Dear Editor,
I’m not exactly sure of what point Garry Haas is making in his attempts to belittle the fight against climate change and mocking the younger generation in the process.
I’m 69, so I am part of the baby boomer generation but not all of us spend our lives squandering resources like nature was ours to loot. But many of the boomers did follow the PR firms and believed wrongly that more things will make you happy. That cellphones, for example, will make you free when the truth is that they enslave people and increase social isolation.
On the issue of cellphones, what Mr. Haas said has some merit as they, along with social media, has negative consequences that few people understood at the time of their introduction. Now we do understand and therefore have an opportunity to change people’s thinking although like with crack cocaine, the addiction is strong.
So yes, Mr. Haas, overall, I will blame our generation for the plastic now filling the landfills and seas. I will blame my generation for falling for the false promise of more stuff at the lowest possible price will bring happiness. Happiness for whom? Surely not the economic slaves that produces the made in China junk that fills our landfills.
Don’t claim innocence on climate change and all other forms of pollution, Mr. Haas, as the information has become readily available and has been for decades now.
Yet, too many boomers try to cling to a way of life that is no longer sustainable, using the same kind of arguments that big tobacco used about the science isn’t in, no proof, or offer “proof” that is nothing but fake news by armchair climate deniers who think their uniformed twaddle is superior to that of actual climate scientists.
It will not be easy to get the lowest form of citizen – the consumer – to change buying habits that they learned from their boomer parents. But it can be done, it must be done, or this ant hill we call civilization will get kicked over by Mother Nature soon enough.
The climate scientists were wrong only about one thing, and that is the speed which it is coming. It was something far off; we now know it is here now and will only get worse. We can only mitigate it at this point, we can’t stop it. But please think about those who will come after us as you rationalize away your own role in this rapidly moving disaster rather then mock the young people.
But if I could suggest one purchase that would enlighten you to what is coming soon to an environment near you, I would recommend the book by David Wallace-Wells, called the Uninhabitable Earth which states clearly what is to come for all life on this planet. It is a scarier read then anything Stephen King could ever write. His books are fiction, this book is reality.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City, B.C.
