I think we're looking at tomorrow's enemy, Lorne. This younger generation see the same in us. We're their enemy. They know who has brought them this dystopian future.
How would any of us feel if we were them? How would we feel if we saw a viable future 40, 50, 60 years from now being stolen by immediate greed?
Protests, like movements, come and go. Only not this one. The conditions that spark these protests and this movement aren't going away. They're still going to worsen. Greenhouse gases last many centuries.
These kids are going to watch the habitable regions of the world begin to die and shrink. They are very likely to watch humanity go through an artificial (man-made) die off claiming billions of lives. Their own lives may be in peril. We continue to make their survival more difficult and for what?
Many times I've written that our ethos in the neoliberal era became "because we can" with scant if any regard to whether we should. In one generation we grew the human population three fold. We expanded per capita GDP by four or five times over the 20th century while almost doubling human longevity (that, in 1900, stood at a meagre 42 years). Three X Five X Two is how we grew humanity's footprint on Earth by some 30 times and in just one century. If you want to see the pernicious side of a 'doubling rate' there it is. And yet our politicians remain devout disciples of perpetual exponential growth in GDP even at this late stage where the consequences are starting to cascade.
I think there's a good chance what we're seeing now is the harbinger of what could become true inter-generational conflict. I could very easily be wrong and I do hope I am but, from the science I've read, I expect the 2020s to be a transformative decade and not in any good way.
There was a time when we could say we didn't really know but that was a decade, no more than two, ago. We have known what we've been doing ever since then and yet we've been recklessly and relentlessly pursuing the growth in consumption and waste that will ruin the lives of these kids.
Did you notice how Justin and Andy stayed well clear of yesterday's protests? There's a huge message in that.
The situation is indeed dire, Mound, and that this generation recognizes it as such provides only the slimmest sliver of hope, in my view. That hope can only be fully realized if young people, as they come of age, vote in droves for parties that are serious about mitigating the world's disaster.
Spoiler Alert: in Canada, those parties are not the Liberals, Conservative, the NDP or the PPC.
I think we're looking at tomorrow's enemy, Lorne. This younger generation see the same in us. We're their enemy. They know who has brought them this dystopian future.
ReplyDeleteHow would any of us feel if we were them? How would we feel if we saw a viable future 40, 50, 60 years from now being stolen by immediate greed?
Protests, like movements, come and go. Only not this one. The conditions that spark these protests and this movement aren't going away. They're still going to worsen. Greenhouse gases last many centuries.
These kids are going to watch the habitable regions of the world begin to die and shrink. They are very likely to watch humanity go through an artificial (man-made) die off claiming billions of lives. Their own lives may be in peril. We continue to make their survival more difficult and for what?
Many times I've written that our ethos in the neoliberal era became "because we can" with scant if any regard to whether we should. In one generation we grew the human population three fold. We expanded per capita GDP by four or five times over the 20th century while almost doubling human longevity (that, in 1900, stood at a meagre 42 years). Three X Five X Two is how we grew humanity's footprint on Earth by some 30 times and in just one century. If you want to see the pernicious side of a 'doubling rate' there it is. And yet our politicians remain devout disciples of perpetual exponential growth in GDP even at this late stage where the consequences are starting to cascade.
I think there's a good chance what we're seeing now is the harbinger of what could become true inter-generational conflict. I could very easily be wrong and I do hope I am but, from the science I've read, I expect the 2020s to be a transformative decade and not in any good way.
There was a time when we could say we didn't really know but that was a decade, no more than two, ago. We have known what we've been doing ever since then and yet we've been recklessly and relentlessly pursuing the growth in consumption and waste that will ruin the lives of these kids.
Did you notice how Justin and Andy stayed well clear of yesterday's protests? There's a huge message in that.
The situation is indeed dire, Mound, and that this generation recognizes it as such provides only the slimmest sliver of hope, in my view. That hope can only be fully realized if young people, as they come of age, vote in droves for parties that are serious about mitigating the world's disaster.
DeleteSpoiler Alert: in Canada, those parties are not the Liberals, Conservative, the NDP or the PPC.