Learning to Be Free

In my family we read National Geographic. We’ve been subscribers for at least three decades. As a child I was deeply attracted to the incredible photos and stories of places I could hardly imagine existed. A yellow bus would take me and my elementary school mates to the library every other week. My first stop was the magazine rack, where I eagerly awaited each new yellow trimmed issue.

I drove by my school again this summer. Edison Elementary has become Nia Educational Charter School. Everything changes.

With that in mind I picked up the most recent National Geographic and read Bill McKibben’s article on carbon dioxide emissions and its effect on global temperatures. I was fascinated by the math and the creative way he used data to help the reader think about possible courses of action. It connected to something that is core to our proposal— the idea that the future is uncertain in part because we can influence it.

In his graph he showed the effects of various CO2 reduction strategies, and the consequences of doing nothing. I imagined that one could portray the gap between what we learn and do now with what we’ll need to know and do in the future to successfully mitigate the consequeces of CO2 emissions.

In conclusion McKibben writes:

In the end, global warming presents the greatest test we humans have yet faced. Are we ready to change, in dramatic and prolonged ways, in order to offer a workable future to subsequent generations and diverse forms of life? If we are, new technologies and new habits offer some promise. But only if we move quickly and decisively–and with a maturity we’ve rarely shown as a society or a species. It’s our coming-of-age moment, and there are no certainties or guarantees. Only a window of possibility, closing fast but still ajar enough to let in some hope.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-10/carbon-crisis/carbon-crisis.html

I wonder how many things we can substitute for “global warming” in that paragraph and still have it ring true?