time begins 345even enough for the species to survive? These were still open questions,
but they were headliner questions, inspiring chat rooms and T-shirts and
a whole new tourist industry in swampy Arkansas. People who never gave
a hoot about birds before cared about this one. It was a miracle, capturing
our hopes. We so want to believe it’s possible to come back from our sad-
dest mistakes, and have another chance.
“How do you encourage people to keep their hope,” Joan asked, “but
not their complacency?” She was deeply involved that spring in produc-
ing a film about global climate change, and preoccupied with striking this
balance. The truth is so horrific: we are marching ourselves to the maw of
our own extinction. An audience that doesn’t really get that will amble out
of the theater unmoved, go home and change nothing. But an audience
that does get it may be so terrifi ed they’ll feel doomed already. They might
walk out looking paler, but still do nothing. How is it possible to inspire an
appropriately repentant stance toward a planet that is really, really upset?
I was as stumped on the answer to that as I’d been earlier on the mush-
room guidance. However much we despise the monstrous serial killer
called global warming, it’s hard to bring charges. We cherish our fossil-
fuel- driven conveniences, such as the computer I am using to write these
words. We can’t exactly name- call this problem, or vote it away. The cure
involves reaching down into ourselves and pulling out a new kind of per-
son. The practical problem, of course, is how to do that. It’s impossible to
become a fuel purist, and it seems like failure to change our ways only
halfway, or a pathetic 10 percent. So why even try? When the scope of the
problem seems insuperable, isn’t it reasonable just to call this one, give it
up, and get on with life as we know it?
I do know the answer to that one: that’s called child abuse. When my
teenager worries that her generation won’t be able to fix this problem, I
have to admit to her that it won’t be up to her generation. It’s up to mine.
This is a now- or- never kind of project.
But a project, nevertheless. Global- scale alteration from pollution
didn’t happen when human societies started using a little bit of fossil fuel.
It happened after unrestrained growth, irresponsible management, and a
cultural refusal to assign any moral value to excessive consumption. Those
habits can be reformed. They have been reformed: several times in the