The race to defuse Congo’s carbon bomb

BOLOMBA TERRITORY, Democratic Republic of Congo — The parishioner approached the pastor aft greeting supplication to archer him she’d had a imagination the nighttime earlier — a premonition, truly — that a White antheral would locomotion into their distant colony soon and alteration their lives forever.

The accomplishment of prof Simon Lewis and his colleagues successful Ikenge conscionable months aboriginal would so upend this calm idyll tucked distant in one of the world’s remaining rainforests.

The colony — location to a fewer twelve families surviving successful earthen houses ringed by fields of cassava — is exceptionally secluded. Reaching it requires journeying for astatine slightest a time successful dugout canoes up charcoal-black tributaries, often portion torrential thunderstorms crisscross overhead. Ikenge’s residents are acquainted with the satellite beyond the forest, though they seldom interact with it.

So erstwhile Lewis and his colleagues began talking successful giddy, hushed tones astir c and a substance called “tourbière” successful French, Pastor Timothée Bombala sensed the premonition was coming true.

“They kept saying, ‘This is the biggest and deepest we person ever seen.’ They were precise excited,” Bombala recalled of that momentous time successful 2019. “They took galore pieces of it with them.”

“And erstwhile they left, they told america not to disturb it,” helium added. “ ‘Do not harm the swamp due to the fact that determination is large wealthiness there’ — that’s what 1 of them said to me.”

The “wealth” successful question had the dependable of veins of golden and ore to Bombala — and helium wished it were truthful — but they alternatively referred to mud, seemingly conscionable plain-old “potopoto,” oregon mud, successful Lingala, the determination language.

And alternatively than wealthiness derived from extraction — communal successful Congo, which has been exploited of its immense earthy resources by outsiders for good implicit a period astatine the outgo of millions of Congolese lives — this mud, they were told, would make wealthiness lone if they near it successful the ground.

The “it,” aft all, was not conscionable potopoto, but peat, a slurry of precise dilatory decomposing integrated substance and 1 of the terrestrial world’s densest stores of carbon. When disturbed, peatlands tin merchandise their stores successful a abbreviated magnitude of clip successful what immoderate who survey them telephone a c bomb.

Lewis and his squad were astir to confirm a large technological discovery: Ikenge sits successful the midst of the largest swathe of tropical peatland connected the planet. People successful Ikenge were thrilled due to the fact that they thought peat mightiness crook to nett overmuch similar Congo’s mineral wealth.

“It’s not thing to excavation up and sell, but explaining wherefore tin beryllium a struggle,” said Lewis, a blond, bespectacled Briton affiliated with universities successful Leeds and London who sees his enactment partially arsenic axenic science, and partially arsenic activism connected behalf of the situation and of the Congolese people. “People are drinking stream h2o don’t person the astir basal happening — a h2o pump, a well. They privation the payment immediately.”

At astir 56,000 quadrate miles (about the size of Iowa) and much than 30 feet heavy successful places, the peatland Congo shares with its neighbor, the Republic of Congo, holds astatine slightest arsenic overmuch c arsenic the full satellite presently emits successful 3 years of burning fossil fuels.

Some patches of the peatlands successful Congo’s Central Basin person been accumulating and storing c since the precocious days of the Earth’s past large crystal age, astir 17,000 years ago.

Industrializing countries astir the satellite — from Europe and the United States successful past centuries to southeast Asia successful the 21st period — drained immense areas of peatlands, drying them, and releasing immense wafts of c dioxide, arsenic good arsenic smaller quantities of nitrous oxide, different potent greenhouse gas. The wide conversion of peatland into farmland implicit the centuries is estimated to person released arsenic overmuch arsenic 250 cardinal tons of c dioxide into the atmosphere.

Congo wants what the remainder of the satellite got from its peatlands: an economical improvement boost. The tremendous Central African state is adjacent rock-bottom connected cardinal improvement indicators, including beingness expectancy, entree to acquisition and electrification.

But herein lies 1 of the large paradoxes of our age: Industrialization has already irreversibly and harmfully changed our climate, and the countries liable for astir of those emissions are tasked by the United Nations with helping the remainder of the satellite make without repeating the mistakes of the past.

If Congo were to drain its pristine peatlands, it is adjacent definite that hundreds of millions oregon adjacent billions of tons of c dioxide would beryllium emitted into the atmosphere.

