Boomers: You can still be heroes in the story of climate change

VOX ^ | January 8, 2020 | by Laura McGann

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Boomers: It’s not too late. You can be heroes in the story of climate change.

You might not like to hear it, as many of you have long told pollsters you consider yourselves environmentalists, but collectively you have exacerbated the climate crisis more than any other generation.

Fossil fuels were cheap as you came of age and you burned too much of them. Your lifetime carbon footprint is so high you’re forcing kids born today to emit eight times less than you just to hit a modest goal. And you’ve never taken climate change as seriously as the generations behind you.

Your generation put yourselves before the rest of us.

Over the past 60 years, your generation has become the politically dominant force in the West and the United States, in particular. You’re a large cohort. You vote.

Many of you also had a lot of good luck out of the gate. You entered the strongest labor market on record that provided livable wages even for those who did not attend college (which was a fraction of the price as it is now). You then did well in the housing market, turning cheap houses into lucrative sources of equity.

The climate emergency is getting worse and it’s happening faster than scientists feared. Land and oceans are getting hotter. Seas are rising faster. And we’re seeing a trend in more ferocious storms and wildfires, and devastating droughts and floods.

The problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do. The solutions are clear: We need to burn fewer fossil fuels, restore forests instead of destroying them, eat less meat, and consume less overall.

The problem isn’t that we don’t have people who are calling for change. The problem is political will, which requires political power. Your generation has it.

[dfwgator]

Land and oceans are getting hotter.

"And Leon's getting laaaaarger!"

[Buckeye McFrog]

You might not like to hear it, as many of you have long told pollsters you consider yourselves environmentalists

Dear Snotty Millenial;

When I came into this world it was often dark in Pittsburgh at high noon due to all of the coal smoke, and we were flushing raw sewage from five cities into Lake Erie. So yes, we did become environmentalists.

We put our nose to the grindstones and cleaned all of that up (no need to thank us). But we are NOT about to buy into your fraudulent, half-baked disingenuous theories of how we are destroying the planet by mere virtue of the fact that we're breathing.

As AOC's Svengali correctly stated, it's not about the environment, it's about transforming the economy (to socialism). Not gonna get many Boomer takers on that proposition. We were fortunate to grow up at a time when critical thinking skills were still being taught.

Enjoy the swim in Lake Erie, and life in your tyrannical socialist hellhole once we're dead.

[Seruzawa]

Awww. Isn’t she sweet. Another desk bound do-nothing with a yammering trap.

Cowards at vox don’t allow feedback. Just like the quislings at Daily Beast. They got tired of having their idiotic propaganda articles torn to pieces.

[The Great RJ]

CO2 exists in our atmosphere as a TRACE gas at little over 400 parts per million. Most CO2 comes from natural sources and is essential for life on this planet. All green plants from single celled algae to giant redwoods use CO2 as a food and through photosynthesis strip off the carbon to use in building new plant material and release oxygen. These are facts. To assume that the entire climate of this planet is driven by part per million changes in a single trace gas and that variations in solar output, the oceans, the wobble in the tilt of the earth’s axis and other well known phenomenon have nothing to do with climate is rubbish.

[Bob434]

[[And we’re seeing a trend in more ferocious storms and wildfires,]]

That statement by her is BS- Joe Bastardi showed that storms are not getting worse or more frequent-

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

“Boomers” is the new insult word by the millineals. I’ve noticed in chat rooms if you express disbelief in climate change they immediately tag you as a “boomer”. They have this mindset like the little climate Nazi Greta Thunberg that the evil boomers have destroyed their future, their childhood and “how dare you” question climate change.

[Don W]

Dear Laura,

I will respond in a logical and reasoned manner when you learn basic grammar and numeracy.

A good place to start is to learn the difference between “less” and “fewer”. Also, when referencing “more than”, that is when you use the multiplicative adverb “times”.

When you are referring to a reduction in some product, the accepted verbiage is to use a fractional comparative, e.g. 1/8th. Eight times less is not only stilted and cumbersome, it is flat WRONG.

Have the day you deserve, hopefully in a remedial English classroom, with a 1960’s era Catholic elementary school arithmetic teaching nun presiding.

[Bob434]

Boomers: You can either listen to Vox and run like lemmings to the ocean cliffs, OR go to climatedepot.org and educate yourselves, man is not causing climate change, climatechange is not a ‘climate crisis’, and we’ll all be just fine for another 1007 years at the very least- guaranteed-

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[clearcarbon]

There’s never been a generation least likely to survive adversity.

[Bonemaker]

“Boomers: It’s not too late. You can be heroes in the story of climate change.”

Bugger off.

[freefdny]

I’m doing my part. Every day I ask Gaia to change her orbit and move away from the sun. She just isn’t cooperating.

[Grampa Dave]

“Anyone who believes that there’s a “climate emergency” should do their part and duct tape a plastic bag over their heads.”

Maybe we old goats should start a “Fund me for a free plastic bag and a roll of duct tape!” for those willing to step forward to save the planet.

Any liberal younger than 50 can go in front of the line for their free plastic bag and duct tape.

[Ancesthntr]

Hey, Laura, go eat another Tide Pod or two. The Earth is in no danger, even if you snowflakes “emit” more carbon than some hypocritical “expert” tells you is OK to do.

[Grampa Dave]

[JBW1949]

30-40 years from now, these same “millenials” will be talking about how they “saved the earth” by their environmental actions when actually nothing was really done...

We will just go on like we have for the last 4-5 hundred years, but since things will still be just like they are now, the idiots will think they actually did something...

[bk1000]

“ And you’ve never taken climate change as seriously as the generations behind you.”

That’s largely because we’ve heard all this since way before you were born. It was BS then, it’s BS now.

[GOPJ]

President Trump is doing more to stop ‘pollution’ than Obama did in eight years.

How is President Trump doing that?

He’s bringing industry BACK FROM CHINA - the worst polluter in the world - to the US - the country with the best record of cleaning pollutants out of smoke stacks BEFORE they’re released into the air.

The reason the cat lade from VOX - Laura McGann - doesn’t know this is she thinks in terms of high drama and hysteria rather than logic...

Which is why she fell for this scam in the first place.

[spudville]

I’ll tell you how I spent my younger life (up until about age 40 on some points):
Clothes washed and put on a clothes line to dry
Grocery bags reused as school book covers and trash bags
Clothing handed down from one brother to another then used as rags.
Walked to school (In the snow! Uphill both ways, barefoot, wrapped barb wire around my feet for traction!)Also walked to stores.
No computer, cell phone, electronic games of any type.
Used pencils, pens, slide rule, wooden yard stick.
TV was used on weekends for a short period of time for Saturday morning cartoons.
Most food was from our garden, hunted or fished or raised.
I’m sure there is more.
This ignorant pip squeak needs to get a carbon boot print on her hind end. She’ll need to get her head out of the way first.

[Gay State Conservative]

I,a boomer,will soon be displaying my heroism by flying to Guadeloupe for a little R&R.While there I'll be renting a diesel car and I'll drive here and there...windows open,radio blasting The (early) Who,The (early) Yardbirds and The (early) Stones.