# Straight Dope 1/20/2023: Have baby boomers wrecked the planet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 20, 2023, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508 "2023-01-20T14:10:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/81 "2023-01-21T21:49:52Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > But the name, albeit not intended as such, is insidious: Frankly this strikes me as almost fanatical thought control. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/82 "2023-01-21T23:12:09Z")
It’s hard to write a good column. Answering questions is easier than covering complex topics. My advice is to keep plugging away. But if the goal is to encourage younger readership, learn more about the audience. > **[How to sell to the young](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/01/19/how-to-sell-to-the-young)** > > A myth-busting memo for your boss ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/83 "2023-01-22T01:14:51Z")
I used to subscribe to this myth. I read much about it in the 70s. It was this board that set me straight. I even responded to someone despairing on here where he was wondering if anyone had changed their opinion on anything from what they read here. I responded that I was set straight on this. Somone had responded to what I said with links and everything which I read. I then changed my mind and never brought it up again. As for Baby Boomers, of which I am one, the one thing which makes me the most pissed at my generation is college tuition costs and the destruction of the college professor. The average college professor makes about $20K a year at the same time tuition costs have skyrocketed. I remember writing my first tuition check for $45 for the semester and now the same institution is over $4000. Heck, I haven’t checked in 10 years, it might be $6000 for a semester by now. It is just criminal to expect youngins to pay for so much. My generation should have chocked up the bucks to keep college tuition costs near free. If it was too much because more going to college, then restrict access via testing or something. I wouldn’t like it but better than just rocketing up costs. This makes me so angry I think my generation should burn in Hell. Yes, that angry. I try, locally, to get involved in trying to change this but I am literally a lone voice with people looking at me like I am crazy. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/84 "2023-01-22T02:11:10Z")
The main failure of the baby boomers is their coming up short against their own expectations of themselves. Let’s begin with the latter. They were confident that if a critical mass of people believed and perceived things a certain way, then at least as far as societal matters were concerned, that was sufficient to rearrange reality, since society is all inside our heads anyway, collectively speaking. Hence, the entire money system, currency, keeping track of debts and credits and all that, that was going the way of the dinosaurs, we were all just going to share and trust and not do money any more. Likewise authority, no more people with power over other people, anywhere, ever, end of story, we were gonna be equals. The entire planet would be an egalitarian cooperative when they got done with it. Just be cool, man. Let everyone do their own thing. Don’t hang any heavy trips on people. Nobody gets to make anyone do anything they don’t want, that ain’t where it’s at. They didn’t, of course, but they rocked the consciousness of the entire species. It really was a leap in that direction, like an Overton window sort of thing but in a progressive and egalitarian direction. It’s not that there’d never been idealism or social movements before, mind you. But this was the most fire we’d seen in western culture, at least, since the abolition of slavery and the push for women’s suffrage. Most of the wreckage, along with a goodly portion of the clout to make those idealistic changes in social thinking, came from the sheer volume of the cohort. It was called the Baby Boom precisely because so many kids were born in the same generation. They were spoiled, perhaps, and inclined to think their perspective on things was the only one that counted. They thought very highly of themselves and their contributions when the majority of them, like the majority of pretty much any aggregate group of humans, was composed of sheeplike followers who were just copying whatever was being said and done by folks around them. They were amazingly naive and oblivious to what they had pitted themselves up against, doing their own little Children’s Crusade, cheerfully sure that they were going to establish a fair and free utopia within a few short years and that all the millennia of history behind them just didn’t matter and didn’t count, because _they_ were here now and were going to make everything different. I’m technically a baby boomer myself, but it was really my babysitters’ generation that got all the news coverage. By the time I hit high school, exhaustion and disillusionment had set in and society in general had a kind of concept-hangover, an intense desire for predictability and stability and structure that would stay structured instead of life being a tapestry of incredibly complex moral social questions with a lack of consensus about what was real any more. I’d happily call for more such generations. They did more good than harm by a wide margin. