Author Ian McEwan boarded the boat in 2005 and has only just revealed that his new book, "A Boot Room in The Frozen North, " is about climate change.

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His lunch, which he ate on his own in an enormous, empty dining room while reading a book under the absentminded gaze of the elderly maid, and the black-and-white gaze of his deceased wife looking out from photographs in ornate silver frames, was light: soup and a small portion of fish and mashed potatoes, some of which he would allow to go cold.

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"It's hard to see a payoff--a financial payoff--on this project in my lifetime, " concedes Hodel, 73, from his Lakewood, Colo. living room, near a stack of ski magazines and a book about global energy.

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To balance their domestic budget, his wife, Barbara, took a part-time job as a book-keeper and let a room in their flat.

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