“If the planetary community, scientists and economists can’t fig retired however to support that benignant of spot intact and rise the livelihoods of a comparatively tiny fig of people,” said Lewis, “where tin we?”

On that constituent — that Congo indispensable payment from its peatlands — everyone agrees. But how?

Will Congo travel past and replicate European and Asian peat-to-farmland economies? Will the authorities determination guardant with drilling for the immense quantities of lipid immoderate assertion lies underneath the peat; volition it lease the rainforest to loggers? Or volition conservation-minded institutions, mostly successful the West, travel up with a amended offer, 1 successful which the c stays successful the crushed and Congo inactive gets a payout? The reply could person planetary implications.

In Ikenge, 2 years person present passed since Lewis’s little sojourn, but anticipation for a mode to crook peat into nett persists.

As a dizzyingly humid time came to a close, thousands of whirring insects thronged the village’s azygous solar-powered lamp. Women pounded adust cassava into flour arsenic the sunlight dimmed. Bombala, an evangelical Christian, led a radical of men successful prayer.

“We commune that the time is not acold erstwhile we volition beryllium rescued from poverty,” helium said, his eyes closed, his hands raised supra his head, his fingers reaching for God. “The peat is simply a occurrence sent straight from the Lord, and we commune that it volition present us. Amen.”

A bequest of assemblage exploitation

When the prof and the pastor met successful the village, a gulf created by a traumatic past stood betwixt them.

White Europeans person subjugated the Democratic Republic of Congo and undermined its improvement for much than a century. In 1885, Belgium’s King Leopold II utilized a backstage militia to prehend what is present Congo. They forced locals to harvest rubber and ivory, cutting disconnected their hands if they came abbreviated of quotas.

As galore arsenic 10 cardinal Congolese died of exhaustion oregon illness oregon were killed outright by Leopold’s Force Publique successful what immoderate picture arsenic a genocide. The riches derived from that brutal period, including the elephantine Royal Museum for Central Africa, are inactive disposable successful Brussels’ modern grandeur.

In 1885, Belgium’s King Leopold II utilized a backstage militia to prehend what is present Congo. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images) Under Leopold, severing hands was a communal argumentation to punish radical who came up abbreviated of quotas successful the forced harvest of rubber and ivory. In this photo, the seated boy's hands were destroyed by gangrene aft being tied excessively tightly by the colonizing soldiers, according to the publication "King Leopold's Ghost." The young girl's manus was amputated by soldiers. (1900 photograph by Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty images) A Belgian head is carried done the bush. (1950 photograph by H. Christoph/Ullstein Bild/Getty Images)

After the atrocities caused an outcry successful Europe, the Belgian authorities annexed the territory from the king successful 1908. But erstwhile Belgium reluctantly granted Congo independency successful 1960, Brussels engineered — with the CIA’s assistance — the assassination of its archetypal elected premier minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was seen arsenic leaning toward communism.

Belgium, the United States and Western fiscal institutions past propped up Mobutu Sese Seko, an eccentric autocrat wide regarded arsenic 1 of, if not the greatest, embezzlers of authorities coffers of each time. In return, helium protected Western mining interests. Congo’s system remains centered successful mining regions, portion the 1 surrounding the peatland has seen hardly immoderate authorities investment.

The full state remains profoundly impoverished contempt much than a period of producing minerals arsenic historically important arsenic the uranium utilized successful the atomic bombs the United States dropped connected Japan and the immense bulk of cobalt utilized successful astir each smartphone and electrical conveyance artillery connected Earth. Its authorities continues to beryllium 1 of the world’s slightest accountable, ranking 170th retired of 180 countries connected Transparency International’s corruption index.

Seeing the White professor, Bombala suspected helium was yet different successful a agelong enactment of plunderers. Seeing Bombala, Lewis disquieted hostility toward outsiders would forestall his probe from getting done.

“It’s 1 of the things we find incredibly hard to convey successful Congo: That we are determination arsenic scientists, to recognize for the payment of everyone and not for our ain idiosyncratic enrichment,” said Lewis, recalling the meeting. “But it does look absurd that we’d question from truthful acold to scrabble astir and get soiled successful the blistery swamp.”

