is at its lowest point in history. That's a good thing. However, global population continues to rise, and will reach 8 billion very soon, as early as 2023, it is predicted.

The curve of global population is rounding off, but not soon enough. Global population will continue to rise. And, as it does, that growing population will require more and more resources. We don't feel the pinch here in the US quite yet, but we will. Worse, the ever increasing demand for resources has led to the current global climate change problem, which will, inevitably, reduce the resources available.

At some point, there is a tipping point, where the resources are no longer sufficiently available to meet the needs of that rising global population. It's entirely possible that we have already reached that tipping point. At some time in the future, population will begin to decrease, but nobody is able to predict with that will begin.

As a wealthy nation, we will not feel those effects as soon as people in other nations will. We will be able to ignore it for some time to come, and we will ignore it, predictably.

There is advice I would give to those who are young, but they will not listen to it. That advice is to begin now to learn to live simply and to use the minimum resources you can. It's not an easy thing to learn, so it will take some time. If you start now, you may be ready when you must live simply and use fewer resources.

It may be a very gradual thing, or it may suddenly occur in some way. But, the time is coming when the way you are able to live now is no longer tenable. I recommend starting to practice for it, so you'll be prepared. A global famine is possible, due to climate change issues. A global epidemic of disease is possible, due to it being impossible to deliver proper healthcare everywhere. Natural disasters will probably become more frequent, especially in coastal areas where we enjoy living and choose to live.

When? I don't know. It's impossible to predict, because there are too many variables. Still, I advise preparing for such changes. I strongly urge people who are young and can still change directions to begin thinking about how they will survive when things take a downturn. If it doesn't happen in your lifetime, you'll still have made changes that benefit you and your offspring, should you choose to reproduce. If it does happen in your lifetime, you will have a better chance for survival and a sensible lifestyle.

I won't be around to see any of this happen, of course. I don't expect a massive global crisis in my lifetime. I do, however, expect it the lifetimes of younger people - people now in their 20s and 30s. Plan for it. That's my advice. Move away from coastal areas and avoid living near major rivers. Hunker down and find a lifestyle that will help you survive and even thrive.

As you pointed out, the U.S. rate of population growth is slowing. And while that of the developing world is growing, we still use far more resources than they do. A slow-down in American population growth can ease resource consumption to at least a degree or two. This might buy us some time to solve the problems of pollution, resource depletion, food scarcity, and climate change.

Just a hopeful thought...

increasing. I'm not reassured.

Most of the world's water, as you know, is not potable.

And what little is potable, we're overusing, polluting - and now, allowing to fall into the hands of mafias like Nestlé and end-times types like the Bush family (who bought tens of thousands of acres in dirt-poor but water-rich Paraguay for this reason).

Here's hoping we can find a way to economically desalinate ocean water.

Otherwise, 2100 may be plagued not by oil wars or Bibi wars (as the world is now) - but water wars.

It's just one of many, though, and all of them have just a single cause. Too many people trying to access too few resources.

With one notable exception: Africa.

Its population has doubled in 28 years - leading to a worsening in already disastrous socio-economic conditions, and of course more wars.

It's projected to double again in 35 years. Nigeria alone will have more people than the U.S. by 2050 - can you imagine!

If purgatory exists, that's as likely a place for it as one may ever hope to find.

And yet, global population continues to increase. We haven't managed to move into the negative birth rate grown numbers, and life expectancies are high, comparatively, anyhow. So, more mouths to feed again and again.

Africa is likely to be the first place to have a sudden population crash. Famine or disease, most likely, will be the cause.

"No little mouths to feed?" the interviewer asked him.

"Well," he said, "the was one very big mouth - but she left me for another man."

"Couldn't stand the lifestyle?"

"Oh, she loved the lifestyle. It was me she couldn't stand."

I also remember the international outcry when China adopted it. Imagine the backlash to any discussion... just discussion, of a one chid policy in the US.

we wish. People don't like it when their privilege is threatened.

where someone was predicting that the hardcore denialists may very well come around in the mid 2020s to accepting that it's absolutely genuine, but at that point, they'll say that it's far too late to do anything about it (which may very well be true), so we'll just have to "sit back and enjoy it".

at the foundations of your home or place of business, yes, you'll have to accept that it's happening. I don't advise waiting until then to start thinking about your future, if you're in your 20s or 30s. I'd start now.

what they say. They know what's coming and don't care because they have the means to relocate if necessary and to look after themselves. Or at least they think they do, although they probably don't realize the extent of how the changes will affect them. They believe that 'culling the masses' is a good thing so long as they are not being culled.

