| A Persepctive of Time |
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| If you have a child this year (lets call her Callie), and Callie has a child (your grandchild) when she is twenty five, you will be a granddaddy in the year 2032. If you are twenty five when you have your child, you will be fifty when she has her child. So if her child (lets call him Jim) has a baby when he is twenty five (your great grand baby - lets call her Willow), you will be seventy five ( a not unreasonable age) and you will get to know your great grandchild even if you only live for a few years after that. Now, think about this - your great grandchild, a person that you will hold in your arms, and who squeezes your finger or your nose - who looks upon you with adoration and love - will only be 50 years old a hundred years from now. That will make Willow your child’s grandchild - it puts a hundred years in perspective, I think. It makes the time a bit more realistic, when thinking of a hundred years usually seems the same as a thousand - it is way to far in the future to think about. But when thinking of children, and grand and great grandchildren, it is not some unseen hazy date - it takes on an immediacy when you think of it in that perspective, or it will when you see how fast your children grow up. So think about this - what will Willow say about you? You see, what we do in this year and the coming years will have a direct result on the lifestyle and quality of life which our grandchildren and great grandchildren will live. It is to easy to think that the time is to far away to really care about, but once you have children, or once friends that you love have children you will realize quickly that a hundred years, on the scale of things, comes all to quickly. So what will those great grandchildren say of us in this time? Will they say that we lived up to our ancestors, and met our problems with grace, mercy, sacrifice and intelligence? Or will they say that we were greedy, blind and easily fooled? Will they look at us running the world into the ground and funding our own enemies by continuing to buy gasoline, without any thought to the consequences? Or will they say that we built the foundation for the changed world, where energy was not a monopoly and we did not prop up dictators for a steady supply of it, no matter how bad they were - but that we did the right thing? So that they could have a better life, through our sacrifice. As I listen to the news media and our politicians go through yet another election cycle where the real issues are ignored, I despair that our great grandchildren will have a kind view of us. It will be to late by then to say that we did not know any better; it is not as though the problems we face are subtle problems, or nuanced. The solutions to those problems must be both subtle and nuanced, but that is because we have delayed so long on so many fronts. The next hundred years will pass quickly and be gone before we know it, so think about this one simple fact, and then find others to think about on your own. We all buy gasoline every day - the profits generated by those sales fund our enemies, and result in the deaths of our soldiers and sailors, and of innocent people overseas. Don’t worry about what you personally can do about this right now, but do worry about this - none of our national elected leaders ever say this, when it is as apparent as the sunrise. Why is that, and what shall we do about it? Everything else depends upon that one simple question, applied to the problems we face. Oil is simply one of the most glaring instances where the rhetoric of modern politics is betrayed by the undeniable essence of reality. So peak under that cover, thin as it is, and if you are a person with influence put profits aside for a moment and think of your great grandchildren - ask the right questions, and do not take sidestepping for an answer. Every second ticks towards our children’s future, and every one is irretrievable. |
| A Persepctive of Time |