In 2017, Greta Dargie, a doctoral pupil of Lewis’s, published a paper successful the diary Nature on with Congolese and different colleagues, estimating that the Congo Basin’s peatlands were the biggest successful the world’s tropics. The enactment they were doing connected peat gained publicity and funding, including from the biology radical Greenpeace, which saw its symbolic value arsenic an intact yet threatened ecosystem.

Two years later, erstwhile the researchers visited Ikenge, they plunged bladed pipes into swamps crossed Congo’s Central Basin, past pulled up cylindrical cores of mud to spot however heavy the peat went.

On 1 excursion, they trudged astir 40 miles done the swamp, gathering platforms retired of logs each nighttime to transportation their tents on. Somewhere on the mode and during a dense downpour, a section they had hired to assistance transportation instrumentality accidentally stepped connected a dwarf crocodile, swiftly killed it, and the radical spent hours successful the rainfall nether a tarp waiting for h2o to boil implicit a meager fire truthful they could devour the crocodile meat.

In this portion of the Congo rainforest, astir six feet of rainfall falls successful an mean year. The swampiness keeps astir larger animals, specified arsenic wood elephants and leopards, away, but tiny animals, including stream hogs, thrive. Many of the food are blind, having adapted to the black, peat-infused water.

Bush meat, fermented cassava and smoked food provided sustenance for the probe team. Field notes were taken connected waterproof insubstantial with waterproof ink.

Lewis, who spent months successful Congo connected the 2019 trip, hoped his team’s works would yet corroborate that the peatland was so the world’s largest successful the tropics.

Before their work, determination was small to nary technological grounds of peat successful the Congo Basin. From outer imagery, tropical peat’s beingness tin beryllium predicted by assorted types of works screen — trees of the uapaca genus, varieties of trunkless thenar — but it tin lone beryllium verified by carnal sampling.

Holding it successful your hand, peat looks and feels similar a gray-brown chunky peanut butter. It squelches underfoot.

Peat is made up of semi-decomposed integrated material, mostly leaves and bark and different works remains, and it usually takes thousands of years to signifier into heavy layers, attaining an unmatched c density successful the process. In conscionable a fewer days, however, it tin beryllium drained of moisture, mounting disconnected chemic processes that irreversibly merchandise its c implicit the people of ensuing decades.

The increasing knowing of the swiftness with which peatlands tin beryllium disturbed has added urgency among researchers to representation retired peat’s beingness passim the world, successful hopes governments volition determination to support it.

“Countries are not afloat alert astir their organisation of integrated soils,” said Hans Joosten, a peatlands adept astatine the University of Greifswald successful Germany. Governments whitethorn not realize, helium said, that they “have specified an tremendous banal of carbon, [and] that erstwhile it is mobilized it instantly goes up similar a bomb.”

Want to cognize however overmuch a ton of greenhouse gases truly amounts to? Use our calculator passim the story.

For hundreds of years, the quality signifier of draining peatlands for agriculture — a process mostly conducted by digging ditches and canals to transmission the h2o retired — released billions of tons of c dioxide into the ambiance successful the bluish hemisphere alone, according to research by Chunjing Qiu and Philippe Ciais of France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences.

In Belgium, arsenic successful overmuch of Europe, peatlands were drained extensively implicit the past centuries and today, 60 percent to 80 percent of the remaining peat has been damaged by quality incursions, research shows. That’s precisely what scientists accidental cannot hap successful the vastly larger peatlands of its erstwhile colony.

A due humanities accounting of the world’s mislaid peatlands is intolerable due to the fact that erstwhile drained for 30 years to 50 years, peatland becomes indistinguishable from different onshore types. In overmuch of the West, that model has agelong since passed.

More recently, peat draining has shifted to processing countries, specified arsenic Indonesia and Malaysia. Joosten estimates that, astatine present, the equivalent of 2 cardinal tons of c dioxide are released by peatlands each year. That fig includes peat fires, the astir melodramatic origin of peat emissions, and would marque the world’s peatlands, if they were a country, the fifth-biggest greenhouse gas emitter down China, the United States, the European Union and India.

Particularly aggravated peat fires successful Indonesia successful 2015 released an estimated 1.75 cardinal tons of c dioxide equivalent emissions, the effect of the country’s accelerated conversion of vast tracts of swamp into thenar lipid plantations. The fume and resulting wellness implications were truthful terrible that the Indonesian authorities has tried thing unprecedented successful scale: “rewetting” immoderate precocious drained peatlands successful an effort to instrumentality them to their archetypal state.

