I particularly enjoyed the Coke commercial original "I'd Like To Buy The World.....". I remember that vividly as my book "Pollution Now" (Longmans Canada, 1971) was published that year and all the talk was about non-returnable bottles and how the soft-drink corporations were converting people to plastic bottles. In fact, some of the bigger ones were exploding in supermarkets I think.

What is truly ironic is the boomer generation was in the vanguard of the pollution and peace movements, and that original song summed up so much of the idealism of that era. It all came down in the end to affluent boomers having multiple vehicles, personal watercraft, snowmobiles, vacations in the Third World, and no stomach for future generations. It's easy to judge of course, and my generation could be said to have
produced the worst depression in history, two world wars and a nuclear stand-off for 50 years. Some things we seem to have no control over, which is probably why global warming is becoming almost a religious cult with anyone disagreeing a heretic to be burned at the stake.

The boomers' children will be just as helpless to stop what is going to unfold, but displacement activities such as banning incandescent light bulbs and turning off the city lights for a hour each year, will give the impression that something is being done. After all, we haven't gone back to returnable soft-drink bottles have we? Even the simplest of solutions seem out of reach.

Sadly,
A crusty old curmudgeon,
John Fisher