"This is a generation that is watching the world come undone."

Says the Oberlin professor. The diligent students unplug the refrigerator. And they set a 3-minute time limits on showers:

... Becky Bob-Waksberg, racked up the morning’s longest shower: Eight minutes. The house cuts Ms. Bob-Waksberg slack, Mr. Brown said, because of her thick, curly hair, which takes longer to shampoo.

The world is coming undone, but Ms. Becky Bob-Waksberg must maintain her luxuriant locks. You know, if you really cared — you unplugged the refrigerator! — you would shave it down to a crewcut... for the greater good. There's a 3-minute timer in the bathroom, to impose the rule on everyone else. There's also "a picture of former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina plastered to the ceiling."

That was Ms. Bob-Waksberg’s idea. No one wants to linger in the shower with someone staring down from the ceiling, she said.

“You could also look at it another way,” she said, “that John Edwards is encouraging me to take a shorter shower.”

Why Mr. Edwards? “He had the strongest global warming policies of any of the candidates,” Mr. Brown said.

Seems to me he has the most glossy, luxuriant hair. I think Ms. Bob-Waksberg is rubbing it in that you have to take a short shower and she doesn't.