Let's put off the apocalypse for a few more years
Your old men shall dream dreams.
Your young men shall see visions.
Joel 2:28
I have been reflecting on the conversation we had on CBC’s Maritime Connection program yesterday. Only a few people called in but they were all so apocalyptic. My co-guests were also somewhat doomsdayish but in support of their positions. At one point I had to jump in and reset the conversation a bit. The callers were all of a certain age (oldish) and the guests were all of certain age (at least me, oldish).
If old people are so down on the future, how is that received by the young?
Everyone talks about the mental health crisis facing young people - I suspect that telling them the world won’t be liveable for mammals within a few decades is not particularly uplifting.
Yes we have big challenges and the cause and effects associated with climate change is one of them. Every generation seems to need its catastrophe - Malthus said the world would not be able to produce enough food to feed the population. When I was growing up kids in U.S. schools were still doing nuclear war drills. At one point acid rain was a pretty big deal.
I think we need to be a little more hopeful about the future. Not Pollyannish but set a positive course for the future and then work hard to achieve it.
On the program we talked about how hard it is to make big collective leaps in democratic societies where you need the people on side. This just means we need far more citizen engagement and we need to ensure people have accurate information - this is also a key tenet of successful democratic societies.
And for us oldtimers - yes I know that time has built up plaque in our arteries - physically and metaphorically - but we have to be a little more upbeat about the future.
It should be a societal goal to leave the place a little better off than you found it. If you feel things are getting worse - much worse - then you should double down on efforts to make it better rather than just sit around complaining about how bad things are.
Let’s put off the apocalypse for a few more years.
David, I strongly agree with the sentiment here.
As a parent of two young adults who are just starting their careers, I think about this often. When I look at them and their peers, I am genuinely optimistic about their futures. At the same time, I understand why their generation feels uncertain. Housing, climate, technology, politics, affordability and work itself all seem to be shifting under their feet.
But I also remember feeling uncertain at their age. I did not know exactly where life was going either.
The distinction, I think, is between uncertainty and despair. Uncertainty is normal. Despair is corrosive. Young people need room to be realistic about the challenges, but they also need to hear from older generations that the future is still worth building. Not because everything is fine, but because agency matters.
I especially agree with your point that we should aim to leave the place a little better than we found it. Maybe one of the most useful things we can do for younger people is not to tell them everything will be easy, but to show them that meaningful work, community engagement, and personal vision still matter.
I appreciate the work you do in this region because it helps frame the conversation around possibility rather than decline. That matters.
I cannot improve on what the other commentors have said on this subject however I would like to add to those. Every generation faces its challenges, some worst that others. In my opinion, today's generation are facing the most uncertain future in the last hundred years. To name a few hazards not already mentioned; We are in the midst of the decline and fall of the American Empire which is being replaced by China as the new global leader (such power shifts never happen without major upheaval), AI offers both incredible advances in science and medicine to the benefit of all humanity while at the same time threatening to eliminate as many as half of all existing jobs today - to say nothing of the giving government the ability to do mass surveilance on every individual in the world. Speeding the decline of the US, mentally declining and menatally ill Donald Trump is moving quickly to turn the US away from democracy and into a very dangerous fascist regime - and he has the nuclear bomb codes!! . History shows that being a neighbor to such a country has never been a good thing. Yet in the face of this, throughout history humanity has persevered and pressed ahead - we have no choice. We cannot and should not curl up into a fetal position and hide from real life. Now it the time for grit no matter how dark things look, no matter what gets thrown at people. As another commentaor said, we need positive stories and encouragement, in short we need hope - and belief in ourselves. David does this (thank you) ....and we need more Davids to give us hope and to identify opportunities where we can succeed.
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