Note to readers.

• Author: Ayres, Ed
• Position: Environmentalists

Environmentalists are often depicted--disparagingly--as prophets of "gloom and doom." Last year, the Czech newspaper Mlada Fronta DNES carried a cartoon depicting a group of fleeing refugees intercepted by two guards. One guard is saying to the other, "They say they are escaping from hell. But according to research by the Worldwatch Institute, hell is now everywhere!"

When we who work at Worldwatch saw that, we winced--but we could see how our work has become the target of such wry humor. After all, there are terrible things almost wherever you look, if you have the will to face up to them. Whether they be the purgatories of Chernobyl, the genocidal nightmares of Rwanda, or the suddenly empty tracts where ancient redwoods stood protected by law the night before, there are many hells on Earth.

When I tell people what I do for a living, they often respond, "That must be very depressing work!" Other staff members report similar reactions. Yet, I've never heard of people at Worldwatch being depressed by their jobs. To my knowledge, no one here has a problem with--or is a purveyor of--gloom.

Why not? Two thoughts come to mind.

First, most of us are conscious of the familiar environmental shibboleth, "Thin globally, but act locally." But for many of us, that must be taken a step further: be healthy personally. A healthy individual and family life is the basis for robust local or community action, which in turn provides the necessar basis for sane global policy. Without strong roots in personal and community life, global thinking becomes dangerously abstract--and can too easily turn to megalomania.

The people here are, for the most part, not inclined to let themselves get too disconnected from everyday life. Worldwatch people play softball on summer evenings after work (we teamed up with the Audubon Society to beat the Defender of Wildlife last month, then got soundly drubbed by the Natural Resources Defense Council). We play in a band (one of us) and an orchestra (another). Various members of the staff grow gardens, climb mountains, run marathons, ride bikes, and have active community lives. We have children (a few), whom we love passionately, and every one of us likes to talk about things other than how hel is now everywhere. Lester Brown, who wrote the cover story for this issue, and...