“Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they bring forth after their kind.”

– Charles Fillmore, American theologian

“What kind of stories do you write?” my granddaughter asked.

“I mostly write about the environment. Plants and animals and the planet,” I told her.

“I know that,” she replied impatiently. “I mean, what do you say about the environment?”

“All kinds of things, Honey. It’s a complicated topic. Everything’s connected to everything else. For example, when ...”

“How about global warming?”

“What about it?”

“Do you write about it?”

“Yes. Quite a bit. It’s one of my main topics.”

“What do you say about it?”

“Well ... lots of things. What do you mean? Do people cause it? What can we do about it?”

“I mean, what’s going to happen?”

I looked into her eyes. She’s 10, and no longer a little kid. Somewhere she had heard or learned about climate change, she’d thought about it, and she wanted an answer.

You’ll be toast, I thought. You and your whole generation are doomed to struggle just to maintain yourselves in a badly degraded and rapidly collapsing environment. Oceanic carbon pollution, rapid climate change, overpopulation, desertification, mass extinction – they’ll all come to a head by the time you’re my age.

But is that what you tell a child? “Your future looks pretty grim, perhaps hopeless?” That hardly seems like a prescription for raising happy and healthy kids.

On the other hand, you can’t lie to a child or evade her questions. Along with violating your own ethical strictures and setting a horrible example, there are two practical problems with lying: First, lies and evasions are almost always exposed, compromising or destroying trust and any reliance on your advice. Second, it’s your job to protect children, as well as you can. That means giving them the information they need to protect themselves, especially in complicated situations.

But how can a child protect herself against a disintegrating environment? What can she do, in a world where so little is being done by “those in charge,” where so much is trending toward the eve of destruction?

I said, “No one knows what will happen for sure, Honey. What do you want to know?”

“How hot is it going to get when I grow up? This kid at school said the whole world’s going to be really hot, like a desert, and we won’t have any food or water.”

“How does he know that?”

“His dad’s a science teacher, and he told him.”

“Look. We’ve talked about not believing everything you hear. The truth is, nobody knows for sure what will happen. I don’t want to lie to you, the situation’s pretty serious.

“We’re damaging the Earth faster than it can fix itself. But it’s still possible to stop if we try. It’s hard. A lot of people make their living doing things that pollute.”

“Why don’t you tell them to stop?”

“Oh, I do. But you know, a lot of people are like you. They don’t always listen to what I tell them.”

“I want to help. How can I help?”

“Keep asking questions,” at your ecological house.

Philip S. Wenz, who grew up in Durango and Boulder, now lives in Corvallis, Ore., where he teaches and writes about environmental issues. Reach him via e-mail through his website, www.your-ecological-house.com.