Jonathan Franzen’s latest New Yorker essay offers a dim view of how humans should prioritize two causes that are, according to him, in conflict: climate change and conservation. Since nothing can be done to save the planet, he argues, environmental groups like the National Audubon Society should focus on preserving the quality of the little wilderness that's left. As if that's not depressing enough, he supports his argument with baseless claims lifted from the GOP's climate-denier playbook.

David Yarnold, president and CEO of Audubon, on Friday told me this is “one of the wackiest arguments” he’s ever heard. He has a good reason to hold a grudge. Franzen, a birder, wrote in his essay that Audubon does little more than sell holiday cards and plush-toy cardinals and bluebirds, a far cry from its heyday of activism. In the writer's view, traditional conservationist groups have hurt their own cause—like saving the birds—by shifting focus to climate change. But Franzen misrepresented an Audubon report he didn't read and never disclosed that he's on the board of a competing bird society, the American Bird Conservancy, prompting Yarnold to question the New Yorker’s editorial standards. Yarnold accused Franzen of underestimating Americans' ability to care about multiple issues at one time, and pointed to climate change for energizing many of Audubon's activists.

A far more sympathetic response came from Grist’s David Roberts. Franzen reminds him of smart people he’s always encountered who still don’t grasp, or are reluctant to grasp, the full scope and complications of climate change. They acquire a kind of tunnel vision. That would explain why Franzen knocks down the easy arguments against climate change action, while ignoring the actual policy debate (few serious people are suggesting we can fix the problem by getting on a bicycle, like Franzen suggests). Roberts's proposed fix for this tunnel vision: better storytelling.

Better stories are always welcome, but stories alone won't correct climate-change ignorance as long as the deniers are telling their own, distorting version. Franzen’s essay is a clear sign of how pervasive climate-denier memes are to Americans' everyday thinking on the issue.

Franzen isn't a denier; he accepts climate change science. He just doesn't necessarily think too-little, too-late advocacy should be a priority, considering the scale of the problem. Even so, his various arguments vaguely resemble what you often hear from politicians (many of whom don’t accept the science) as reasons for doing nothing.