To The Children's Children

TO THE CHILDREN'S CHILDREN

Recommendations to the Descendants

    Thornton Wilder's "By the Skin of Our Teeth" chronicles a family of man that survived the extinction of mankind multiple times thru the course of history. They survived by the skin of their teeth. Today's generation  faces another horrific challenge to human existence. The Earth is essentially a closed ecosystem. Our experiments in building closed ecosystems have failed to achieve long term human habitability.  The only successful bio-system we currently know of is spaceship earth. We members of the rat-race have overpopulated and gnawed the insulation to the point that it threatens the life support systems. The ozone layer insulating us from deadly U.V. radiations is breaking down. The icecaps are melting at a pace that threatens the inundations of the seacoasts. Water tables that provide the irrigation for major food producing areas are dropping at alarming rates. Heating from the hydrocarbons we've pumped into the atmosphere by the undisciplined use of fossil fuels have guaranteed that the world will see a period of increased desertification with wild fires burning the remaining mitigating forests. The spectors of mass migrations, starvation, and disease loom over humanity. We baby-boomers are to soon leave the world in a mess. The future looks grim.

Yet, I have a great deal of faith in future generations. The future has looked pretty grim before. In 1962 I was a young teenager living very near what was most likely the number 2 priority target for Soviet missiles, the Cheyenne Mt. complex of NORAD responsible for all of the air defense communication of the U.S. and Canada. During that infamous two week period of October my mother stated that she expected nuclear war to break out at any minute. It looked as if we would all be reduced to radioactive ash. By the skin of our teeth, we survived. I have faith that we, as a species, will continue to survive and thrive. Thus, I want to pass this message on to future generations: have hope; all is not and never will be lost.

My parents generation faced the demon represented by the Nazi's and won. The threat of domination by an insane dictator passed but left the A-bomb. My generation faced the demon of all out nuclear war and won. Though it is perhaps probable that nuclear arms will be used again,  likelihood of all-out, life extincting nuclear war is no longer with us. Yes, it is almost inevitable that our lack of foresight and collective greed are going to result in ecological disaster. It's the problem we you of the future. Have hope for you will have a future.

There is so many predictions of disaster out there that it's time to look at the positive alternatives. Science and technology are often unfairly blamed for the state to which we've our influence on the eco-sphere evolve. Personally, I think most of the responsibility lies with corporate entities which by their very nature (the quarterly stockholder's report) seldom look very far into the future for the consequences of their actions. Be that as it may, I am convinced that some of the greatest positive hopes for the future lie in science and technology.


This does not mean that we must necessarily abandon all of the positive benefits that technology has brought us. New ways to generate clean energy are being investigated.

As suggested in Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Days of Rain series science offers many possible methods of mitigating the affects of global warming.

 Most of all, your generation has the opportunity to begin to look at what Bucky Fuller called "spaceship earth" in a new and integrated way where mankind is not the master of the planet but a passenger and custodian.

The recent movie Tomorrowland (at this date Disney's first real S.F. movie) gives a parable of two wolves:

An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life...
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves
 One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
"Which wolf will win?"
The old chief simply replied,
"The one you feed."

quoted from http://www.sapphyr.net/natam/two-wolves.htm.