Voices
the big picture year after year.
The same is true of the damage we are doing to the planet.
You may already know that climate change is real, due to our
activities, far advanced and an
imminent peril of the first order.
If you don’t know or believe any
of this, consider asking yourself: what, exactly, would it take
to convince you this were true?
If you can’t answer the question, that tells you something;
maybe there is no evidence you
would accept. If you can answer
the question, then ask yourself
another: do you really want to
be there before we do something
to defend ourselves? Once jaws
clamp shut on our throats, we’re
pretty much out of options.
Climate change and environmental degradation are too slow
for us to take the menace seriously. It just doesn’t resonate with
our Stone Age perceptions. And
when something acute does happen—like the BP disaster—our
Stone Age mindset invites us to
forget about it as soon as it stops
biting us in the backside.
But these choices to ignore,
neglect and deny are not choices
at all—unless we make them so.
We may think it puts us in the
DAVID
KATZ
HUFFINGTON
10.28.12
driver’s seat to “choose” to ignore
the threats of fast food or climate
change. But in fact, we are entirely
subservient to brute biology—to
our ancestors’ genes.
If we really want to be in the
driver’s seat, we need to choose
to care about the world we leave
behind. As long as the immediate
gratifications of runnin’ on Dunkin
and the stock market define our
time horizon, we are living on the
modern savannah.
Do we really think
our kids will thank us
In fact,
for bequeathing them
we are
a pile of cash along
entirely
with no viable planet
subservient
on which to spend it?
to brute
Or for endowing them
biology—
with more obesity
to our
and chronic disease
ancestors’
at ever younger age
genes.”
than ever before seen
in human history? I
anticipate we will all
be beneficiaries of the same basic
eulogy: “F$@# you guys!”
This will be the case unless we
act on what we see, and see what
requires action—with eyes adapted to modern context.
I hope it’s soon—because
we seem to be running
out of time.