Conversation Starter for Lessons: Our children, the environment, and the pandemic

It’s supposed to work the other way round

This moment in history may not be allowed
To one day be reduced to that horrible memory
Of the time when a misanthropic virus
Obliterated our oldest generations.
This is also the moment when our children,
Selflessly do their part and make their sacrifice.
One of education,
Of companionship,
Of social development,
And of personal freedom.
All to slow the virus’s maniacal spread
And to keep hospitals operating below full capacity.

For the well-being of their elders,
They form new routines,
Grow accustomed to isolation and seclusion,
And do so with consideration and compassion,
And do so without protest.

And once the global quarantine is over,
Will this ongoing sacrifice be forgotten?
Or downplayed?
Or dismissed?

Will airlines once again be allowed to carve highways in the stratosphere,
Heating the planet with their emissions and jet streams?
Will economies once again be allowed to pursue their insatiable thirst for growth,
Heedless of the Earth that can no longer sustain it,
And numb to our children’s love?

For you see,
Even before this crisis,
The children had been going to school
And living their lives as inhabitants of this planet

Without a nice story.

── And we were numb to them then.

With little to look forward to
And even more to dread.

But we now know what we can accomplish.
When we really want to.
When we really try.
Now we know that we can shut down emissions when we want to.
We can divest from fossil fuels.
We can stop the drilling.
We can halt the runaway deforestation.
We can raise wind turbines and solar farms
With the ambition of the societies that covered the world with road and rails
One hundred years ago.
We can train workers for the
Stimulating,
Formative,
And even till now restrained
Green, Social, and Artistic Industries.

If we reduce the memory of this pandemic to its horror and its pain
And allow the ongoing sacrifice of our grandchildren to be forgotten,
Downplayed,
Or dismissed,
And if we go on living with a sense of entitlement,
Halting the progress that endangers the fulfilment of our every frivolous whim,
Of our every appetite and pleasure,
Our grandchildren will inherit a world in a permanent state of crisis and shortage.
Droughts.
Forest fires.
Rising sea levels.
Ocean acidification.
Mass extinction.
To name a few.
There, in that world,
The sacrifices and abstinence of this unfolding pandemic
Would tragically pale in comparison.
For today the supermarkets are full
And we are still revitalized and inspired by the green.

If we can park the children,
To save our skin,
We must finally park our comfort and paralysis in their name,
Decidedly and for good.

It’s the parents who are supposed to take care of their children.
But the children are the ones currently making the concessions.
They are the ones putting us first,
Although it should be the other way round.

But it does not have to be this way.
We have to finally acknowledge our responsibility
To our children
And take the measures necessary
To perform that long overdue act of love.

Submitted April 20, 2020 at 03:37PM by baby_BOOMER_51 https://ift.tt/2KndymJ