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==Consciousness==

Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.

A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. 

In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.

Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.

Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental bias. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.

So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about who issued the order and provided the means. The attack in London on the closing eve of the 2012 Olympics killed more than 4,000 people. These games were meant to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event. Rome, a leading proponent of the European ecotax,  Delhi,whose government had announced plans to lead a second "green revolution" based on agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and a strong focus on agrofuels, and San Francisco were the other targeted cities.