2050

I am reading this interesting book titled The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. The author performs an interesting thought experiment - if mankind were to suddenly vanish from the face of the planet (say, if we were sucked away by an alien's selective vacuum cleaner), what would our legacy be, and how long would it last? I won't go into the details, but it is fairly obvious that our wooden homes would rot right away, but the radioactive waste would be there to stay. And, so on... Some manifestations of our existence are rather stunning - Pacific whirlpools the size of Africa where all the world's plastic trash eventually ends up and extremely high concentrations of plastic nurdle fines in the world's oceans. Plastic takes so long to bio-degrade - even if that was possible - it first breaks up into really fine particles that find their way right through the food chain. In some way or the other, you and I not only wrap our food in plastic; we even EAT plastic.

Add to that depressing list:

Coal Ash Spill

That is a mess we'll probably never be able to clean up. This, in one of the richest nations of the world with a reasonable record of environmental consciousness. What about the dozens of coal-powered plants in India and China, which probably don't even have coal-ash tailing ponds?

Recently, I have read a number of books and articles where 2050 repeatedly turns up as some kind of notional deadline for us to clean up our act - by when the planet will be toast, the rivers will run dry and the seas will be garbage soup. That date will be at the outer end of my productive lifetime.

Clearly, there is a choice. We could well be the last generation that lives in plenty off the planet's bounty and has only a depressing legacy to leave behind. Or, we could be the generation that acts decisively to leave a different kind of everlasting legacy - through the personal choices we make everyday, through the businesses we lead, through the ideas we preach, through the solutions we develop and through the policies we enact...

For now, set that air-conditioning unit on timer when you go to bed, take the train to work and turn off the tap when you shave. And, carry your own shopping bag.