Future generations:
Some of you, before you are even born, are expected to be your parent”s catalyst for self-help.
We presume you will be able to solve every one of our problems with your youth and hopefulness. We are merely naive children ourselves. I am sorry we have put so much pressure on you.
The government does this to you as well by accumulating debt, putting off progressive development, refusing to retrofit the inefficiencies in this system and expecting you ? the people of the future ? to figure out a solution. Please recognize that some of us are sincerely trying to break this cycle by going to college, waiting to start families, protecting ourselves from sexually transmitted diseases, volunteering, not shopping at the mall buying sweat shop clothing and creating sustainable communities with sustainable values.
My generation should be developing American-made products and American industry. We lack a manufacturing base, which was not the case when I was born. We should be educating ourselves in ecology and biology so we can recreate a relationship with the natural world. We should be waiting to start families until we are mature enough to handle such responsibility and are financially secure enough to support the needs of a dependent. We should be making this a top priority because parents that are lacking in education and self-sufficiency go on to raise children who perpetuate this cycle and go on to draw on even more resources without contributing. The population of the world is growing exponentially and these populations are using more resources.
We have to protect ourselves from AIDS and other serious diseases because the world needs young, smart individuals. We should be volunteering at local organizations. There are many causes in this country that need our attention. We should not be supporting corporations that have outsourced our employment base and show a lack of investment in or care toward human life. We should be supporting locally-made clothing, locally-grown food, and regional dietary habits. We should be demanding that all new houses be built with passive solar techniques and photovoltaic technologies, as well as rainwater harvesting systems and grey water systems. There needs to be financial incentives to retrofit already existing buildings and homes.
I am sorry you are going to inherit a polluted planet, a divided country, an unreliable economy and a dysfunctional family. Please try to educate yourselves within your life span. As Henry David Thoreau once thought, when you cannot keep up with the latest trend, at least you will have your well-developed character and you will be self-reliant.
Each society has different needs and faces different challenges, so we must approach this on a case-by-case basis. Can we give our communities the tools to provide their people with the essentials and can they sustain it? America is failing at this. We are not sustaining ourselves or providing everyone with even the most basic essentials. I know this because I go to college with many homeless and out-of-work individuals ? bright people who want to do the right thing and contribute to their communities, but who are not supported by their communities.
America”s inadequacies are explainable. We have an out-of-date political system full of politicians that only care about filling their own pocket books. Here in California we have had some of the same politicians in office since the 1960s and 1970s and California continues in its state of decline. We have an economy based on the purchasing power of its populous rather than efficiency or creativity. We are facing the end of the fossil fuel road and instead of addressing the problem in a mature, practical and widespread way we keep drilling for the last drops of oil, blasting mountains open for coal and taking the smallest steps possible toward renewable energies in order to retain the highest profits.
I am sorry we will be, yet again, forcing future generations to foot the bill. Only this time you will also be handed a heavy carbon footprint and many troubled ecosystems too.
Please try to find a way to forgive us and do what you can for your people.
Adrianna Martin-Jakubowski is a 19-year-old college student who lives in Clearlake Oaks.
