Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
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S<br />
72 politics and governance<br />
Our future and <strong>the</strong> future <strong>of</strong> our democracy depend greatly<br />
on our sense <strong>of</strong> connection <strong>to</strong> each o<strong>the</strong>r and our obligations <strong>to</strong><br />
future generations. Economist Kenneth Boulding once asked in<br />
jest “what has <strong>the</strong> future done for me . . . lately?” By defi nition <strong>the</strong><br />
unborn can do nothing for <strong>the</strong> living, but <strong>the</strong> idea <strong>of</strong> posterity—<br />
a decent future for our children and <strong>the</strong>irs—does a great deal<br />
for us. Our hopes for <strong>the</strong> future inspire <strong>the</strong> best <strong>of</strong> which we are<br />
capable. Absent that hope, we easily fall victim <strong>to</strong> shortsightedness,<br />
anomie, and carelessness in managing our contemporary affairs.<br />
Even were that not so, are we in some manner obliged <strong>to</strong> care<br />
about generations <strong>to</strong> come? The founder <strong>of</strong> modern conservatism,<br />
Edmund Burke, once described <strong>the</strong> living generation as trustees<br />
obligated <strong>to</strong> pass <strong>the</strong> inheritance <strong>of</strong> civilization from <strong>the</strong> distant<br />
past on <strong>to</strong> future generations. That inheritance includes all <strong>the</strong> best<br />
<strong>of</strong> civilization—our laws, cus<strong>to</strong>ms, culture, and institutions—and<br />
<strong>the</strong> ecological requisites—clean air and water, healthy ecosystems,<br />
and stable <strong>climate</strong>—on which <strong>the</strong>y depend. But without advocates<br />
in <strong>the</strong> present and lacking any standing in <strong>the</strong> law, posterity has<br />
no power <strong>to</strong> enforce its rights. The U.S. Constitution mentions<br />
posterity in <strong>the</strong> preamble but not <strong>the</strong>reafter. In <strong>the</strong> more than two<br />
centuries since <strong>the</strong> Constitution was written, no signifi cant case<br />
law has developed <strong>to</strong> protect posterity, leaving it defenseless against<br />
harms perpetrated on it, knowingly or not, by previous generations.<br />
10 It might be argued that it has always been <strong>the</strong> case that<br />
each generation benefi ts from <strong>the</strong> progress bequea<strong>the</strong>d by earlier<br />
generations and suffers <strong>the</strong> effects <strong>of</strong>, say, soil loss or <strong>the</strong> loss <strong>of</strong><br />
biological diversity accidentally incurred. It is presumed, however,<br />
that on balance <strong>the</strong> benefi ts more than <strong>of</strong>fset <strong>the</strong> losses. It is an<br />
open question how much <strong>the</strong> members <strong>of</strong> any generation know<br />
<strong>the</strong> effects <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir actions on later generations. But until roughly<br />
<strong>the</strong> mid-20th century, <strong>the</strong> scale <strong>of</strong> costs imposed from one generation<br />
<strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> next was contained locally or regionally, and <strong>the</strong> damage<br />
was <strong>of</strong>ten repairable in a matter <strong>of</strong> decades or centuries. The<br />
intergenerational costs <strong>of</strong> <strong>climate</strong> change, however, are ano<strong>the</strong>r<br />
matter entirely. They are global, permanent (as we measure time),