Although it looked like Nick Fury had fired him up and recruited him into the Avengers Alliance, Oaks knew exactly where he stood.
This had been one of his goals from the start, but he could not tell that old fox Nick Fury so.
Only by seeming to have been talked into it by his impassioned rhetoric could Black Baldy finally rest easy.
But as Black Baldy had said, at this stage, the Avengers Alliance was merely a contingency plan. Until the real crisis arrived, it would be as if it did not exist and would not be activated.
So for now, there was no such thing as the Avengers.
Still, Oaks could clearly feel that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s support for him had increased by far more than one level.
That was the perk of being a prospective Avenger.
At the moment, Oaks was in the Emerald Dream plant shop, reading a book with great focus.
"The Vanishing Gaia: Final Warning," written by the mad scientist who had proposed the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock.
"Tsk. It directly targeted the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and its views grew increasingly pessimistic."
As a well-known environmental charity, the Benevolence Society naturally needed to study works on environmental philosophy carefully.
Nature magazine had once commented that reading this book was "like hearing the BBC announce the end of the world."
But for the Benevolence Society, which needed rapid development, this work undoubtedly matched the tone of its actions.
"Old Mr. Lovelock may already be ninety, but his temper is still as blunt as ever. He directly called the Kyoto Protocol a joke. Really..."
In March 2001, the United States withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, and that had indeed turned it into a joke on paper.
"Looks like I need to find time to