Almost any intelligent person knew this was coming 50 years ago. People of the past aren’t as stupid as we like to think. They invented the technology that got us here and they did it before they had the tools and information that we do now- they had to do it all from close to “scratch.” So why does it seem like climate change and all this is a recent thing? Well…
For starters a lot of you are young lol. So everything is recent when you haven’t even reached the age of the worlds oldest cat. It’s hard to remember environmentalism from the 80’s when you weren’t alive or were a baby- but pop culture Aline should tell you that the hippies were big on environmentalism back to the 60’s and the 70’s were full of environmentalism- they established the EPA then. The national parks system was created about a century ago to ensure that there would be pristine and undeveloped nature left to enjoy as we developed and destroyed our environment.
So it’s not new. But it also isn’t just an age thing- information didn’t used to travel as fast for sure, and other factors- but let me explain this intuitively:
Most people by the age of 20 aren’t saving at least 10% for retirement. They aren’t doing stretches and exercise and drinking lots of water and eating a very strict and consistent diet focussed on their health. Most of us didn’t save any money we got as kids to invest and buy property by the time we were in our 20’s or early 30’s. We KNOW if we live long enough that we will likely stop working at some point. We KNOW that health tends to decline with age. We KNOW that decisions we make now will impact us in the future. The kid that buys the muscle car for $30k could have had a Camry and compound interest that would buy a Mercedes’ by the time they retire if they’d put the extra into a retirement account. Why didn’t they? Why didn’t I? Why did you probably not?
Because as humans we tend to be TERRIBLE at considering long term issues. We tend to put gratification or todays problems ahead of the future. So many people drive after drinking. Most make it home alright but take a tremendous risk of theirs and others lives, tens of thousands of dollars in fines, criminal records, etc. because why? IF that happens it is not a problem RIGHT NOW, their problem RIGHT NOW is they want to go home and have been drinking but maybe don’t want to pay or can’t pay for a ride service etc. if you can’t afford a $40 ride or whatever- how do you afford $10k + legal fees and fines? Fast food is (arguably) good tasting, usually not to expensive, fast, convenient. It’s. Manor industry. The long term health and economic impacts are obvious. But… todays problems vs. tomorrows. Hungry now, diabetes later- now wins.
Some people are better at long term thinking and planning but we are all bad at it. We know things we do today are going to cause problems years or…
.. centuries in the future. We can zoom out from fast food and little examples to things like the “housing meltdown.” Derp. I want to say I’m sorry for those that suffered and it was ultimately greedy and corrupt financiers behind it but… come on man. You pay 150 maybe 300% the value of a house, get a variable rate mortgage, take a loan that you can barely pay or that you can pay as long as NOTHING major changes in your finances- and then it’s shocking when that doesn’t work? These people weren’t thinking long term. There was someone saying they’d give them a loan up to X million dollars and the person wanted a house. They wanted to live there or rent it or flip it, and they took the bait on a deal that long term was a pretty obvious loser unless you didn’t understand what you were signing (hot tip: don’t sign things you don’t understand…) or just weren’t paying attention to anything except what you wanted right then and there.
We are, as a species, terrible at long term thinking. And we know this. We are in a generation that is not only being told that the world is going to be an unrecognizable and much more hostile place in the near future- we are seeing it. The weather and the other issues, and anyone who’s been alive a few decades at least can see how things have changed and how the standard of living and resources and everything else is changing. But- we keep flying all over the world and “traveling” is still the go to hubby for generic people in conversations and dating apps. We keep buying new cars and cheap disposable Amazon crap and born to be obsolete phones and laptops and all this stuff. We see the world circling the toilet and that fate is still so far off in our minds that we can’t give up the gratification and problems of today for the future.
“Skype is the only way I can talk to my family back home..” “I have a long train ride and get bored so I need my headphones..”
“It’s too hot where I live to not run the AC..” blah blah. And yet not so long ago there was no such thing as AC and people survived. Odd I would say, especially when such arguments usually don’t come from people who may legitimately have health conditions or be so old and frail that being hot might actually kill them vs. a younger healthy person who just needs to drink water and do a few things to stay hit but not dangerously hot.
And this is why all this seems so new. We’ve known for a loooong time many things and smart people have known for even longer, but few want to listen and even fewer want to make any meaningful sacrifices to wards the future, especially when that future is further off than they would likely live. If you were 40yo in 1957, your odds of seeing 2010 were almost 0%. So you’re going to bicycle around instead of drive, not run your AC and not have the nice house and the cars and all the modern conveniences and be an outcast who isn’t “living their best life”
just so that a baby born after your dead can have nicer weather? We can say: “THEY SHOULD HAVE THOUGH!” Well yeah. We would think that reading this because a lot of people here were babies of kids or young adults in 2010 and all of us reading are alive post 2010 so these problems wouldn’t be problems for us if that person in 1957 had thought about the future more. If you believe that they should have been more environmentally conscious in the past though- what are you doing so that in 53 years your footprint will be minimized? It becomes much harder to find someone in a position to criticize the past when we ask what you are doing today from the perspective of the future no?
There aren’t enough Jimmy Carters to change the future unless more of us do more to Carter things up.
For starters a lot of you are young lol. So everything is recent when you haven’t even reached the age of the worlds oldest cat. It’s hard to remember environmentalism from the 80’s when you weren’t alive or were a baby- but pop culture Aline should tell you that the hippies were big on environmentalism back to the 60’s and the 70’s were full of environmentalism- they established the EPA then. The national parks system was created about a century ago to ensure that there would be pristine and undeveloped nature left to enjoy as we developed and destroyed our environment.
Most people by the age of 20 aren’t saving at least 10% for retirement. They aren’t doing stretches and exercise and drinking lots of water and eating a very strict and consistent diet focussed on their health. Most of us didn’t save any money we got as kids to invest and buy property by the time we were in our 20’s or early 30’s. We KNOW if we live long enough that we will likely stop working at some point. We KNOW that health tends to decline with age. We KNOW that decisions we make now will impact us in the future. The kid that buys the muscle car for $30k could have had a Camry and compound interest that would buy a Mercedes’ by the time they retire if they’d put the extra into a retirement account. Why didn’t they? Why didn’t I? Why did you probably not?
Some people are better at long term thinking and planning but we are all bad at it. We know things we do today are going to cause problems years or…
“Skype is the only way I can talk to my family back home..” “I have a long train ride and get bored so I need my headphones..”
And this is why all this seems so new. We’ve known for a loooong time many things and smart people have known for even longer, but few want to listen and even fewer want to make any meaningful sacrifices to wards the future, especially when that future is further off than they would likely live. If you were 40yo in 1957, your odds of seeing 2010 were almost 0%. So you’re going to bicycle around instead of drive, not run your AC and not have the nice house and the cars and all the modern conveniences and be an outcast who isn’t “living their best life”
There aren’t enough Jimmy Carters to change the future unless more of us do more to Carter things up.