The Boomers (or Baby Boomers) is the generation born from 1945 up till about 1960. I am myself a part of this generation, albeit being born on the trailing edge. This was the generation that benefited from the rebuilding of broken societies after the second World War. Growing economies, from trade and new technologies brought affluence and created a new middle class that could enjoy the consumer society and travel in a more open world.
Of course not everything was good. Wars were still being fought, in Vietnam among many other places. Nations were invaded, democracies crushed in both East and West, partly due to the Cold War confrontation that kept nuclear annihilation as a Damocles sword over our heads. Nevertheless this was a period when it was natural to be living a both healthier and richer life than the previous generation.
Most of the boomers are now entering retirement and many are economically well off. They have benefitted from a growing wealth during their working life, but also just from the passive wealth growth coming from owning a house that has increased in value. So now they want to enjoy life, travel, play golf in Spain and fly to Thailand or the Caribbean to avoid the winter cold. Sadly, that is a privilege they (we) can not be granted due to our collective failure to ensure a liveable future for our children.
The climate crisis is very much about equity in a very double meaning; both fairness and wealth. It’s a question about levelling the economical gap between countries, between the rich and the poor, ensuring that developing countries are given some opportunities that the richer countries took for granted. But as the recent youth activism by Greta Thunberg and her followers have shown, it is also very much a generational question, where the financial equity that the boomers have built up largely has been charged to a planetary credit card that is about to expire, leaving the debt fully for todays children to pick up.
Therefore I think it is time to ground the boomers and that includes myself. We’ve hade our glorious time and did not do enough to leave a stable climate for coming generations, so at least we know should step back and not continue to wreck the planet. Do I want to ban them/us from travel and trips abroad? No, because you learn from travelling and meeting other people. But we need to drastically reduce our carbon emissions in ALL sectors of society and for individuals flying can be the largest contribution of greenhouse gases. And for retired boomers, if they have the funding to travel they should have the time to travel on the ground. Take the train, make the journey into an experience, see what you might have missed during your active working life. In Europe, many of us spent summer vacations using the Interrail train pass to visit all corners of our continent. That is still possible and would also create a market demand for more and better trains, which everybody would benefit from.
I would like coming generations to have some possibilities to travel to far off countries. There is no reason that boomers, who have had it all, should spoil the chances for their kids and grandkids to experience what they did. So, let’s ground the boomers! And while on ground, it is very overdue time for this generation to (again) become activist and fight for stable climate and a good future for coming generations! That will also ensure that the great-grandchildren will be able to say with pride that their ancestors cared for them.
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