Time for the idealism and energy of the young to push us a bit

If I were a high school student, I would likely adopt the tactic of tightening my focus, sticking to my neighborhood, and trying to ignore the zeitgeist that bombards us with so much bad news and questionable information.

From the climate to WWIII, and from political mudslinging to gas prices, high school students can't be blamed for avoiding the news and maybe avoiding thinking too hard about the future.

How do I know this? I have no empirical data to rely upon, but I was a high school student in the '60s and I did my best to ignore the Vietnam War and the cultural upsets of the time. I was not an isolationist and certainly paid attention to the news, but I felt helpless to do anything about those big national trends. Why worry about things over which we have no control?

Then I read the following lead from a New York Times story today headlined "OK Doomer and the Climate Activists Who Say It's Not Too Late." 

Alaina Wood is well aware that, planetarily speaking, things aren’t looking so great. She’s read the dire climate reports, tracked cataclysmic weather events and gone through more than a few dark nights of the soul.

She is also part of a growing cadre of people, many of them young, who are fighting climate doomism, the notion that it’s too late to turn things around. They believe that focusing solely on terrible climate news can sow dread and paralysis, foster inaction, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With the war in Ukraine prompting a push for ramped up production of fossil fuels, they say it’s ever more pressing to concentrate on all the good climate work, especially locally, that is being done. “People are almost tired of hearing how bad it is; the narrative needs to move onto solutions,” said Ms. Wood, 25, a sustainability scientist who communicates much of her climate messaging on TikTok, the most popular social media platform among young Americans. “The science says things are bad. But it’s only going to get worse the longer it takes to act.”

First, that "OK Doomer" is a nice play on the "OK Boomer" trend from the last couple years -- and as a Boomer I take no offense: we have not performed very well lately as a generation. 

Second, I vividly remember approving of the lyric in "My Generation," by The Who, that goes, "Hope I die before I get old." I am not such a fan as a 71-year-old, but I get the sentiment. Perhaps age really is "in our heads," and I can somehow overcome the calendar and maintain a youthful view on things. 

Nah. My feet hurt and my muscle mass has essentially disappeared. My memory is forever tugging at me and I find myself saying things like, "Argh! I know the answer but can't quite grasp it." Thank goodness for the Internet and devices to look up the answers in those "senior moments."

Thirdly, the elderly many times do settle for things like, "well, that's just life," and "there's not much we can do to change things at this point." The future is not so far off for Baby Boomers, and it also doesn't extend into the distance as it did when we were 18. 

I'm glad there are young people who are determined to not give up on making change, even if it is local and incremental. To simply abandon hope is not going to move humanity anywhere good.

Those sometimes complex and often tiny steps forward are what builds a better future. I hope our grandchildren will help produce some of those incremental changes as they enter adulthood. 

Plus, it's good to be reminded not to give in to cynicism.

Hope is a good choice, but taking even small actions is the better choice.