Claims that boomers don't care about climate change are unfair.
by Gareth E on 11/02/2023
Claims are being made by younger generations that boomers don't care about climate change as it won't affect them. These claims are broadcast unchallenged by news media. However, they are unfair.
The allegation is that we don't take the issue seriously enough because we don't have much to lose. That's based upon the notion that we are at the sunset of our lives, anyway. Hence, we won't be alive in future when the effects of climate change really start to bite. A few individuals may think like that, but they're the exception, not the rule.
This claim relies on a belief which may seem accurate through the eyes of inexperienced younger generations. However, as the 1984 hit song by Orson Wells goes, we know what it is to be young, but they don't know what it is to be old.
The claimers make some preposterous assumptions. One is that we are all about to fall off the perch. The reality is that plenty of boomers will still be alive in twenty to thirty years time. Any notion that the future belongs only to the young is narrow-visioned. It's our future also.
The biggest oversight of the claim is this:- it assumes we don't care in the slightest about the wellbeing of our children, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That's rude! Surely the people who dreamed up that suggestion and those who support it have not yet had children themselves. Otherwise, they might know better.
Across all generations there are climate skeptics. Perhaps less so among young adults, who've been exposed to saturation-level information about the dangers during their school years. It's true that older people are often more resistant to change, whereas the young tend to run with it.
I personally accept the claims of global warming and greenhouse gases because they seem reasonable and I have never seen any convincing counter-proof. A common retort is that the climate is always changing. That's true, but it doesn't prove that man-made global warming isn't part of the scenario.
As highly experienced adults, we have learned many lessons in life that can't be unlearned. One is that haste makes waste, which often results from hot-headed solutions. Another is that inflammatory rhetoric doesn't prove anything, nor make something any more true than it already is. We prefer a more level-headed approach. That constitutes caution. It doesn't constitute nonchalance.
Sensationalist media coverage has given strong voice to people who have made predictions about global warming which proved inaccurate. Wildly so, in some instances. That means we are right not to trust implicitly whatever slogans, mantras and catch-cries we are bombarded with. Young people who are short of insight easily fall victim to these tools of revolution. They jump on board, in many cases simply to gain the safety of running with the herd.
Each individual must arrive at their own conclusions. The majority will support climate change mitigation programs and actions, many of which will be mandated. Others will try to resist, but they probably won't get much say in the matter.
Regardless, the suggestion that we as seniors couldn't care less because it's no skin off our nose anyway is the product of shallow and immature thinking.
Photo by Li-An Lim on Unsplash