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Three of The Yorker's blogs team have had a hard think about what general rules they live their lives by and written them down in the form of their own Personal Philosophies.
I used to watch society’s problems being paraded before me in news headlines and think that they wouldn’t affect me, that they were too distant to be concerned about. They weren’t my generation’s problems at the time; we didn’t cause them, and at the time were too young to set about trying to solve them.
However as I get older and decisions have to be made about my future, I realise that the big issues of today – this country’s economic debt, the global financial crisis and climate change among them – will affect the choices I make and, consequently, my experience of life.
I try to do my bit for the environment. I recycle, turn lights off when they’re not needed, and I cycle or walk most places when I’m at university. But I realise that this will not be enough to stem the tide of rapid change that is taking place. Ironically, as the rest of the world fights off the heat, Britain is set to get colder (you only have to look at the past few summers to see how), and it seems Britain will become one of the last remaining “life boats” for the world’s climate refugees.
This idea has been put forward by James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory, in his new book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning. The Gaia theory is based on the belief that the Earth is a single organism and that its climate was created by its living inhabitants. While controversial at the time, it was a groundbreaking theory, and despite being in his 90th year Lovelock shows no signs of slowing down.
Try as we might, my generation isn’t going to save the world in such a short time
While reading a review of his new book, it was the “life boat” comment that got me thinking. Coming from Birmingham as I do, the seaside was always a novelty, being enclosed by land for miles in all directions. After living in Canada for a year and travelling around North America, I loved the fact that most of major cities I visited were built on some body of water – Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, the list is endless – and that’s the kind of place I want to live in. But if sea levels are going to rise, maybe my land-locked home city is the safest place to be.
Another concern is the burden on future generations as they inherit these problems. Try as we might, my generation isn’t going to save the world in such a short time. Therefore if I end up having children, I want them to have the same prospects as I had when I was growing up, and the same hope, even if that hope is slowly disappearing. One of the human race’s biggest problems is the sheer volume of people on the planet; to put it bluntly, there are just too many people. But does that mean that I shouldn’t have children of my own if I want to do my part to slow down the rise in global population?
As everyone looks to the new President of the U.S. to solve our problems, and Gordon Brown tries to persuade Obama to alter his prioritising of domestic issues, maybe we have to realise that those little things we do for the environment might be making the difference. And if, as Lovelock believes, climate change is irreversible, we should just try to make something out of the current disintegration that the next generation can enjoy, and enjoy it ourselves.
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