sarah in Antarctica. The rest of the ELF team is killed by the backwash from their own tsunami, which Kenner and his team have sabotaged just enough to prevent it from becoming a full-size tsunami and reaching California. (The tsunami that reached California was only a series of five waves averaging 6 feet.) None of the team were allowed to leave the island for the next three days. Morton wanted to be taken to Sydney for his collapsed lung, but was unable to go because he had been labeled as a missing person in the United States. Later they return to Los Angeles, during which time Morton discusses the idea of Evans quitting the firm to work for Morton with his new (unnamed) organization, which will practice environmental activism as a business, free from potential conflicts of interest. He hopes Evans and Sarah will take his place in the new organization after his death.