A recent survey spanning 3 decades of planetary c emissions showed that Indonesia is not alone: Again and again, economical maturation has been tightly coupled with dramatically higher c emissions.

‘It is similar a hostage concern now’

In the days earlier a White Washington Post newsman and an interpreter embarked connected their stream travel to Ikenge, section officials repeatedly told them that each the involvement successful peat surely indicated that the substance was akin to Congo’s famously lucrative minerals — and thing to beryllium exploited.

Leon Mosuluka, the section authorities head of the country that includes Ikenge, called to accidental helium had learned with consternation that “exploitation would hap without me.”

“You Whites person already travel prospecting,” Mosuluka said, referencing Lewis and his team. “Why are you telling america to permission it successful the crushed erstwhile you are organizing yourselves to travel and instrumentality it away?”

Isaac Ngambi, a provincial politician, enactment it much bluntly successful a separate, furtive telephone call: “I cognize wherever the peat is. Together we tin marque money.”

On the banks of the Ikelemba River connected the mode to Ikenge, those who heard the chiseled dependable of The Post team’s incoming 40-horsepower vessel centrifugal gathered to connection peat for merchantability successful outstretched hands.

“We person peat, springiness america money,” was the elemental refrain they called out.

Economic improvement is needed desperately successful the region. There are nary paved roads, nary clinics, nary milling machines, and illiteracy is adjacent total. In Mbandaka, the superior of the Équateur Province and a metropolis of much than 1 cardinal people, determination is nary powerfulness plant. The fewer who person fuel-powered generators tin unrecorded successful the property of energy astatine large cost.

The illustration acceptable by Indonesia and Malaysia — converting peatland to large-scale commercialized thenar lipid plantations — is alluring. Palm lipid exports earned Indonesia $23 cardinal successful 2017 alone.

While specified a conversion is apt astatine slightest a decennary distant due to the fact that Congo would request a monolithic concern successful proviso concatenation infrastructure to alteration it, the emissions implications it would entail are worrisome and hard to project. Congo’s past authoritative study connected its emissions to the United Nations is much than 10 years retired of date.

LEFT: Clément Botefa, the manager of a botanical garden, and his squad measurement the extent of the peat successful the wood extracurricular Mbandaka successful the Équateur Province. RIGHT: A illustration of peat from the swamps of the Congo Basin.

Furthermore, the emissions resulting from peatland drainage are among the hardest to way and measure. Even successful countries with blase monitoring, immense amounts are missed.

Joosten’s colleagues astatine the University of Greifswald, John Couwenberg and Alexandra Barthelmes, parsed reported emissions from European Union countries and Britain and analyzed however accurately they were describing their peatland areas and the emissions from them. They estimate that those countries are inactive missing 74 cardinal tons of c dioxide equivalent emissions from peatlands each year, a fig adjacent to those from midsize countries, specified arsenic Greece (82 cardinal tons successful 2019) and Austria (75 cardinal tons successful 2019).

As for little industrialized nations, a Post investigation recovered that Malaysia, 1 of the apical countries for peat drainage successful work to the thenar lipid industry, dramatically underestimates resulting emissions.

Developing peatlands successful rainforests besides leads to wide deforestation, which lone worsens the greenhouse effect. The Congo Basin has the world’s second-largest expanse of tropical wood aft Brazil, and its trees thin beryllium much monolithic and c dense, often towering 150 feet successful the air. The state is already losing forests, mostly owed to the wide clearance of onshore for small-scale farming, which the bulk of Congolese radical trust connected for food.

The country’s increasing colonisation has led to the deforestation of astir half a cardinal hectares of forest — astir the size of Delaware — each twelvemonth successful caller years, according to Global Forest Watch.

In its latest official emissions report to the United Nations, much than a decennary retired of date, Congo claimed that wood maturation was wholly offsetting deforestation.

And yet, successful a striking contradiction, the state besides reported a monolithic measurement of emissions successful a separate 2018 document filed to the United Nations arsenic portion of a abstracted programme focused connected reducing deforestation. Congo, which stands to summation millions of dollars successful payments if it shows improvement, claimed that its present-day losses from deforestation already transcend a cardinal tons of c dioxide per year.

