One morning on my train journey to work I read this article by Alex Steffen (thanks @argonaut for the link)
I began drafting this post the week before the UK General Election.
We are now embracing our new Tory Light government.
UK current political hot topic is cuts.
Turns out that we aren’t that powerful when it comes to volcanic ash and oil leaks.
From Alex’s post:
The future that my parents’ generation warned us about forty years ago looks an awful lot like our present. The ice caps are melting, deserts are spreading, the planet is thick with people, most of the world’s primeval forests are gone, the seas are in crisis, and pollution, famine and natural disasters kill millions of people a year. Compared to the world we might have had, had the progress of the early 1970s continued steadily through the following four decades, we live on a half-ruined planet.
Not a particularly cheery paragraph?
Alex asks us to invite the future back into the room.
“We need millions of people ready to put the future back in the room. We need millions of people ready to demand that their governments, their companies, their communities and their cultural institutions confront the reality of the futures they make every day.”
Alex maintains that the future is not lost. He invites action.
Not all of us can or want to be revolutionaries but we can all contribute towards change.
The future I envision has a massive impact on who I choose to vote for, where I buy my food, what products I choose to work on, the products I choose to buy, where I bank, how and when I travel.
In the world I occupy the well-being of the many impacts my life. I will worry less about the tax I pay than I will about how those taxes are spent.
Let’s do what Alex suggests and keep the future in the room, vibrant and alive.
It’s a good thought, but I suspect different people will reach very different conclusions about how to invite that future into the room. For example, an essential element of that (for me) is children. Others would almost certainly suggest that adding children to the planet is a net burden. I think people are (or certainly can be) a net asset.
But perhaps the principle is that we should each take it seriously, and strive toward it in our individual ways and means….
I think that by reminding ourselves to invite the future into the room we are giving ourselves the opportunity to remember that our choices have impact beyond our own lives.
There is this quote from Jane Goodall that I wanted to write a blog post around but never quite got round to deciding what I wanted to write:
– Jane Goodall
We can safeguard the future if we all stop and think a little before we act. I don’t think this is about how many children, size of car engine, how many long haul flights; it is about all of those things, it is about balance and it is about all of us. There is no room for an “I’m alright Jack” attitude. I am only alright if you are. Your children will be alright if mine are.
Of course we need children – someone needs to pay taxes when I am old so I can put my feet up a bit 🙂
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