I sometimes refer to the Statue of Liberty scene from Planet of the Apes, but there are others that could happen: Logan's Run and Soylent Green address overpopulation and shadow governments. Mad Max shows overpopulation, a climate crisis, and a society gone wild.

I'd bet we at DU could list 100 such movies that are becoming plausible now, but when they were conceived, they were considered fantasy.

Whoever lists Godzilla has some 'splainin' to do.

depicted. But, we humans tend to believe things will continue as they are. It's simpler if you think that way, so that's how we think, generally.

It is possible to think in other ways. I think doing that would be a good idea for people to consider.

since the start of this very young millennium. It's like a major trainwreck or a massive tornado--you see it as it's happening and there isn't one damn thing any one person can do to stop it, and half the people are in denial or are conditioned to blame minorities for the world's problems. Those folks will always find a reason to hate anyone who isn't like them. And then we get a loud sociopath to stir things up with these mental midgets. No fiction writer could have invented Trump and his merry men.

The sad part is that these man-made disasters we're experiencing are deliberate. The famine, the destruction of property and natural wonders, the loss of life--both human and other species--all could have been avoided. We've been told for generations, not only in movies or books, but a major part began with the Military-Industrial Complex that Ike warned about as he was leaving office. That generated a tsunami of greed by both individuals AND corporations that escalated to this present moment. The greed and hatred were always there, but never as such a perfect storm as we are now seeing today.

The U.S. birth rate will continue to subside as couples won't want to bring up children in a world of perpetual war or have them get murdered in their classroom. I married my wife in the middle of the Reagan debacle and we wanted to have daughters so no mad man could draft them. Luckily, we had two daughters and no sons. Now, families will be making tougher decisions--and maybe not being as lucky with their results.

We're going to need to resolve to elect better people to office. Not perfect people; just better.

That's going to be difficult for some. We might not think a particular candidate is the ideal one, but we can't let a horrible candidate win just because we don't think the our alternative is "good enough." We've done that too many times in the past.

I don't have any confidence that we will change our tune enough at any point to actually reverse the issues. We could, if we wished, make positive change that could compound to result in improvements over time. However, if we screw up and let people like Trump take office, things will go in the wrong direction with increasing speed.

I wish we'd think more strategically with regard to our elections, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for that. 2016 proved that we don't think that way. I'm seeing similar things this year.

Some of the despair comes from the incessant stories of gerrymandering, people losing their voting rights, hacked voting machines, and Russian meddling. We used to be an actual democracy--from 1965 to 2000, anyway.

Now we're splintered (at least in our party) based on interests--all extremely important, but maybe pulling us in different directions. Our candidates (at first) were as diverse as our nation's citizens: quite a few women, an 80-something Jewish man, a 35-year old gay mayor, Yang, Booker, Castro, college professors, and--yes, a couple of billionaires.

The main thing we have to learn from 2016 is that we must come together this time and not be fooled by Jill Stein, not hold our noses and pick "someone other than..." and sure as hell not stay home! The general nominee is who they are. If you're not a true Democrat, if you hate this country or are sick of life itself, then by all means re-elect Satan.

And please be dumb enough to brag about it. In my wheelchair, if I punch straight out, I can reach some interesting places.

The clip seems to be a satire of Soylent Green. There's always a propaganda voice in the background. Just like in Looker, which was about mass brainwashing through subliminal advertising.

In thinking about all these movies I've seen, is it any wonder I'm so f***ing paranoid?

It's still one of my favorite dystopian movies.

That or almost anything by William Gibson.

For years, I've said that the prophets of our time are the science fiction writers. People consumed the books and movies, but so many never really got the message or if they did, that was WAY in the future.

There are days when I feel like I'm watching a futuristic dystopian movie in real life. This month's installment is an entire continent is on fire.

