Before 2020 we could look at our audience during live meetings, gauge the faces and reactions while telling the story, and fine-tune the telling as needed. Now, I was sitting alone, in front of a computer screen, in an uncomfortable position, looking directly at a clip-on camera atop the monitor that did not even show as much as a tiny ‘I am working’ laser light, and trying to convince myself that I really believed with all my heart in my facial pantomime show, while chatting with an unseen and unheard audience. It was weeks after the event before I finally saw myself telling the story on screen, and when I did, my reaction was: ‘Man, relax, smile, it is a good story! Even if the telling is subject to a lot of improvement, show the joy of communicating it and the wonder of experiencing it. And remember why you picked the story.’ One reason is that during my lifetime that ‘bog pond’ story has become the exception instead of the rule; remaining bog ponds have turned into relics. From country dwellers we have become city people. Richard Louv, in ‘Last Child in the Woods’, Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, describes our alienation from the natural world and the physical and emotional effects that has on us.

Children complain that there are no electrical outlets outside. We know that we are barely connected to or realize the effects of our actions on the natural world. For two centuries the world’s people have been contributing to carbon dioxide accumulation in atmosphere and ocean, a little bit at a time, and we still have a hard time grasping that without counter-measures, Global Warming may ultimately kill us—slow or fast, it does not matter. I think that if I understand that possibility, then I have the responsibility to talk about it. I may not be the best spokesman for the environment, there are far better ones, but at the moment we need everybody who can talk about it to do so. We need to show the dangers of our slow world heating if we do not take corrective action. Preparing for the speech, I was wondering if I should mention ‘Drawdown’ at the end, the realistic solutions book: I don’t want to spoil good stories with ‘thou shalt’ or ‘must do’, commands and morals that nag. But I do want to make clear what is going on in nature, and to do so effectively. Most people have no clue, and there is active resistance against spreading this knowledge by people who have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are, even if in the end we all go under. Like I think most of us, I aim to present my stories attractively, list the moral sparingly, tell an occasional fun story for relief, and keep trying to find the magic formula that has the audience moved to tears while discovering the message. In the meantime, I am grateful to StoryMasters for the chance to try. Thank you all for your support, and your storytelling examples.