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By Root 1216 0

of Polzer, stated that the Apache cosmology is "a religiosity to which I cannot subscribe and which must be suppressed with all the force that we can muster." It is the story of absurd claims to virtue overriding all reason, ethics, and evidence: Coyne said the Vatican is involved in this project in order to seek out extraterrestrial beings which "might be brought within the fold and baptized," and defined the protocol necessary on contact: "First of all, one would need to put some questions to him, such as 'Have you ever experienced something similar to Adam and Eve,' in other words, original sin? And then you would have to ask, 'Do you people also know a Jesus who has redeemed you?'" Presumably if they do not, they will be given the same choice as has been given to countless indigenous peoples here on Earth. It is the oft-repeated story of the silencing of all dissenting voices, and the consistent, persistent, incessant wearing away at all that is not Western. It is the destruction of every vestige of ecological or spiritual integrity.

The name of the observatory, by the way, is the Columbus Project.

One afternoon, in the living room of some Maori activists, I was asked if I work on these issues so that indigenous people will like me. There was silence for a moment as I thought about the question—it had never occurred to me. Three other people in the room—two women and a man—interjected that they didn’t think the question was fair. Another silence, and Jeannette said she thought it was important.

The question had not been asked in the same inquisitional tone as had Witi’s; it seemed that Paulo, the questioner, was genuinely curious as to my motives.

Why does anybody work on these issues? As much to the point, why do so many people ignore them? I can't answer the second, but I know that for most of my friends the answer to the first is that they can't imagine their lives without it: working to slow the destruction or proactively shut down the machine is as natural and unquestioned to them as eating, breathing, sleeping. Many perceive the pain of denuded forests and extirpated salmon directly in their bodies: part of their personal identities includes their habitat—their human and nonhuman surroundings. Thus they are not working to save something out there, but responding in defense of their own lives. This is not dissimilar to the protection of one's family: why does a mother grizzly bear charge a train to protect her cubs, and why does a mother human fiercely fight to defend her own? Some arrived at this place primarily through intellect, following a single strand of personally perceived destructiveness back to its source, and others arrived primarily through their emotions, feeling in their bones the outrage, sorrow, shame, and pain of residing in a sea of horrors, and only later brought it up to their minds. People in both categories find it incomprehensible that so many people don't act.

Each year come Super Bowl time, I wonder why so many people can become so excited over a game, yet so few will pause to mourn the passing of the salmon, and almost none will work to stop their steady slide toward extinction. Imagine a moment of silence for the environment before the Super Bowl!

An activist friend once told me of a conversation she'd had with her grandmother, a devout Catholic. The two were watching a television program about prisons. My friend commented that yes, jail food did in fact taste terrible. Her grandmother was shocked and asked how her darling granddaughter could possibly know.

"I've been arrested several times, Grammy."

Silence. I can only imagine the possibilities running through the grandmother's head. Finally my friend continued, "For sitting down in front of bulldozers that were cutting logging roads into ancient forests."

"Why would you do something like that?"

My friend thought a moment, then said, "What would you do if someone was going to run a bulldozer through St. John's cathedral?"

Her grandmother looked at the television, looked out the window, then looked back to her granddaughter.