I remember a rather cheesy movie from the 1980s where there was an artificial shortage of water and the water was controlled by some corporate evil entity, hence controlling the population. So many of them showed countries governed by corporations.

The mission of the Enterprise was to bring peace and stability throughout the galaxy.

On the bridge were an African-American female (the first interracial kiss on TV), a Russian (our Cold War nemesis), a Japanese man (we had been attacked in 1941), and a wise "Vulcan" that was half-human.

They were all on the same side and were very loyal to Kirk. And were totally competent at their very technical positions.

The show was disguised as science fiction, but was about humanity and getting along despite meaningless differences. By these characters soaring through space, bringing peace and harmony to other life forms, that meant that all types of conflict on Earth had been eradicated.

Even the phasers could be set on stun instead of kill.

Roddenberry used science fiction to make social commentary that the networks wouldn't have aired otherwise. The Next Generation touched on a lot of sensitive issues. It was probably my favorite of the Star Trek shows.

My favorite episode was "I am the Night--Color Me Black". It was about a poor drifter who was to be put to death, when a person with a thicker wallet wouldn't have been. The reverend was Hogan's Heroes' Ivan Dixon, while George "Goober" Lindsey played a racist sheriff's deputy.

Serling wisely used a white actor for the convict, considering the volatile times.

The morning of the execution, the sun failed to come up. A radio newsman reported that there was darkness that morning in Selma, Alabama, Cicero, Illinois, parts of the Middle East, Viet Nam, and so on.

He proposed a War On Puberty to stop the Copulation Explosion.

(What did you expect from a guy who made his living writing advertising copy?)

"Son, whatever you do, don't get your girlfriend pregnant. That would change your life in ways you won't like."

That was "The Talk," from him. I listened. I didn't.

Thanks, Dad! My high school girlfriend at the time sends her thanks, too, I'm sure.

He changed his mind 15 years later.

Individuals make choices. A "generation" is a made up construct. It can be useful to look at patterns and groups, but it's an artificial creation. It can be kind of fun to identify with a "generation" that shares certain experiences - those of us who were kids when the astronauts landed on the moon, for instance. It's fun and kind of reassuring to reminisce.

As a "younger boomer" I find the "ok, boomer" meme to be very funny. I don't take it personally.

As the mother of two twenty-something kids, I see the economic constraints on the young. They have fewer options than I did, and much fewer than my parents did.

The young people are accurate in their assessment of severe economic inequality. Older retired people have wealth accrued through rising house prices and federal programs that protect their wealth. Young people are seeking jobs in a country where few entry-level jobs are full time or have benefits. Health care and health insurance are extraordinarily expensive now. Many young people have very high student loan debts.

And climate change is very real.

And those of us closer to the Gen-X era. Odd part is, we took the lessons of environmental responsibility to heart that I see my older siblings, cousins having long abandoned as futile.
I spoke at length of the dangers we saw unfolding, in the magnanimous wealth gap, educational attainment becoming quickly out of reasonable affordability, climate disasters worldwide.
And I was told "children are to be seen and not heard" while they pointed the remote at the mesmerizer to watch "lifestyles of the rich and famous".
Puke.
Fuck that.
I don't retain the same twinkle in the eye watching my older relatives reap the harvest, whining about having to cut some corners to afford retirement on their... ahem...
"golden parachutes".
Must be nice!
I drive my SMART car and plan for my mostly off-grid, hard-earned meager retirement.
Medicare for all is my only hope if the worst happens.

Many more older, now retired, boomer persons were specifically targeted for poverty. I'm a mid-boomer, DH, an older one by a mere 3 years and a few months. Our jobs were long ago ID'd as ones for the future; even now TPTB recommend those occupational careers; however, if one does not have the luck/money to find what amounts to a temporary technological niche nor have a philosophy of life-long relocation and learning of the newest temporary technological niche - very quickly that person will become unemployable. (Never ever Silicone Valley high-cost and over 40? Your done +x20 perhaps!) The pace of those changes is almost too fast to cope with the temporary-ness. Privacy issues in cyberworld? AI specs? Robotics? Genetics and/or the body's response to its environment, food, stress, and a guarded brain's circuitry versus for which sacred cash cows of pathologies researchers will ultimately find cures and for whom, at what price?

