When I first heard that President George W. Bush would be making an Earth Day speech at Laudholm Farm, a sixteen-hundred-acre nature reserve near my home in Wells, Maine, it seemed as if a tainted bubble of exploitation had descended on the place, something especially unclean and dishonest. In an e-mail, a local activist said that the president’s visit had been announced with short notice, probably to avoid public protest, but the writer implored everyone to drop what they were doing and come to the planned demonstration. The tone of the message was stunned — Here? Laudholm? — suggesting the activist was insulted that the president had chosen us. I deleted it, thinking, Why bother? I should have been dismayed by my cynicism, but I’d gone beyond dismay.