We gnomes always try to protect the natural treasures of Mother Earth. That's what gnomes do. But we're a little and old-fashioned, and our enemies have outgrown us. Many of those who exploit Mother Earth for valuable resources have grown to be such huge, powerful, greedy giants that they can slap aside anyone – even national governments – who try to restrain them. Agencies that were created to regulate them, such as the EPA, have been overwhelmed and neutered by their power.

That's why some of us gnomes have been discussing the need for an International Environmental Court to deal with global crimes against Mother Earth – the really brutal, heinous crimes, which are the moral equivalents of rape and murder. Two that certainly reach that level of depravity are mountaintop removal coal mining and gas fracking.

We gnomes have been here many, many years guarding the secrets and treasures of the Earth against all sorts of threats, so we don’t scare easily.

But as I snoozed in the sun recently, snuggled between the roost of a big maple tree in an Interstate Highway Rest Area, a couple of men in suits came out of the vending machine building and sat down at a picnic bench with colas and potato chips, and they were talking business, and they used a phrase I’d never heard before, and it stuck in my heart. It sounded like this:

“The Glowball Economy.”