Who Is going to fix this?

It's raining here in Boston. Raining all over the east coast. There's flooding here, and in the Midwest and in Melbourne, Australia. It's not a sign of the End of Days. It may be a consequence of climate change. There is a column in the Guardian that is essentially asking, "When are we going to do something about climate change?" I've linked to it.

Below is my off the cuff response to the article.

Seems nit picky doesn't it, to say you might the answer in what you left out? But in 2010 do we really still say "mankind?" I'm not saying men have a lock on destructive, linear thinking. I'm not saying women are naturally more nurturing and future oriented. I think that's hogwash. But I do think that the words we use shape our understanding and to continue to say 'mankind" makes it seem as though both the problem and it's possible solution are the purview of men. Leaving out half the population seems a bit, well, stupid.

Frankly, the best folks for thinking about the future are kids. They literally live for it. And they are engaged on the issues of catastrophic climate change. My nine year old son said, "The problem is we keep thinking of better ways to use our current systems, but we need to think of new systems." (Yes, he really talks like that. I blame scifi and science journals for kids. ) No one wants to take children seriously, and they don't have a good grasp of physics and engineering - barring the odd genius. Still, if we did listen, to boys and girls and employed men and women to work out how to shape the worlds envisioned by our kids into reality, we might have something good going.

Sounds silly, I know. But none of this deadly serious crap is working.