Sustainability Context

In this book, talking animals from the future tell us of mankind's environmental neglect and how human can once again become a part of the solution. Interestingly, the story starts in the present with our main character Dora, who is a cop living in a very ordinary town.

As she investigates the mysterious murders of three scientists, she also gains the ability to talk to trees. She is also involved in an unhappy, almost lifeless marriage. As she is confronted challenge after challenge, she awakens to the realization that she could be the one saving humanity's future.

What makes this story - albeit a fantasy - so engaging, is that Tepper subtly and not to subtly comments on our current industrialized state of the world, one in which not only is the environment threatened but the ability for people to live freely. Some can interpret it as a criticism of today's state of human rights, agriculture, equity, and self-determination.

In a sense, stories like these make me better articulate how solving today's environmental problems also requires genuine leadership. Perhaps at the root of our global challenges, is the necessity for people understand how they fit in the world community and how their choices have grave consequences to people and to lands thousands of miles away.

Similar themes are evoked in Al Gore's recent book, The Assault on Reason. Without fundamental participation in today's increasingly interdependent world, democracy in the participatory sense may very well be threatened, Many leaders, including Gore, believe that without this general participation, solving global issues will be much more difficult.

Seriousness aside, did I mention something about talking animals? You'll have to read Tepper's book to find out how they came to be. Just a side note but I participated in an improv acting class recently and one of the exercises involved passing along an invisible animal of your choice to another member of the class. Maybe I'm on to something...