The Fightin' Treehuggers!

O, how I long for a simpler day, when environmental problems were less complex and you could pick up a sign and march in protest of a corporate villain straight from central casting.

Just kidding.

In fact, I'm greatly relieved that those days -- in which an association was cemented between "environment" and, oh, "strident, humorless killjoys" let's say -- appear to be largely over. There are still plenty of self-righteous, hairshirt-wearing types out there (you know, the guy at your backyard barbecue haranguing friends and neighbors about their hamburger's carbon footprint or taking a hard line against anyone who doesn't put home-washed cloth diapers on their kid). But it's clear that a pragmatic, ideology-unfettered environmentalism is blooming -- and square in the mainstream, instead of determinedly standing apart from it. Which is a good thing, as a polarizing, empathy-challenged, and overly self-serious "us-vs.-them" rhetoric isn't going to take us where we need to go. Not when the villain these days is so often the face we look at in the mirror each morning. Not when it will take all kinds, all round the globe, focusing on what we have in common, instead of where we have differences.

And one of the best ways to universalize and make inclusive the message? Bring the funny. And spread it around liberally, targeting oneself as often as anyone else. I think it's hard to exaggerate how pleased I was with the appearance of Grist.org in 1999; it really was "a beacon in the smog" -- just to have a smile over a pun (even a real stinker) while reading the daily news was such a pleasure.

All of this is to say "three cheers!" to the Sierra Club's Carl Pope, for allowing Stephen Colbert to poke fun the other night: