為全球變暖問題奔走疾呼的孤獨行者

On Route 11 north of 1)Tuscaloosa， 2)Ala.， last April， a pickup truck pulled up next to Greta Browne， and a young man began lecturing her about global warming. He had seen Ms. Browne’s T-shirt announcing that she was “Walking for the Climate，” and he wanted to 3)set her straight. Humans， he told her， have nothing to do with heating up the planet.

Ms. Browne， 65， a 4)Unitarian minister from5)Bethlehem， 6)Pa.， has encountered more than one global warming 7)naysayer since last March， when she began a trek up the Eastern seaboard to draw attention to climate change. “Sometimes， you just have to stand up，” she said. So far， Ms. Browne has 8)logged about 1，100 miles， walking from outside New Orleans to 9)Rouses Point， N.Y.， near the Canadian border， where she will end her journey Saturday.

When she began the trip， Ms. Browne had hoped to attract crowds of other people to walk with her (think Forrest Gump running cross country in the 1994 film). Instead， it has been a mostly solo journey， which she describes as “a meditation， a prayer，” for Earth. Still， her shirt and her 10)beckoning smile invite people to approach. Sometimes they pull their cars over and hand her 11)fistfuls of dollar bills—she is financing the trip with small donations， and her Social Security checks. Sometimes people run up alongside and 12)proffer water bottles to her.

In choosing to promote her cause this way—as opposed to， say， pressing for legislative change—Ms. Browne joins a growing list of environmental activists who are hoping to draw public attention to the issue through stunts: Colin Beavan， for example， the writer who lived without toilet paper and electricity， or David Rothschild， a self-described “eco-adventurer” in San Francisco who has built a boat made of reused plastic water bottles and plans to sail to Sydney， Australia.

As she has 13)plodded along， Ms. Browne said， she has come to understand her journey as a one-woman survey of the American mindset on global warming. “Mostly people think it is a problem，” she said， “but mostly they think it will not impact them anytime soon.”

A longtime member of 14)the Green Party， she has been concerned for years about global warming. But after she retired last year， she joined an environmental group and read 15)Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas. The book， which 16)argues that most of humanity could be 17)wiped out by the end of the century if Earth’s temperatures continue to warm， 18)galvanized her.

As the child of 19)Presbyterian20)missionaries， Ms. Browne lived in Brazil， China and Niger， and was used to a 21)peripatetic lifestyle， so she decided to take to the road. Her role model was 22)Doris Haddock， better known as Granny D， who in 1999， at age 90， walked across the country for campaign finance reform， generating both crowds and headlines.

Ms. Browne’s trek has not quite turned out that way， and， she says， her adventure has other shortcomings. To make the walk 23)logistically possible， she has lived out of a 1982 van—complete with gold-colored 24)shag carpeting and 25)rust 26)velour sofas—that is， by her own admission， “a disgusting gas 27)guzzler.”

By living 28)abstemiously on other 29)fronts， she said she had managed to keep her 30)carbon footprint to half that of the average American. She never eats out and， except for her T-shirts， all her clothes are second-hand. Even her white 31)Clarks sneakers were bought from a 32)thrift store.

On Sundays， she goes to 33)Unitarian Universalist churches along the way. She has handed out 34)fliers listing small actions people can take to fight global warming， like using 35)compact 36)fluorescent light bulbs and lobbying for schools to teach the subject.

Crowds or no， Ms. Browne says， she is convinced that she has 37)reached people and “raised awareness.” She estimates that 500 to 1，000 cars pass her on the road every day and about 1 percent， she says， honk or give her a thumbs-up.

In the end， Ms. Browne said， she thinks that most people are 38)sympathetic and want to do something—just not too much. “People just don’t see enough urgency to change their life，” she said.

去年四月，在阿拉巴馬州塔斯卡盧薩北部11號大道上，一輛小型敞篷貨車從格里塔·布朗身邊經過并停下，一個年輕人走下車開始跟她講全球變暖問題。他看到布朗女士的T恤衫上宣稱她在“為氣候而步行”，他覺得要糾正她的觀念，于是告訴她，人類和地球變暖沒有任何關系。

65歲的布朗女士是一名來自賓夕法尼亞州伯利恒的基督教一位論派牧師，去年三月她開始沿東部海岸徒步行走以引起人們對氣候變化的關注，至今她已經遇到過好幾個堅稱不存在“全球變暖”現象的人。“有時候，你必須得站起來爭辯。”她說。到目前為止，布朗女士已經走了約1100英里(約1770公里)，路線是從新奧爾良郊區到紐約州勞西斯角村，該村靠近加拿大邊境。周六她將在那里結束全部行程。

在行程開始時，布朗女士曾希望能吸引其他人加入到她的行走之列(想想1994年的電影《阿甘正傳》中，阿甘跑步橫穿美國大陸時引來眾多追隨者的情景)。然而，事實上大多數時候這只是她一個人的旅程。她將此形容為是為地球作的“一次冥想、祈禱”。盡管如此，她的T恤和具感染力的微笑還是吸引著人們走近她。有時他們會停下車遞給她一大把鈔 票——她出行的資金來源依賴小額的捐款和自己的社會保險金。有時有人會跑到她身旁，提供瓶裝水給她。

相比去爭取立法改變現狀，她選擇用這樣的方式來推廣她的“事業”。布朗女士加入到愈加龐大的一群環保人士隊伍里，他們希望通……