Sorry, Kids, I Thought Climate Change Would Take Longer
Children, I am so sorry for the ecological catastrophe we’re leaving you with. Any conversation about destroying someone’s home is difficult. What makes this one so awkward is that I assumed you’d be having it with your kids one day. Not us, not now.
Not to deflect blame, but I distinctly remember 2100 being bandied about as the year the shit would really hit the fan. And even when it came, I thought global warming would be akin to frogs boiling: we wouldn’t feel it until it was too late.
Longer summers and fewer snowmen I expected, but double monster hurricanes and fire tornados? No. Polar bears slowly drowning, we all saw coming, but koalas being burned alive? Pretty sure I would have remembered a warning that graphic.
Whatever the time frame, we absolutely should have done more to stop climate change. Why didn’t we? It’s hard to say, but here’s what I think happened: our parents and grandparents got the ball rolling on social and environmental justice. And then we Gen Xers got it and dropped it, straight down the mountain, like a cartoon boulder barreling toward your future.
I guess if we had a plan at all, it was to wait out the Boomers. Eventually, we’d be in charge, and we were so amazing, progressive, and special that everything would work itself out.
