18 June 2007
Generational Blame
The responsibility of my generation and the last few before me for the harmful effects of global warming causes me a feeling of guilt. In addition to my powerlessness in securing for my children their financial futures, I am forced to accept blame for not having militantly resisted literally burning up our hydrocarbon patrimony. I celebrated the material rewards of profligately depleting the world’s energy resources and polluting our atmosphere with their exhaust in order to promote economic development without regard for their potentially terminal side-effects, or even awareness of them.
Nevertheless, I question whether the next generation would have had the ability to cope with global warming, e.g. through engineering expertise and palliative medicine, without the benefit of the wealth created at the expense of environmental preservation. Alarmists about environmental change may be no more than “tree-huggers” who pessimistically assume that any erosion of the status quo, by definition, destroys the general welfare.
Can we have it both ways? Responsible materialism is not an oxymoron. But it requires devotion of the capabilities that materialism creates to rectifying its faults.
The responsibility of my generation and the last few before me for the harmful effects of global warming causes me a feeling of guilt. In addition to my powerlessness in securing for my children their financial futures, I am forced to accept blame for not having militantly resisted literally burning up our hydrocarbon patrimony. I celebrated the material rewards of profligately depleting the world’s energy resources and polluting our atmosphere with their exhaust in order to promote economic development without regard for their potentially terminal side-effects, or even awareness of them.
Nevertheless, I question whether the next generation would have had the ability to cope with global warming, e.g. through engineering expertise and palliative medicine, without the benefit of the wealth created at the expense of environmental preservation. Alarmists about environmental change may be no more than “tree-huggers” who pessimistically assume that any erosion of the status quo, by definition, destroys the general welfare.
Can we have it both ways? Responsible materialism is not an oxymoron. But it requires devotion of the capabilities that materialism creates to rectifying its faults.
Comments:
Post a Comment
