Welcome, once again to WYFP. I'm your host, AndrewMc. I'm 42 and teach at a mid-sized state university. My field is history, but I love to read on a wide variety of subjects. In fact, I write book reviews for my lo-cal paper just to have an excuse to read as many subjects outside my field as possible.
Having tenure in a large department, my job is secure--I don't have to worry about the same kinds of problems that people on the margins do. Sure, things are tight, but I pay the bills [mostly] on time, and I can afford to get the better-than-average beer that is one of my few vices. Sure, work has headaches, but the challenges are fun. My colleagues are great--better than anyone would have the right to expect. I have a great wife who is my best friend.
So I don't worry much about myself--my late teens and early twenties were spent studying in a Buddhist temple in Boulder, Colorado. That sort of thing really helps center you and helps put the world in perspective.
Still . . .
I have three wonderful kids. All boys, the oldest is ten, the youngest is two, and the middlest is 7. Great kids, though they test my zen nature in the way that only boys can.
And therein lies my FP. Of late I have begun to worry just what kind of a world my kids will face when they are my age. The combined effects of massive climate change as well as the current financial crisis is nagging at the back of my head.
I'm not going to post all the links to the climate change data--we know which way the wind is blowing [for now, until the Meridional Overturning Circulation shifts, I suppose]. And we've gone way past the point where I need to provide citations to how badly the economy is doing. The question isn't if there's a problem, but how long it will last, and what our country will look like after it's over.
And I look at my 10, 7, and 2 year olds and I wonder. What is this earth going to look like when they are 42? There are a wide variety of climate and financial models out there. But even the moderate ones don't look very good for the kinds of earth we're leaving our kids.
I had a vision the other day of humans as viruses. A virus will reproduce to the point where it destroys its host, which inevitably leads to its own death. It seems like a crazy strategy. "Too bad they don't know any better." Except that we're not much different in how we're treating our own host, it seems to me.
I'm reading back on what I've written here, and I suppose it pretty well sums up why I came to DailyKos in the first place. As one way that I can take action.
So, what's your fscking problem? We're here to help.
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