DH was an IT mainframe operator and a coder in COBOL, then senior analyst in "legacy" systems in changes the GOP enjoyed (mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, off-shoring, H1B sourcing); we've moved only twice (many more times for others) just to stay employed or within reasonable geographic commuting from our families. He is an army veteran of the Viet Nam conflict. That churn I spoke of above is real and has disturbed stability. I believed the hype and became an ART, a medical record technologist, a coder of ICD-9 and babysitter to physicians' paperwork in compliance with insurance companies' vagaries of denials and government's ever-changing rules of law.

Considering the certain lack of flexibility while raising our replacements, 2 daughters, in the Rust Belt, and all the targeting of those residents of that geographical area and suburban lifestyle, let alone the proximity to coal country, all those eggs in technology's basket wasn't wise, and we will pay dearly. I believe our knowledge of "simple living" saved us from homelessness in our older/retired status so far though he still needs to work (Low-cost and 70? You're done x3 now too!) while I've despaired and just can't bring myself to help rich elites get richer any more. Statistically, he may not survive his plan; I might survive my Plan B to become a really, really expensive old and ill old lady to TPTB though the stress of same will probably be the death of me - there had better be some changes on the way!

Our aged lack of financial long-term necessities in affordable healthcare and exorbitant death costs like term insurance to pay for cremation/burials, etc..., literally targeted and stolen away along with the inability to be employed in our fields for over a decade, now dictates the terror that plays out in our and our daughters' nightmares. I have one familied grandchild and a daughter who despairs of ever having her own family at all. Where is the hope?

While we might be outliers to your premise of older boomers financial status; it remains inaccurate and hurtful. Oh the stories we might share...under conservatives' policies of fiscal responsibilities after Ike.

You're reinforcing my broader point, which is that generalizing about so-called generations is silly. It's the impact on individuals that matter.

Yes, Silent Spring came out in 1962. I also chose not to add to the root problem - overpopulation. Sadly, our generation does have to take much of the blame, we're the generation of the corporate CEOs that made short term profits that goal of everything at the cost of everything. The generation that chose to allow education to flounder and ignorance to flourish. Some tried to warn, and yes, most ignored the warnings. The ones that came after learned these behaviors from us. However, we all now share the responsibility for cleaning up the mess, assuming that's even possible.

I was a junior in high school when it came out. It was one of the many books I was reading at the time. All of them were leading me to think about many things in a different way.

I dropped out of college in my sophomore year, because I began to understand what a career as an Electronics Engineer would really mean. At the time, I didn't have an alternative idea that was really appealing. So, I took a break for a few months, and then enlisted in the USAF to give myself some more time to think and read.

After my four year enlistment, though, I went back to college, changing my major to English. I figured a life spent writing would be my best option. And so it has been, I think.

as well a bibliography (on Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn and Robert Duncan).

Still writing after retiring (37 years, 24 as full prof.) from U of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Somehow, I managed to eke out a living as a freelance writer ever since, and still am doing that. Boy, were there some lean years in there. I gave up on poetry and fiction pretty damned quickly, since I couldn't eat if I continued. I worked for a wide range of magazines during my career, and am now writing content for small business websites, working with a web designer. The pay's not great, but it's enough, and the work is fairly low-pressure writing.

I considered academia, but decided against it. Was that a good decision? Who knows? It doesn't matter now, though. Life is interesting, and that's all I can ask, really.

someone gave me the Donald Allen anthology while I was homeless and working in the wood (Olympia Forest in Washington) and I knew almost immediately what would concern my life. Came back to Ohio to deal with the federal charges (working in mental hospitals as for 6 years) and went back to college. From 1981 to 2017 I taught.

My lean years were grad school and the first 5-10 years teaching.

Now, there's an interesting story waiting to be told...

Was best explored in the movie Idiocracy - responsible people tend to self-limit while those who are not responsible tend to keep on.

Thanks!

impact on me. I decided not to have children and to live with responsibility towards the environment. A few months later I read Future Shock. That cemented my decisions.

I still have my original copy of the Whole Earth Catalog 🙂.

Every few years, I take it off the shelf and page through it again. In my early days as a freelance writer, I wrote a few articles for Mother Earth News, as well. I had to branch out, though, to earn enough to make a living, so I ended up creating woodworking projects for other magazines for a few years before switching to writing articles about personal computers and software for magazines that covered those subjects.