LEFT: A husbandman stands successful a atom tract successful an cultivation country adjacent to the peat bog successful Indjolo, successful the country of Bikoro, Équateur Province. Rice fields connection a root of income for surrounding communities. RIGHT: Logs laic sawed successful a atom field. Environmentalists fearfulness that peatlands volition beryllium sold disconnected to loggers, which would merchandise immense amounts of c dioxide into the atmosphere.

Scientific reviewers for the United Nations flagged the numbers, noting that the study “does not support consistency” with the country’s ain anterior filings astir its emissions. Any draining of Congo’s peatlands would apt origin a likewise murky but monolithic magnitude of c emissions silently seeping into the ambiance without being accurately counted — unless fiscal assistance is offered to transportation retired amended measurements.

“I deliberation it is simply a important state to beryllium supported, fixed its relevance,” said Giacomo Grassi, an adept connected forests and their emissions astatine the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

In Congo, the statement that peat is precious and indispensable beryllium near successful the crushed to prolong immoderate anticipation of averting clime calamity is simply a hard sell.

When Congolese representatives from Greenpeace arrived successful Ikenge, for instance, they were accused of conspiring to plunder the peatlands.

“We tried our best, but I can’t accidental they were adjacent 50 percent convinced by our mentation of wherefore peat indispensable enactment successful the ground,” said Irene Wabiwa, who heads Greenpeace’s wood extortion run successful Congo. “Unfortunately the prevailing cognition has become: Either you wage us, oregon we destruct the peat. It is similar a hostage concern now.”

Under the Paris agreement, developed countries were expected to supply $100 cardinal per twelvemonth to the processing satellite by the twelvemonth 2020, principally to enactment adaptation to clime alteration and a modulation to cleanable energy.

But to date, the backing has fallen short. For Congo, the Green Climate Fund, 1 main assemblage designated to administer the funds, says it has spent $65.8 million connected 5 projects truthful far. At the latest planetary clime gathering successful Glasgow, however, planetary funders pledged $500 million to the state implicit the adjacent 5 years to assistance it sphere its forests.

The caller backing is simply a “major step,” said Glenn Bush, an biology economist astatine the Woodwell Climate Research Center who workswith colleagues successful Congo to sphere the country’s cardinal peatland region. But, helium cautioned, “there remains a overmuch higher level of concern successful economical enactment successful different sectors, similar agriculture and mining, that pb to deforestation and wood degradation.”

There is besides humble planetary backing devoted to tracking emissions and getting the numbers close — thing that is captious successful Congo, fixed the immense imaginable for emissions to turn due to the fact that of deforestation and peatland exploitation.

One enactment that provides enactment to assistance processing countries catalogue their greenhouse state emissions is the Global Environment Facility, which says it has funded each of Congo’s authoritative emissions reports successful the past and has invested $852,000 for 2 forthcoming reports that could supply clarity. But these are not expected until 2022 and 2023, the bureau said.

Whether wealthier institutions arsenic good arsenic Western governments tin beryllium convinced that larger-scale investments successful the conservation of Congo’s peatlands are worthwhile remains to beryllium seen. If not, it is apt section imperative to make the peatland successful the mode Southeast Asian countries are doing volition summation momentum.

“I person nary uncertainty peatland is incredibly fertile — definite to beryllium immoderate of the champion farmland successful Congo. Grow immoderate you want, you know?” said Jean Mbangi, a section entrepreneur who already has converted a fewer 100 peatland-adjacent acres successful Équateur Province into thenar lipid plantations.

“The lone happening is that clearing the peatlands similar they’ve done successful different parts of the satellite takes a batch of money: cutting, uprooting, draining,” helium said. “If idiosyncratic comes with the capital, I tin guarantee you that is the way this portion volition take.”

Congo’s authorities has a wide stance connected the way forward: Leaving their peatlands undisturbed volition lone hap if they are reimbursed for the developmental setback. Environment curate Eve Bazaiba doesn’t conscionable privation a payout, she wants a steadier drip, astir similar a banal dividend.

“We are moving to articulation the planetary c market,” she said successful an interview. “The Congolese colonisation is acceptable to marque sacrifices for the involvement of humanity, but the satellite indispensable abide by the principles of compensation.”

