"Ladies and gentlemen, it is no exaggeration to say that we face an environmental crisis of unprecedented proportions. Our forests are disappearing. Our lakes and rivers are polluted. The plants and animals that make up our biosphere are vanishing at unprecedented rates. Forty thousand species become extinct every year. That's fifty species every single day. At present rates, we will lose half of all species on our planet in the next few decades. It is the greatest extinction in the history of earth.
"And what is the texture of our own lives? Our food is contaminated with lethal pesticides. Our crops are failing from global warming. Our weather is growing worse, and more severe. Flooding, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes. All around the globe. Our sea levels are rising--twenty-five feet in the next century, and possibly more. And most fearsome of all, new scientific evidence points to the specter of abrupt climate change, as a result of our destructive behavior. In short, ladies and gentlemen, we are confronted by a genuine global catastrophe for our planet."
Sitting at the center table, Peter Evans looked around at the audience. They were staring down at their plates, yawning, leaning over and talking to one another. Drake wasn't getting a lot of attention.
"They've heard it before," Morton growled. He shifted his heavy frame and gave a soft belch. He had been drinking steadily through the evening, and was now quite drunk.
"...Loss of biodiversity, shrinking of habitat, destruction of the ozone layer..."
Nicholas Drake appeared tall and ungainly, his tuxedo ill-fitting. The collar of his shirt was bunched up around his scrawny neck. As always, he gave the impression of an impoverished but dedicated academic, a latter-day Ichabod Crane. Evans thought no one would ever guess that Drake was paid a third of a million dollars a year to head the Fund, plus another hundred thousand in expenses. Or that he had no science background at all. Nick Drake was a trial attorney, one of five who had started NERF many years before. And like all trial attorneys, he knew the importance of not dressing too well.
"...the erosion of bio-reservoirs, the rise of ever more exotic and lethal diseases..."
"I wish he'd hurry up," Morton said. He drummed his fingers on the table. Evans said nothing. He had attended enough of these functions to know that Morton was always tense if he had to speak.
At the podium, Drake was saying "...glimmers of hope, faint rays of positive energy, and none more positive and hopeful than the man whose lifelong dedication we are here to honor tonight..."
"Can I get another drink?" Morton said, finishing the last of his martini. It was his sixth. He set the glass on the table with a thud. Evans turned to look for the waiter, raising his hand. He was hoping the waiter wouldn't come over in time. George had had enough.
"...for three decades has dedicated his considerable resources and energy to making our world a better, healthier, saner place. Ladies and gentlemen, the National Environmental Resource Fund is proud..."
"Ah screw, never mind," Morton said. He tensed his body, ready to push back from the table. "I hate making a fool of myself, even for a good cause."
"Why should you make a fool of--" Evans began.
"...my good friend and colleague and this year's concerned citizen...Mr. George Morton! "
The room filled with applause, and a spotlight hit Morton as he stood and headed toward the podium, a hunched bear of a man, physically powerful, solemn, head down. Evans was alarmed when Morton stumbled on the first step, and for a moment he feared his boss would fall backward, but Morton regained his balance, and as he stepped to the stage he seemed all right. He shook hands with Drake and moved to the podium, gripping it on both sides with his large hands. Morton looked out at the room, turning his head from side to side, surveying the audience. He did not speak.
He just stood there, and said nothing.
Ann Garner, sitting beside Evans, gave him a nudge. "Is he all right?"
"Oh yes. Absolutely," Evans said, nodding. But in truth, he wasn't sure.
Finally George Morton began to speak. "I'd like to thank Nicholas Drake and the National Environmental Resource Fund for this award, but I don't feel I deserve it. Not with all the work that remains to be done. Do you know, my friends, that we know more about the moon than we do about the Earth's oceans? That's a real environmental problem. We don't know enough about the planet we depend on for our very lives. But as Montaigne said three hundred years ago, 'Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.'"
Evans thought: Montaigne? George Morton quoting Montaigne?
In the glare of the spotlight, Morton was distinctly weaving back and forth. He was gripping the podium for balance. The room was absolutely silent. People were not moving at all. Even the waiters had stopped moving between the tables. Evans held his breath.
"All of us in the environmental movement," Morton said, "have seen many wonderful victories over the years. We have witnessed the creation of the EPA. We have seen the air and water made cleaner, sewage treatment improved, toxic dumps cleaned up, and we have regulated common poisons like lead for the safety of all. These are real victories, my friends. We take justifiable pride in them. And we know more needs to be done."