The Mother Earth News period in my writing career was the most fun, though. That and writing small pieces for Seventeen magazine.

after living on an Old Order Amish farm for a few months. None of them were accepted. I learned so much on that farm even though since I was a woman I was relegated to “woman jobs”. I’d go out and see what my husband was up to though.

You’ve had an interesting life Mineral Man.

Both my first wife and I contributed to Mother Earth News. We collaborated on some of the articles.

Had the magazine paid a little better, we might have stuck with it, but it didn't.

Here's one of the articles in MEN:

https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/build-a-hot-tub-zmaz80mazraw

and before has been used to as retorts against the experts

"you can't believe everything the scientists say"
"It's just alarmist hyperbole from extremists"
"They're just trying to line their pockets with grant funds"

They'll parade out any self-proclaimed "expert" talking head to assure the public everything's fine and ignore the elitist eggheads. They give them any kind of assurance they want so they can just go back to ignoring the obvious destruction in front of them and not lift a finger to help.


"People don't want a champion. They want to eat cheeseburgers, play the lotto and watch television.”
-Detective Somerset Se7en

aren't. Thus has it always been.

who heard the danger call. The Hippies were just my generation's group who did. It's always a tiny minority of the population, though.

This Spring, I'm going to turn my beater 1996 Ford Ranger pickup into an art car. I've always wanted to do that, but have never gotten around to it. But, I have a plan now, and am working on the designs. My wife said, "Do it!" So, I"m going to. There is a small, but thriving art car community in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. I plan to have the truck in their events this year. However, I'll get more pleasure from just driving the truck around doing chores and hauling. It is going to be a traffic stopper, I guarantee!

When it's done, you can be sure that I'll be posting photos of it here.

and we did a hell of a lot of good.

You didn't even mention culture or advancements in science and technology.

We were among the most comprehensively (political, social, scientific) progressive generation ever, and I loved it!

However, both of my parents are still alive, at age 95, so perhaps my good genes will carry me through a while longer.

Into it actually. The 21st century and I are not a good fit. Insane world we live in.

For those who blame the Boomers for so many of today's problems, I would like to remind them that when I was young, abortion was illegal, we still had the draft, and employers could discriminate against anyone because of race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, or gender identity.

There was no Voting Rights Act or Housing Rights Act. Landlords could refuse to rent to anyone because of race or ethnicity.

A prospective employer could ask a woman if she planned to get married and have children before hiring her. Once hired, promotions could be withheld because she might get pregnant. Job applications would actually have boxes to check for race and religion.

An unmarried woman could not get birth control and as such, if she got pregnant, she had to go off in secret, have the baby, and give it up for adoption. Or risk her life getting an illegal abortion.

Gay people stayed in their closets. If they did venture out of the closet, they could lose their jobs. A gay person often lost custody of his/her children, as they were deemed unfit parents.

Lead and asbestos were okay! And "organic" just meant "related to or derived from living matter" cuz chemicals in our food, air, and soil were harmless.

There is so much more and the point is so many younger people take a lot of things for granted that older generations gave them (we did as well). Obviously it was not all good and much of the good stuff wasn't finished. That is what passing the baton is all about! Instead of casting blame, just pick the baton up and carry on.

This is what I was trying to say about a week ago on this website... but some idiot picked it up and tried to pin all the blame on the Boomers for how the world is today. That's absolute nonsense.

Every generation since the industrialized world is responsible for the s*** hole that we find the world in today. The latest Generations are going to suffer the most but they are just as guilty as the earliest Generations

So we did...

Sadly, I wasn't in DC yet at that time. I was still in Turkey, courtesy of the USAF. I ended up in the DC area, though, the next year and fell into the anti-war movement very soon after getting there. At the time, I was assigned to the NSA building, still in the USAF, doing things I can't mention, but my off hours were spent in DC helping with planning, organization, and publicity for upcoming anti-war events.

I met a lot of the stars of the movement during that time, but still regret not being part of the levitation. Surely, had I been there, the building would have risen indeed!

