Up the revolution
In the past year we have had a veritable revolution in thinking and public attitude towards climate change. On the surface of it, it probably began with the Al Gore film, but on further reflection, there seems to have been a ground swell of people, who, to reference the venerable movie, Network, starring Faye Dunaway and William Holden who echo his famous quote and say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.
I won’t beat the dead horse of the climate change rationale right now, because I am sure that almost everybody understands that we are causing a change of biblical proportions. What I will say is has more to do with what in blazes we can and should we do. We need desperately to get off the business as usual bandwagon. As attractive as it is to let things go on-and-on-and-on ’til they can’t, we must and can change our ways. It is my generation, the boomers, who quite frankly, have left a legacy of hedonistic waste for our future generations to deal with. And deal with it they must.
We are a ingenious species and never has there been the like of humanity on earth before. We have dodged bullet after bullet in the past and it is time again for us to rise and meet the challenge. What has been our greatest achievement has now become our greatest liability. Our need to grow and to procreate and to flourish has become a millstone around not only our necks, but that of the entire eco-system.
I remember a long time ago, a wonderful old stirrer of BS, named Richard Needham, who came to my high school as a guest speaker during the time when young people were rising up against all the platitudes and hypocrisy of our fathers before us. He told us that it was time for us to make a change, that the boomers could change the world. And change the world we did, but then we wallowed in our successes and became lazy and slothful.
Now, in the name of that slick hypodermic needle, I call upon our young people to take up the mantle of change. Change our growth ethic, our economic model that makes more, bigger and conspicuous consumption our god. Convince the world that we have enough people, babies and progeny, to fill another ten planets and create a new order, economy, social ethic and responsibility.
Be mad as hell and don’t take it anymore. It’s time for change, time to stop business as usual. Its time for the new generation to teach their fathers and mothers to stop the platitudes and hypocrisy.