If I had gone to Ace Books in 1981 and pitched a novel set in a
world with a sexually contagious disease that destroys the human immune system and that is raging across most of the world — particularly badly in Africa — they might have said, ‘Not bad. A little toasty. That’s kind of interesting.

But I’d say — ’ But wait!
Also, the internal combustion engine and everything else we’ve been
doing that forces carbon into the atmosphere has thrown the climate outof whack with possibly terminal and catastrophic results.’ And they’d say, ‘You’ve already got this thing you call AIDS. Let’s not —’

And I’d say, ’ But wait! Islamic terrorists from the Middle Ease have hijacked airplanes and flown them into the World Trade Center.’ Not only would they not go for it, they probably would have called security.”