The pinnacle of my anti-war days was appearing at the front of a Pentagon protest, wearing my USAF uniform and holding a large sign. I realized that I was at a good deal of risk, in terms of my USAF service, but nothing bad came of it for me. I was part of a group arrest and was herded into a building with everyone else. When ID was demanded of me, I presented my NSA building security badge, thinking I would be compounding my crime and get to experience the just deserts of my civil disobedience.

But no. I was escorted to a side door in the room I was in, and found myself suddenly outdoors and free to go. The magic of an NSA security badge, I suppose.

The real problem is not just over-population, it is over-consumption, marketing EVERYTHING imaginable and unregulated capitalism as the organizing principle of world economics...

Yes, REGULATED capitalism, with logical and sensible barriers to monopoly and fascism and oligopoly can be a force for lifting masses out of abject poverty and serfdom or slavery...HOWEVER, the core driving purpose of UNREGULATED capitalism is at war with reality - there is simply no way to have eternal, ceaseless, infinite growth inside the confines of a finite system...UNLESS the system was designed around the one thing that is NOT finite on the Earth - conversion of solar radiation into stored and utilized energy to drive economic and agricultural output.

We receive enough energy from the sun DAILY to power civilization for a year...yet we built the entire system of international manufacturing, shipping and trade around fossil fuels and consumption. The native tribes of North and South America had it right hundreds and even thousands of years ago. They lived in harmony with the land, the seasons and the carrying capacity of their environments. The tribes of the plains, and their stewardship and use of the Bison and prairies of the "frontier" as recently as the 1850's were a model of how to live in a finite system. The corruption of that lifestyle with whiskey, beads, guns and deception that led to the genocide of the native peoples of the Americas is a great tragedy of human history.

Can individuals make a difference in modern society via privation or a refusal to partake in the suicide pact of 21st century capitalism? I guess the answer is 'yes' - IF it were done en masse; but the sad fact is too few are now, or will in the near term. It won't be until climate refugees are starving and initiating resource wars for their very survival that people will even begin to consider the problem in numbers great enough to stop it...only by then, say 10 or 20 years from now, there will be no solution outside of mass executions and genocide once more. When a group of men with access to weaponry and nothing to lose are put under pressure, horror is the result.

A culling of the herd mentality already infects the wealthy who are planning for the collapse of civilization with islands in New Zealand and Oceania and protected underground bunkers in the USA and other areas. These people have no inherent value, but they have money and that is giving them false comfort. The day will come when their money has no value beyond the paper it is printed and their "security" teams will no longer accept payment to defend them...that is when the dystopian future will really get rolling and out of control...

Sadly, I am likely to see that start, though unlikely to see the aftermath. I weep for the fact that it doesn't HAVE to be this way, except for the greed and stupidity of the ruling class around the planet.

Various movements have begun, but none have achieved the necessary mass to overcome the inertia of the society at large.

And, as I'm wont to say: More's the pity.

We elected Ronald Reagan twice.

We elected 3 terms of Bushes.

We elected Donald Trump, in many ways the avatar of Baby boomers.

Once we were past draft age, many of cheered for two oil wars.

We pretended that the answer to environmental problems was conservation while ignoring billions of impoverished people who needed more energy, not less, while we lived in bourgeois fantasy land.

We allowed trillions of dollars to be spent on effectively useless so called "renewable energy" even though it didn't work, isn't working and won't work to address climate change, with the result that the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide grew my over 100 ppm in our lifetimes. We did this while we allowed 2 billion people to lack access to even primitive sanitation.

Oh, and then, on top of all that, we filled the oceans with plastic and started grinding up the continent's bedrock to get the last drop of oil and gas, this while worshipping giant steel wind turbine towers that in less than twenty years will be just more useless waste for future generations to clean up, this in a world denuded of resources.

Maybe some of us feel entitled to congratulate ourselves for this behavior, but my feeling is that history will not forgive us, nor should it. Call me a cynic, but I am deeply ashamed of my pampered and spoiled generation of distracted, mindless sybartic consumers. We may have been the worst generation in American history.

They also played a large role in the Bush elections.

As always, there are multiple generations in the United States, not just one. And within each generation, there are many different points of view.

As for myself, I have never once voted for any Republican. So, there is that.