There are planetary mechanisms for what is fundamentally compensation for conservation, though they are fledgling and successful astir cases their dividends would beryllium dwarfed by the kinds of investments industrialization would entail. They besides often trust connected close measurements of emissions, which frankincense acold Congo does not nutrient regularly.

“We don’t adjacent cognize the magnitude of c successful here, if we’re being honest,” said Joseph Zambo, a researcher with the Woodwell Climate Research Center who is based successful Congo’s peatlands. “We cognize it is massive, but a serious, technological valuation would beryllium adjuvant due to the fact that that is the connection that the full c marketplace strategy speaks.”

While nonindustrial deforestation is Congo’s starring operator of emissions now, the authorities besides is proposing lipid drilling and logging successful peatland zones, though it is unclear however rapidly those industries could beryllium built. Bazaiba besides announced her ministry’s volition to assistance a moratorium connected caller logging allotments.

The authorities has signed lipid accumulation sharing agreements with 2 little-known backstage companies implicit the past decennary for swaths of onshore that see astir of the Central Basin peatland, drafting ire from conservation groups. While immoderate of the companies’ different agreements successful Congo person been taxable to ineligible uncertainty due to the fact that of changes to the country’s regulatory laws since they were signed, Congo’s hydrocarbons minister, Didier Budimbu Ntubuanga, provided The Post with a representation indicating the peatland allotments were inactive considered valid by the government.

In an interview, Ntubuanga said that preliminary studies commissioned by his bureau amusement that successful conscionable 2 projected lipid exploration blocks successful peatland areas, Congo could basal to marque much than $1.5 cardinal per month. He said helium was impatient for lipid exploration due to the fact that the world’s usage of lipid arsenic a substance is expected to diminish successful the coming decade.

“Our state indispensable determination guardant — we indispensable find the money,” helium said . “Our ample equatorial wood already compensates the satellite by helping it support atmospheric equilibrium — successful that sense, the satellite is already successful our indebtedness and should beryllium compensating america for that. But we cannot sacrifice the system for the involvement of the environment.”

Zambo believes the government’s existent stance mightiness beryllium changed if leaders understood the sheer magnitude of c locked successful the Central Basin’s peat. And sharper messaging astir the Congolese rainforest’s nonstop relation successful upwind patterns crossed Africa — including promoting rainfall arsenic acold afield arsenic Ethiopia’s highlands, which are Sudan and Egypt’s main root of h2o — could incentivize greater governmental engagement from different African governments.

“Right now, the world, the authorities and the radical who unrecorded present excessively — they would lone person a vague thought of what they were destroying, truthful who tin blasted them?” helium said. “Actually nary 1 successful the satellite knows however large of a catastrophe that would be.”

Bazaiba, the situation minister, said that measuring c stocks required much funds and governmental consensus, which is contentious due to the fact that the Congolese government’s wide stance is that nary load should beryllium placed connected them to mitigate clime alteration and that economical improvement is the apical priority. Environmental groups cognize they are warring an uphill conflict without concerted planetary support.

“Logging, oil, adjacent concern agriculture — to transportation it retired successful Congo, each you request is to cognize the close people. If determination are laws successful the way, they volition beryllium changed, it’s happened before, again and again,” Wabiwa, of Greenpeace, said. “The c compensation speech is going obscurity close now. We person not mapped carbon, but the lipid radical person mapped oil. I conscionable don’t spot america catching up.”

“Who volition get archetypal successful Ikenge?” seems to beryllium the question. Will it beryllium industrialists with their comparatively elemental economical proposition? Or conservationists with a much novel, if far-fetched idea: paying the Congolese authorities millions of dollars and hoping the wealth is not diverted by corruption but goes toward much sustainable improvement successful the region.

Whoever it is volition brushwood a highly skeptical Bombala. All this speech astir “potopoto” has been confounding. Can’t idiosyncratic conscionable get connected with it and crook this peat into money?

“No 1 truthful acold has told america the full truth,” the pastor said arsenic helium bade much visitors from distant lands farewell.

“If we person been blessed by God to beryllium the owners of it, past we indispensable not beryllium prevented from benefiting from it. We fearfulness — we greatly, greatly fearfulness — that determination are galore cunning radical who volition travel to bargain it from us,” helium said. “We volition stay hypervigilant. It is ours, and we volition merchantability it to the 1 who pays america the champion price.”