Choosing the Message: Will Agrees to Scold the Scientist
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Leo briefs C.J. and Will about scientific consensus on climate change's role in the Alaska disaster, triggering debate about political response.
Will volunteers to publicly rebuke the climate scientist as part of Leo's coordinated strategy despite personal reluctance.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Protective and unsettled — outwardly composed but clearly distressed and uneasy about weaponizing a scientist's grief for political gain.
C.J. stands with Will while Leo briefs them; she objects aloud to politicizing a tragedy, presses on the ethics of publicly scolding a scientist, and acts as the moral counterweight in the exchange.
- • Prevent the White House from publicly shaming a grieving scientist.
- • Preserve institutional credibility by avoiding the appearance of callous politicization.
- • Safeguard scientific integrity and respect toward experts.
- • Publicly reprimanding a grieving scientist will look cruel and damage credibility.
- • Scientists should be allowed to report conclusions without fear of political punishment.
- • Respectful messaging underpins long-term trust in the administration.
Inferred as assertive and professional — delivering a scientifically grounded but politically inconvenient conclusion.
Hillary Toobin is referenced as the hydroclimatologist whose blunt assessment links the Alaska disaster to greenhouse-gas-driven warming; she is the focal point of the debate though not physically present in the scene.
- • Communicate the scientific conclusion that greenhouse gases contributed to the disaster.
- • Prompt policy and public response consistent with scientific evidence.
- • The data support a causal link between regional warming and the glacial outburst.
- • Scientists have an obligation to state conclusions regardless of political consequences.
Implied detachment and institutional caution — not disposed to perform aggressive media confrontations.
Referenced by Will as the kind of Interior researcher unlikely to catalyze political action; this figure functions as a foil to the White House's need for a sharper public message.
- • Provide sober, technical analysis without grandstanding.
- • Maintain scientific objectivity rather than engage in political escalation.
- • Researchers should focus on data and restraint, not political theater.
- • Institutional scientists are constrained by norms and thus ineffective as political accelerants.
Impersonal and confirmatory — functioning as the weight of expert agreement rather than as active interlocutors.
Seven other geologists are invoked by Leo as corroborating authorities who back Toobin's assessment, strengthening the scientific claim used as the basis for the political decision-making in the exchange.
- • Reinforce the scientific consensus about the cause of the disaster.
- • Lend credibility to the factual basis of the debate.
- • Consensus among experts increases the legitimacy of scientific claims.
- • Scientific agreement should guide policy responses, even if politically inconvenient.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The DAR reception doorway/adjacent area is where Leo approaches C.J. and Will and conducts the briefing; it functions as a liminal social space where private counsel and public optics collide, enabling a low-voiced but consequential policy decision.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The White House, represented by senior staff in the doorway, is the institution crafting a rapid political line in response to scientific findings; the exchange shows institutional priorities—message control and credibility—clashing with scientific candor.
The DAR is the host organization of the reception and provides the social stage for the exchange; its members' sensitivities and boycott threats shape the White House's urgency to control messaging about the Alaska disaster.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Leo's request for Hillary to remain available escalates into Will's agreement to publicly rebuke her, showing the administration's strategic response to the climate crisis."
"Leo's request for Hillary to remain available escalates into Will's agreement to publicly rebuke her, showing the administration's strategic response to the climate crisis."
Key Dialogue
"LEO: I've spent a portion of the day with a hydroclimatologist named Hillary Toobin, who says that Alaska happened because of greenhouse gas, and seven other geologists think so too."
"C.J.: We can't politicize it."
"WILL: I think that's right, but I think that I should do it."