Skip Schiel

Eleanor, my granddaughter, is now 54, assuming she survived the travails of the early 21st century. I am 120 years old, in theory, exactly 54 years from now. Let us suppose in the late fall of the year 2060 I offer to take her for a walk along the Charles River. What will we find?

Perhaps the river will be exactly as it is now, some 80 miles winding head to toe, some 27 miles from the mouth in Boston harbor to its foot at Echo Lake. Or perhaps not.

If certain projections prove true—Greenland melting, the snow and ice of Antarctica and the arctic disappearing—sea levels could rise some 10 feet. Goodbye river basin, so long Watertown dam, another 10 feet and hasta luego Moody St Dam in Waltham, all inundated. The old foot may remain, but the new mouth will be many miles upstream.

Worse case: global environmental catastrophe, total collapse of the ecosystem, no more human beings, GW Bush, Global Warming Bush, off the hook—no one to recall his flawed leadership, nor the supine Congress, nor the ravenous corporations, nor the unconscious body politic. Then who would be responsible?

Me. For one. Maybe you for another.

In the year 2006 an environmental expert was asked, "How much time do we have?"

His reply: "Just enough."