Grandsons will live in truly interesting times

My grandsons will live in truly interesting times.

I don’t want that to be the case, but we have exploited the earth to such an extent that such an outcome is not just possible, it is unquestionably certain.
Although my generation is not solely responsible for what is unfolding, it has continued and worsened a pattern of consumption that evolved since the Industrial Revolution some 200 years ago.
Subsequently, should we be looking to ascribe the tribulations facing my grandsons to someone, look no further for it is I, along with anyone else working to support, maintain and expand developed Western-style economies.
The “Living Planet Report” of 2010 released in December showed that as of last year humanity was using nature’s services 50 percent faster than what Earth could renew them.
It illustrated that a projected “moderate” business as usual scenario over the coming decades would lift those demands to the point where we would need two and a half times earth’s capacity to survive.
The arithmetic is simple, by 2050 life on earth is going to become a rather risky affair, so risky in fact that many of us will not survive and with my grandsons in their early forties, they will be in the heart of calamitous times.
Conscious of a friend’s views that “what” requires little thought and the real innovations emerge when thinkers successfully explore “how” and so let’s begin with the personal – you, and your approach to life is the first step in making life more comfortable for my grandsons, along with all your descendants.
First, we must support and encourage anyone, politician or otherwise, who advocates a stable-state economy in which the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity; we should support anyone who advocates a society that has a public bias as opposed to the private wealth of a few over the exploitation of many; that same support should go to anyone insisting on equality throughout society; and, critically, we should support any morally philanthropic soul who works to break the hold of the military/industrial estate.
My innocent three and one-year-old grandsons have the unknowing expectation that we will act. Will we?