Well- it's finally time! My sister delivered her first baby girl- Zoe Maureen.
Zoe is the third of my nieces- Avery (below, right), and Genevieve (below, left)
beating her out by a few months each.
All of this new life got me thinking- what kind of world are we leaving for these babies? We all know the gloom and doom: rising sea levels, extreme weather events, food shortages, public health crises- the list goes on and on.
But these little beings have their whole lives in front of them. Lives with a wealth of knowledge available to them with the touch of a button.
Their futures will be stories of great opportunity, or great tragedy. I choose to believe people want to do the right thing- sometimes we need to be forced out of our business as usual mentality to do it. But overall, humans don't want to hurt other people or animals, we just have been numbed to the fact that all of our actions have that impact.
You throw trash 'away', flip on a switch for power, and water goes 'down the drain'. But those are hardly the ends of those stories. They aren't even the beginning OR a major conflict in the story of these resources. And our actions teach our children to act a certain way; we teach them values and morals
Reminds me of a favorite Paul Hawken quote- "If you don't believe in the Future, unreservedly and dreamingly, if you aren't willing to bet that somebody will be there to cry when the Clock finally runs down ten thousand years from now, then I don't see how you can have children. If you have children, I don't see how you can fail to do everything in your power to ensure that you win your bet, and that they, and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren's grandchildren, will inherit a world who's perfection can never be accomplished by creatures whose imagination for perfecting it is limitless and free"
Zoe is the third of my nieces- Avery (below, right), and Genevieve (below, left)
beating her out by a few months each.
All of this new life got me thinking- what kind of world are we leaving for these babies? We all know the gloom and doom: rising sea levels, extreme weather events, food shortages, public health crises- the list goes on and on.But these little beings have their whole lives in front of them. Lives with a wealth of knowledge available to them with the touch of a button.
Their futures will be stories of great opportunity, or great tragedy. I choose to believe people want to do the right thing- sometimes we need to be forced out of our business as usual mentality to do it. But overall, humans don't want to hurt other people or animals, we just have been numbed to the fact that all of our actions have that impact.
You throw trash 'away', flip on a switch for power, and water goes 'down the drain'. But those are hardly the ends of those stories. They aren't even the beginning OR a major conflict in the story of these resources. And our actions teach our children to act a certain way; we teach them values and morals
Reminds me of a favorite Paul Hawken quote- "If you don't believe in the Future, unreservedly and dreamingly, if you aren't willing to bet that somebody will be there to cry when the Clock finally runs down ten thousand years from now, then I don't see how you can have children. If you have children, I don't see how you can fail to do everything in your power to ensure that you win your bet, and that they, and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren's grandchildren, will inherit a world who's perfection can never be accomplished by creatures whose imagination for perfecting it is limitless and free"
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