Among our Thanksgiving traditions, particularly when we invite guests to our gatherings over Turkey dinner, our family usually engages in “What if?” talk. Often the Q&As reveal attitudes among family members we didn’t know. Other times, it’s a chance for guests to tell us about themselves and stimulate conversation. Over Monday’s turkey dinner, my granddaughter hit me with this question:

“Twenty years from now, what looming event do you think you’ll have difficulty explaining?”

I thought long and hard about challenges we’re all facing today – democracy threatened by the race for the presidency in the United States, global preparedness for the next pandemic, pushing back xenophobia in Canadian society, ensuring career opportunities are there for our grandchildren and their children.

But I guess, if I’m still around in 2044, I’ll probably find it difficult to rationalize how western civilization, with as much access to information as any society in modern history, didn’t recognize and rise to the challenge of slowing climate change.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to rationalize our incompetency,” I told my granddaughter “for failing to save the planet from greenhouse gases.” (more…)