Let's put off the apocalypse for a few more years

Your old men shall dream dreams.

Your young men shall see visions.

Joel 2:28

I have been reflecting on the conversation we had on CBC’s Maritime Connection program yesterday. Only a few people called in but they were all so apocalyptic. My co-guests were also somewhat doomsdayish but in support of their positions. At one point I had to jump in and reset the conversation a bit. The callers were all of a certain age (oldish) and the guests were all of certain age (at least me, oldish).

If old people are so down on the future, how is that received by the young?

Everyone talks about the mental health crisis facing young people - I suspect that telling them the world won’t be liveable for mammals within a few decades is not particularly uplifting.

Yes we have big challenges and the cause and effects associated with climate change is one of them. Every generation seems to need its catastrophe - Malthus said the world would not be able to produce enough food to feed the population. When I was growing up kids in U.S. schools were still doing nuclear war drills. At one point acid rain was a pretty big deal.

I think we need to be a little more hopeful about the future. Not Pollyannish but set a positive course for the future and then work hard to achieve it.

On the program we talked about how hard it is to make big collective leaps in democratic societies where you need the people on side. This just means we need far more citizen engagement and we need to ensure people have accurate information - this is also a key tenet of successful democratic societies.

And for us oldtimers - yes I know that time has built up plaque in our arteries - physically and metaphorically - but we have to be a little more upbeat about the future.

It should be a societal goal to leave the place a little better off than you found it. If you feel things are getting worse - much worse - then you should double down on efforts to make it better rather than just sit around complaining about how bad things are.

Let’s put off the apocalypse for a few more years.