A few mornings ago, I was having coffee with my friend, Dan. He was around Berkeley in the Sixties and I lived in NYC. Our lives have taken quite different trajectories, but there is something about that history, which marks us both. Other than discussing the shit show that is our world right now, we talked about our children and grandkids. His daughter landed an extraordinarily fascinating gig as head of marketing for the 2028 LA Olympics.

Dan recently visited her and she talked about some of her more interesting research finds in terms of the differences between generations, each one with its own catchy name, which I’m sure many of you are already familiar with. According to her, the next generation that is truly going to care about our climate crisis and the social inequities in the world is Generation Z. Now, who the hell are they, you may ask? While, like you, I have heard the various chronological name tags, I can’t say I am clear on the age breaks for each.

Gen Z are the youngest demographic right now. Give or take a few years, they are around 10 to 20 years old. My imagination was off and running. Whenever I decided to park my ass in front of the computer for a story, this had to be it.

According to all the science, in about ten years, the climate emergency will be inescapable and unavoidable, regardless of where you are in the world. The stupid debates and denials will be over and we will no longer be able to obfuscate the truth of this catastrophe. In spite of this irrefutable fact, oil and gas production is projected to keep increasing for the foreseeable future. The Green New Deal is considered a naive pipe dream, perpetrated by Socialists, who want the government to own all of us. Medicare for All is unaffordable, even though every other developed country has proven its success. We have been neutered by the .1%, powerless and penniless to fight their myopic greed. Corporate media has been breastfeeding us bullshit, keeping us ill informed and divided.

We have been made to feel impotent, distracted by the trivialization of our culture, more concerned with what people are wearing than what they are saying. The disease of greed and gluttony for power has begun to ferment all over the world. Those who have it all are addicted to the poison of over abundance and selfishness. They will not willingly loosen their grip. We have a lying, narcissistic, misogynist, idiot for President and there is actually still debate regarding his fitness.

Things are going to get even worse before they get better and I, for one, am not brimming with confidence that it will happen. Now, this is where we get to a wonderful fairy tale I have begun telling myself, since coffee with Dan.

The more the years that get between me and the Sixties, the more I appreciate them for what they were. It seeds rooted in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963. Months before, Dr. Martin Luther King shared his dream at the Peace March in Washington. He and Bobby Kennedy were killed five years later. In between, the Beatles landed at Shea Stadium. The sheer insanity of the VIetnam War began tearing the country apart. Haight Ashbury rose to prominence in a cloud of smoke. Kids starting growing their hair long, wearing outlandishly, bright clothing. With so much going on, the feeling of empowerment was the true intoxicant. Young people had the audacity to think they could change the world.

The allure of prosperity was the undoing of that era. We began fast tracking to where we now find ourselves. President Reagan perpetrated the lie of trickle down economics. Let the wealthy become obscenely so and they will share their new found bounty with their workers and we will have heaven on earth. On top of that, the more money individuals and corporations had, the more they took ownership of our political system.

Then, springing out of the invisible ether of electronica, the internet came to life and changed all our lives forever. However, this is not the time or place for a diatribe on its extraordinary impact, positive and negative. Around twenty years ago, little kids were the first generation to experience this brand new world as normal, not having to adjust to the shock like all the rest of us. In the beginning, there was a kind of fascination with its fabulousness, but for them it would be their normal.

So, along comes this Generation Z, taking it all for granted and getting a front row seat to what prior generations have foist upon them. The consequences of runaway gluttony, the incredible disparity between rich and poor and our environment, their future, being sold to the highest bidder, is the world they are inheriting from all of us.

When many of these youngsters reach maturity, the fallout of our mistreatment of Planet Earth, will have stuttered into the fail safe realm, irrevocable damage with consequences beyond control. We have around ten years before we hit the cliff and we haven’t slowed down one bit and we won’t.

My conversation with Dan, struck a chord deep inside. My grandson is 10 and he is on the younger end of this fledgling demographic. As much as parents want to shield their kids from unpleasantness, the ubiquitous web makes it virtually impossible. Around a year ago, when Greta Thunberg was only 15, she decided to skip school on Fridays and all by herself, she innocently started a world wide movement to protest adult’s inaction regarding the looming climate emergency.

Careening toward 2030, when science agrees we will have no choice, but to deal with the consequences of our paralysis, today’s children are the only hope for their future and for the generations that haven’t even been named yet.

Years ago, I decided to begin writing to my grandson, a legacy of word and intention. The grandchildren of the Sixties will realize what many of us hoped for a life time ago.

I am hopeful.