Embracing A Fearful Future

NINETY DEGREES in late March is a bit warm for my location, and as temperatures reached into the nineties all across the American southwest and then moved into the southeast, scientists assured us that without cliamte change,this never would have happened. It would indeed have been unseasonably warm for late March, but not to this extent. Just as October has in recent years become a summer month for much of the United States, March has now become a solid spring month, more like a late spring month and late winter and early spring. The change in climate in my part of the United States, the mid south, has become quite obvious to me, as I'm sure it has for many people in my age range (I am 70). One's age is a key factor in accepting climate change; if you're old enough to remember when the climate was much different, if you're in your fifties, sixties, seventies, or beyond, you've have noticed the change. As a seventy year old, I tell myself, and others, that because of my age, I don't have much longer to live. Everybody has what I consider to be a strange reaction to this; as if I'm stating some outlandish falsehood, for which I should be ridiculed. I realize that life expectency is increasing rapidly in our modern world of medical marvels, but still, there are limits, or so I assume. I actually recall hearing some futuristic forecasting expert declare that anybody who is currently alive, taking into account modern medical science, has a chance of remaining alive indefinitely. That I find simultaneously fascinating, intriguing, and not a little frightening. To be honest, I am nowhere near being ready to die. The way I feel now, I'd like to live to be a hundred, and there is good evidence that for me, that might be possible. I'm in good shape, I exercise a lot, my diet varies between good and horrible, and I feel good most of the time. Plus, I am only on about five prescription medications, not bad for a modern seventy year old American, so, we'll see. For one thing, I wouldn't mind living long enogh to get some kind of idea on whether humanity is going to find a solution for climate change, or if the ecosystem, and we humans, are doomed. As of right now its a toos up, it seemsa s if it could go either way; a long future of advancement of the human species, or extinction, most likely because of our own behavior. Will our descendants of the twenty second century be living prosperous, rewarding lives in a society free of violence, hunger, and disease, or will burned out shells of former cities be sparsely populated by roving bands of paleolithic human primates, in a post technological civilization which has deteriorated into stagnaton and chaos? When you consider the current level of both organized international violence and the destructive power of modern weapons, its easy to descend into doom and gloom, envisioning the future as a shockingly violent dystopia, human civilization dead or in rapid decline. At my age, with my limited opportunity to see much of the future, I have to have faith that people fo good will will prevail, adn that our decsendans willprofe to bemore tolerant, compassionate, and kinder than we are. In a time capsule Einstein wa asked to contribute to, he wrote a letter to the future, in which he said precisely that; that if you people in the future have not become kinder, more compassionate and less violent than we were, may the devil take you. Harsh though that sentiment may sound, I am strongly inclined to agree with it.