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“It is a mistake,” he said, “to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort. We know that well enough from our experience in the environmental crisis of the twentieth century. Once it was well known that cigarettes increased the incidence of lung cancer, the obvious remedy was to stop smoking, but the desired remedy was a cigarette that did not encourage cancer. When it became clear that the internal-combustion engine was polluting
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“Schiller. A German dramatist of three centuries ago. In a play about Joan of Arc, he said, ‘Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.’
“Let me be frank with you. Earth has lost its nerve.” “What does that mean?” “Well, what would you call it? Just about the time the Lunar colony was being established, Earth went through the Great Crisis. I don’t have to tell you about that.” “No, you don’t,” said Gottstein, with distaste. “The population is two billion now from its six billion peak.” “Earth is much better for that, isn’t it?” “Oh, undoubtedly, though I wish there had been a better way of achieving the drop.… But it’s left behind a permanent distrust of technology; a vast inertia; a lack of desire to risk change because of the
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But the point is it fits Earth’s present mood perfectly. Infinite energy at virtually zero cost, except for maintenance, and with zero pollution besides. But there are no Electron Pumps on the Moon.” Gottstein said, “I imagine there’s no need for them. The Solar batteries supply what the Lunarites require. Infinite energy at virtually zero cost, except for maintenance, and with zero pollution besides.… Isn’t that the litany?”
Yet we all know that in trying to determine something on the boundary lines of the known, it is necessary to make assumptions. The assumptions can be made over a gray area of uncertainty and one can shade them in one direction or another with perfect honesty, but in accord with—uh—the emotions of the moment. You made your assumptions, perhaps, on the anti-Hallam edge of the possible.”
“All they have to do is refuse to believe it means death. The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists. Your friend, Dr. Neville, does the same thing. He dislikes the surface, so he forces himself to believe that Solar batteries are no good—even though to any impartial observer they would seem the perfect energy source for the Moon.
“Lamont’s solution is to force abandonment of the Pump, but you can’t just move backward. You can’t push the chicken back into the egg, wine back into the grape, the boy back into the womb. If you want the baby to let go of your watch, you don’t just try to explain that he ought to do it—you offer him something he would rather have.” “And
consider my daughter. Just before I left for the Moon, she had applied for permission to have a child. She’ll probably get it and before long I’ll be—if you don’t mind my saying so—a grandfather. Somehow I’d like to see my grandchild have a normal life expectancy.
In any case, there are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
“I have applied for a second son. The application has been accepted. Would you contribute?” Denison’s eyes lifted and looked straight into hers. She did not look away. He said, “Artificial insemination?” She said, “Of course.… The gene combination should be interesting.” Denison’s eyes dropped. “I would be flattered, Selene.” Selene said, defensively, “That’s just good sense, Ben. It’s important to have good gene combinations. There’s nothing wrong with some natural genetic engineering.” “None at all.”
To mankind, and the hope that the war against folly may someday be won after all.
