Keep in mind that this climate change business in not even on the radar of most of people outside of the liberal wine party circuit, and for many others it is an absurdity to be mocked. These folks are not carrying the burden of staring down the end times, they are just living their lives. They can enjoy their glass of wine without worrying about how it traveled thousands of miles on fossil fuel burning transmodal conveyances to make it into their glass. You are worrying about that, right?

I’ve worked in community gardens for many years, but I have never grown okra plants until this season. I didn’t realize that they had such beautiful flowers! Next year we are going to plant more milkweed (Talk about flowers!) to attract pollinators, particularly spectacular monarch butterflies, but we have to position them carefully so that they don’t shade lower growing plants like the okra since they get very tall. We would like to scratch together a little dough to build another raised bed, exclusively for decorative flowers. I’m a big fan of gladiolas, but the bulbs are kinda expensive, and then you need bone meal. Sunflowers are a cheap and easy option.

This is the sort of thing I worry about, and possibly Mr. Franzen is giving himself the space to worry about that sort of thing too. Flowers, vegetables, and working the soil with friends are a lot more rewarding than continuous existential crisis and virtue signalling. Someone walking around handing out bouquets of fresh flowers and bags of fresh tomatoes is going to be viewed as virtuous by those that get them, with no philosophical rationale necessary.