'Okay, Maria, who's next?'

'Appalachian Lumber, Mr Purbright.' Came the voice from the intercom. 'Last meeting of the day.'

'I needed to hear that. Give me two minutes to grab the file, then send them in.' Jim Purbright got up from his self-consciously imperious leather chair and strode briskly round the end of his desk, one hand touching down on the corner of the polished walnut as if to mark the centre of his turning circle. He reached into a cabinet and drew out the paperwork on the forestry development program.

Normally, the file would have been at the top of his in-tray - the White House staff had a deserved reputation for efficiency - but his previous meeting had been with members of 'The Green Gauge', a group of environmental lobbyists, and a little discretion on such occasions could save considerable embarrassment. He still hadn't quite figured out how to approach the damn Greens; they didn't respond to threats and promises the way businessmen or politicians did. However, it was a sad fact of life that as the President's new Special Advisor on Environmental Issues, he would have to try to keep them sweet, and at least pretend to listen to them.

He sat back in his seat and flicked open the cover of the file just as the delegation entered, one grey-haired man in his fifties striding confidently ahead of three besuited thirtysomething lackeys. The older man shook Purbright's hand firmly.
'Tony Piacenza. MD of Appalachian Lumber. Welcome to the madhouse, Mr Purbright.'

'Thank you, Mr Piacenza. I've been here long enough already to understand what you mean. But say, that's an unexpected accent that you have. Are you from Brooklyn?'
'And proud of it! What's strange about that?'

'Well, the last time I was in Brooklyn I don't remember seeing any mighty forests.'
'That only goes to show how thorough I am.' The man smiled mirthlessly at what was obviously a standard line.

'Fair enough. Now, how can I help you?'

'Just tell me why you're here.' Piacenza was obviously a man used to getting his own way without any fancy talking.

'Erm, it's my office.' Came the somewhat startled reply.

'But why were you appointed? Did the President put you here for the loggers or the huggers?'

Purbright put on his best 'public servant' voice. 'I'm here to give him impartial advice.'

Piacenza snorted. 'But he's already told you what kind of impartial advice he wants to hear. Now, I donated two hundred thousand dollars to the President's election campaign, and the industry as a whole gave him over four million. What are we going to get for that?'

'I can assure you, Mr Piacenza, that he will be making every effort to protect our natural resources for future generations. However, we won't let that stand in the way of economic progress.'

'Okay, I'm glad to hear you won't underestimate our financial significance. We're not just tree fellers, you know.'

'No, there are clearly four of you. Now, was there any specific issue I can help you with?...'

As he sat in the stream of traffic filing out of the nation's capital that evening, his windscreen wipers beating out time to the easy listening station, Jim reflected on the last two meeting of his day. The environmentalists had been pretty much as his officials had warned: they always bombarded a new advisor with startling facts and gloomy predictions, in the hope that this was the time they'd be listened to. It never was, of course, and for his own part Jim was damned if he'd go down in history as the man who persuaded the President of the richest country in the world to sacrifice an unprecedented economic boom at the altar of a computer simulation of global warming. These Greens were all the same: anti growth, anti-money, anti-fun. He glanced across at the hunting rifle propped up on the passenger seat and wondered what they'd think of his preferred form of weekend relaxation. Best keep that quiet.

He dismissed the do-gooders from his mind and began to worry about the loggers. He didn't know if it was the big-city accent, the ominous silence of the flunkies, or the exaggerated directness and self-confidence of Piacenza, but it had felt more like an audience with a Mafia godfather than a routine meeting with industry lobbyists. He'd have to tread carefully with them, he thought, or he'd wake up one morning with a tree stump in his bed. The image broke his mental tension, and he chuckled quietly to himself as he braked in response to a string of taillights, broken into a myriad red points by the drops on the windshield. Christ, would this rain never end?

Finally, well after midnight, he pulled off the last metalled road and up the rough trail towards his little hunting shack. The drive out of the city had taken an hour longer than usual, because in this weather everyone was quick on the brakes. Then they'd passed a truck that had skidded over an embankment - out of the way of the passing traffic, but it had caused plenty of delays all the same, with passing drivers straining to see how bad the damage was.

Now, coming up the track and over the brow of the hill, he found his way blocked by a pile of thick branches, pruned bare by a chainsaw, which must have bounced off the back of a forestry vehicle. He didn't even see them at first, amid the mud and the rain; instead, he felt the steering shake as he ran over the outskirts of the obstacle, then a more solid bang on his fender. He hoped he hadn't got a flat. If he had, maybe he should send the bill to Piacenza, he told himself with a grim smile. He got out of the SUV and checked that there was no serious damage, then strained to push aside the bigger boughs, a process which took long enough for him to get thoroughly soaked. He spat curses aimed at all lumberjacks out into the darkness but - perhaps fortunately - none were there to hear.

Returning to his seat, he turned up the heating and moved off, steaming gently. A quarter of a mile later, he found the source of the loose wood: a brand new clearing had been ripped out of the forest. Well, that might come in handy: there was a stream down one edge, and the deer would be likely to congregate here. Better still, it was only a few hundred yards from the cabin, so he'd be able to get back and dry quickly afterwards. He'd give it a try, first thing. Newly energised by these positive thoughts, he wound his way down the switchback to his weekend home. A warm shower and a couple of cans of Bud later, he settled down to dream of the sport to come.

It rained steadily all night. Then at around a quarter after five, still well before dawn, the forest began to move. A hundred and forty thousand tons of soil, freed from the binding grip of tree roots and dragged down by some of the heaviest rains in living memory, started to slip and slide its way down the hillside. The saplings planted to replace the harvested giants couldn't hold it, and were plucked from the earth to become part of the torrent. It picked up speed over a ledge, and now its momentum was such that even Ford's biggest and most macho 'ute' became a mere surfer on the crest of a muddy wave. Jim Purbright sat bolt upright in bed as the roar outside grew to a scream, and joined in with a brief cry of his own as the wall of his cabin burst under the irresistible weight of the landslip.

So it was that the President's Special Advisor on Environmental Issues had a rude awakening to the powerful truths of climate change and deforestation. When they finally dug out his body, it gave his boss all the impartial advice he could need. Only time would tell if the shift in the political landscape was profound enough for him to heed it.