I read the OP correctly you were born in 1945.

In 1985, you were 35. Most of us were in their 30s. You were 55 in 2000. The so called " " "Greatest Generation" we're in their late 70s. Many, including my parents, were dead."

It is well known that the most accommodating demographic for that asshole putting babies in cages Are people over 65. That would be our generation. What I have personally observed among my generational peers appalled me.

Because neither you not I voted Republican in our lifetimes does not excuse our generation at large.

The rest of my statements are facts. Our environmental record alone condemns us for all history.

Facts matter.

America has become and continues to do so. I am a Boomer and have seen it my entire life. Sure there were lots of us that rebelled against this ignorance but we were always greatly outnumbered. If I had to use just a couple of terms to describe our generation it would be - greed and hypocrisy.

...are an impressive bunch, at least those I know and have met.

They will need to be a great generation to recover from what we did to them.

Somehow I think they'll be and go way beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll and will engage themselves in a legacy of achievement and goals way beyond our meager results, which seem to be limited to getting pot legalized in places.

I'm impressed with them.

Thanks for understanding.

the election - "everything they said would happen, now will" We don't even talk about the state of things now.

Well stated!

Around the summer of 1969 I was lining up my final classes to get my BA in Asian and Pacific History, with 2 required science classes hanging over me like the Sword of Damocles. I was miserable in lab classes ("Draw what you see through the microscope," turned out to be the floaters in my myopic eyes) and finally saw the wisdom of asking around for something "easy," which is how I ended up in a class that was nearly all narrative, and so aced it. The professor was trying to save the planet with this class: Technology, Ecology, and Man.

The readings and lectures were excellent, and included "Bomb," a bestseller at the time. Yes, it did change my life, though you, being completely childless by choice, might scoff a bit. I decided to have only two children -- not four. Thanks to the Pill and later the IUD, I was able to do what my mother and many of her contemporaries had not been able to do: successfully limit the number of my pregnancies.

Roe is hailed as the great leap forward for women, but it was preceded by the Pill, which the fanatics incidentally also want to abolish. That was the other part of my reading that summer: a compendium (which I am sure I still have somewhere) on population issues that included an extract from Margaret Sanger's Autobiography.

Events and trends happen to everyone who is alive, it is how they understand
and deal with it that is important. Even drawing lines for a generation is guesswork.

My generation started the Earth Day movement. My generation protested nuclear proliferation. My generation protested idiotic wars. My generation started publications like Mother Earth News to spread the word. My generation helped to make contraception easily available everywhere, and championed women's right to choose with regard to reproduction.

best things a person could do would be to live by example and have children who will be ambassadors for our planet and our survival, to care about our future, and to use their talents and education to make things better in their own way.

Many people have no children, but want to have them. Other people decide not to have children, for many different reasons. Some decide not to because there are already too many people on this planet. For them, it is a conscious decision, and one that is rather difficult to achieve, actually.

However, they would certainly contribute to population growth. They certainly would consume resources. Not having children doesn't deprive anyone of anything. They don't exist, so nothing is lost.

Apparently, you have not thought this through thoroughly. I have and did.

There is no cost to the planet in not having children. There is in having children. I decided not to do that. Why would that concern you in any way?

I don't ever see humanity changing from it's "wanting more," culture. We have things to feel secure. Granted before the 1600's all that you might have owned would be the clothes on your back. As societies got wealthier (stable food production) people accumulated more stuff, and with that food wealth came more children. And with more children, came more farmworkers to provide free labor to increase profit to buy more stuff. In our modern age when times are good population numbers rise, in bad times they fall. Our cycle of consumption follows the same curve. The future (always a guess) will be the same, just expanding to colonies on moons or planets. They are already seeing possible health problems with astronauts and extended stays in space, what if expanding into space isn't an option? What if Earth is all we have?

The only solution I can see is a major culture shift to voluntarily choose not to have children for the next 3 generations (60-90 years), 60-90 years will allow at least half of the world's population to naturally die-off of old age. Of course, the cycle will start again but maybe by then people would be smarter (they won't be, the world will be emptier and they will over-consume), but perhaps by then we will have developed the shrink ray and we can make everyone 5 inches tall and then the world will be big enough to sustain our populations and overconsumption.