Take a moment and place yourself in the Fall of 1989.

Your Yankees are finishing the first of what will become four consecutive losing seasons. Next year, the owner will get suspended from the team, banned from baseball, and it will be a tough stretch as a fan of the Bronx Bombers.

Fortunately, you are busy as an environmental scientist, and you don’t have time to pay attention to the box scores. You just finished a decade of studying the terrible effects of acid rain. And you are about to deliver a report to Congress that will help change regulations and improve the air quality in the United States.

And there you are, in the lab, and out of nowhere, bang! The time traveler, Ruth, appears. Ithad been over 13 years since you last saw her (see the Enterprise, Jan. 30, “A cold air blast from the past.”)

She has come to congratulate your team’s work and let you know that the coming changes in air quality will save lives and help restore the Adirondack ecosystem.

She tells you that 30 years from now, folks will again catch brook trout in the majestic Adirondack High Peaks water, Lake Colden. You have a hard time believing Ruth, as your data shows toxic levels of the brook trout killer aluminum are currently well above the lethal limit.

“Give it time, and you will see,” Ruth says. “You and many others are doing good work, and it will make a difference.”

You realize that you never asked her why she travels through time. “Who are you?”

“I am an angel with the charge of looking over the health and vitality of the planet,” Ruth says. “And my work has picked up considerably since the start of industrialization.”

You also recall a fellow time traveling-angel named Dajus. “Where is Dajus?”

Ruth explains that Dajus and her each have very different bosses with significantly different agendas. They have been battling each other across time, but the last 150 years, and since industrialization, have inspired him. Ruth says, “for example, for some time at the end of the 19th century, Dajus was able to convince factory owners and local leaders that forced child labor was essentially analogous with the Puritan belief in hard work.”

“So, I got the call to step in and fix this mess. And as such, the right mix of ethical folks helped create labor laws, minimum wage, and improved working conditions in factories.”

“Dajus can be very tempting and deceptive. However, over the years, we have found common ground through baseball.”

Ruth further explains that when she and Dajus watch baseball games together, especially his favorite, the Red Sox, she always offers him a chance to come home, but he never accepts.

“What is he up to now?” You ask.

“Well, after the Yankees Bucky Dent’s home run against the Red Sox on Oct. 2, 1978, I lost track of him. He got so upset that my sources tell me he went to work on a few scientists to tinker with the U.S. temperature record.”

“You know Dent has a new middle name in Boston,” you say.

“I know,” she says. “And then in 1986, Dajus asked me to go to game six of the World Series between the Red Sox and the Mets. He was feeling quite proud.”

Knowing the outcome of that World Series, all you could say is, “Oh my.”

“Yes, ‘oh my’ indeed,” Ruth says. “Once that ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs, I saw the smoke come out of his ears. And the next night, in game 7, after the Red Sox lost the World Series, his eyes turned dark red, and his head spun completely around. And then he was gone.”

Ruth tells you how Dajus immediately went to work on a senator from Colorado while also promising the world to an unknown mid-level scientist at NASA. Together they staged a hearing before Congress on June 23, 1988. And, later in the future, that hearing is considered the first courageous act to blow the whistle on climate change.

However, the senator won’t be able to hold his pride back, and he will subsequently unload the trickery of the hearing from that day to the PBS TV show Frontline on Jan. 17, 2007.

“Like everything that Dajus and his boss manipulate, this too is anchored in deception,” you tell Ruth. “I remember that hearing. It didn’t get much traction within our acid rain circle, and colleagues I know who worked on the 1987 Montreal Protocol to heal the ozone layer didn’t seem interested either.”

Also, the New York Times informed the public earlier this year on Jan. 26: “U.S. Data Since 1895 Fail To Show Warming Trend.”

“All good work, you folks, have been doing. However, Dajus will continue to tinker with that U.S. temperature record over the next 20 years, and the trend will look different. And worse, the public will forget,” Ruth says.

You recall that Dajus tried to convince you in 1976 that CO2 would cause catastrophic global warming.

“I remember him carrying on about CO2 and that it would cause the earth to warm during a time when scientists were fearful of ice age! It doesn’t seem like a big deal if CO2 is labeled a pollutant,” you say.

“It may seem that way now. But CO2 is not a pollutant. And more importantly, the dark manipulation that Dajus and his boss will do, once CO2 does become demonized by the public, is deeply depressing,” Ruth replies.

“What is it?” you ask.

“I may come back and explain more, but that information is not necessary for you now. You have acid rain work to do,” Ruth says.

Before disappearing, Ruth leaves you with a pleasant remark. “Hang in there. A kid from Michigan is coming to play shortstop for the Yankees. And you are going to love the second half of the 1990s. Keep the faith!”

Jed Dukett lives in Tupper Lake.