Jaysus man...I thought you meant you...well...never mind...you mean giving it...not taking it
I think there's a few things to take into account here, or at the very least bear in mind giving what we know of certain characters (albeit from others):
So if the world is at an end (and given what we know of the next story from Tess, that's likely...), then Cole has been working/researching for nothing. That also means, so have Veronica and Dominique...so that in itself leads to some questions.
1. Why? Is Coles research just rubbish and it really is an exile.
2. Did they once believe they could fix things but now Veronica believes it's untennable?
3. If either of the first two, surely, from what we know of Cole, he'd know this already...he's supposed to be the best. Surely at some point over the last 20 odd years, he'd realise it was all futile...no?