Hello; to those who are young and those with children or grand children, perhaps you should not read my post. It will not encourage you.
I was a senior in high school in 1965. I believe that was the year I first found Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Like many even today, I was not convinced that all was to be lost. BY 1975 and after a Degree in Biology and graduate work in ecology I came to believe the worst is inevitable. I was childless at the time and took steps to remain so permanently. My feelings were two fold, one that a reduction in the human population was the most workable path to a possible stable environment. The other was that by 1975 I did not believe people would make the needed changes and to bring a child into what I envisioned was, in my mind, a crime against the child.
The cartoon is an apt, if limited, vision of what I had imagined back then. The things I feared have happened and we are well into the early stages. In recent years as the evidence was piling up in abundance and, to me, should have been obvious to most anyone I looked for what was likely my last hope that people would come to our collective senses. There are more people aware than ever before, but alas not near enough.
Now in my senior years I have a hope that the people who face the fruits of our man made environmental legacies now and those still to come will grant me. That hope is they will give me some small credit in that the children I did not have are not adding to their problems. While there were periods of personal failure, I also have tried to live a life of reduced impact. I have lived long enough to see the beginnings of what we will reap.
The folks that make the documentaries nowadays have changed from talking about prevention of the problems to talking about possibly moderating the impact. I suppose there is some sliver of hope.
Good luck to us all
