A Letter to Our Generation (Climate Change)

In the entire history of humankind, yours is the single most important generation.
We as a species have unknowingly and steadfastly marched in the direction of our own destruction since before the dawn of the industrial age. Recent science on climate change has made that abundantly clear. If there is any room left to right the course of human history, it will be the unique span of your lifetime which will provide that pivotal moment.

How strange; how terrible and beautiful that your generation faces such a challenge, and such a special responsibility: It is as if two arcs grew up out of the roots of history and have been bending through time toward one another; preparing to cross at precisely this moment. One arc is our budding understanding of our deeply interconnected role on this planet--how we fit into this complex dance of life-- and the other is our growing awareness that if we continue as we have, our time here will soon come to an end.

One has to ask, why have things been set up this way? Why has the very generation you happen to be born into been given the knowledge, the opportunity and the burden to save not only yourselves, but the future for every living creature yet unborn? Whatever the reason for the meeting of these arcs, here we are. Those of us born in the last century will do what we can to help those of us born in this one, but the outcome of this battle--whether it be the most inconsolable sorrow for what might have been, or the greatest and most generous achievement by any generation in the history of humankind-- will be known in your lifetime. I place my faith in you creativity and determination.

I will be working in every way I can to support you going forward, as my own children are your peers. And I thank you--we thank you-- for every effort you make to turn the tide.

Carl Whiting

Comments

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