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/85 "2023-01-22T02:42:11Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > It’s hard to write a good column. That’s always true, but I’m wondering if we are in a polarized world where it’s particularly difficult to write a good argument-making column that’s, like the old Cecil productions, apolitical. Longtermism was a great start, but this one is a bit of a culture war shot — even though I agree with the POV. As for your Economist link, it’s good advice, and perhaps consistent with what I wrote above. The difficulty is that it is mostly about what not to do. I think the advice about not being Greta Thunberg was followed, literally if not figuratively. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/86 "2023-01-22T03:04:17Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Longtermism was a great start, but this one is a bit of a culture war shot — even though I agree with the POV. It’s not so much that it’s culture-warrish–although that’s definitely not great–so much as that it’s intellectually lazy. Its main cite is a single polemical book that sounds super flawed from Cecil’s own summary. The question isn’t really addressed, and the smugness that could come across as whip-smart instead reads as flabby sneering. What a mess. I hope Cecil applies a little more rigor to his columns going forward. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/87 "2023-01-22T04:12:52Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The question isn’t really addressed, and the smugness that could come across as whip-smart instead reads as flabby sneering. That’s what’s bothering me. The classic Cecil snark is appreciated… when actually adressing the issues. Instead of exploring the broad-brushing of “Boomers” as some sort of pernicious archetype and/or exactly what is it that is meant by “wrecking the planet”(\*), that was dealt with in like two lines (“I feel bad about the Amazon rain forest, and the grandkids have been on my case about letting pollution in Asia get so gross”). Then it turned into a refutation of Ehrlich and the old, OLD school doomsayer econofuturists, with reference to a counterargument that he himself admits glosses over some questions and leads up to “we’ll figure something out”. We expect better. (\* To which George Carlin already beat him in his own curmudgeon phase with his “the _planet_ will be OK: **we** are **fucked**.” ) ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/88 "2023-01-22T04:48:18Z")
Other perspectives. > **[In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/business/saving-money-inflation-economy.html)** > > Young people want to save for their futures, but balancing priorities has proved challenging during a time of economic instability. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/89 "2023-01-22T07:08:44Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > But I didn’t start hearing about climate change until the 90s Ditto. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/90 "2023-01-22T12:59:50Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > But I didn’t start hearing about climate change until the 90s and I’ve been a Green since at least 1985. Me too. I really started to hear about it when I was in university for the first time (91-95). Unlike you though, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was alarmists, and that there was a lack of consensus. One reason? Global cooling myth. No joke. It wasn’t until maybe the late 2000s that I realized I was being deceived by the “science isn’t settled” types. Now, of course, I am _extremely_ pro-action on climate change. This is a dire threat to human civilization, and has the potential to unleash a scale of human suffering unseen on this planet. It would make the pain and death of WW2 look like a joke. And if we just want to be greedy capitalists for a moment, yes, the economics of climate change are bad too. There is no reason not to act except the selfishness of not wanting to give up any creature comforts. It disgusts me, and it saddens me to know that I was once fooled. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/91 "2023-01-22T15:32:54Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > a global board of top scientists in all fields who have authority to override politics and institute necessary and immediate changes …from their sectet lair deep within Death Cave on Skull Island ---
**Author:** ![Chumba\_Wumba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chumba\_Wumba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumba_Wumba)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/92 "2023-01-22T15:34:05Z")
Over-generalization and over-simplification is one of the worst mental qualities of our species. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/93 "2023-01-22T16:31:27Z")
I’m in! ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/94 "2023-01-22T17:25:26Z")
> [@Chumba\_Wumba](#): > > Over-generalization and over-simplification is one of the worst mental qualities of our species. I look forward to the next column debating Capricorns vs. Libras. I n a forum where we are supposed to be fighting ignorance, there are very few voices challenging the ridiculous notion that there is such a thing as a “generation” that has any meaning. “Generations” don’t do things. People do. Some people born in certain years made mistakes (as all people do). Some people born in those same years did good things (as all people do). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/95 "2023-01-22T17:30:48Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > There is no reason not to act except the selfishness of not wanting to give up any creature comforts. And honestly, we don’t even need to give up much in the way of creature comforts, either. A well-insulated house is more comfortable, in addition to being cheaper and better for the environment. Electricity from wind, hydro, and solar will run the same computers as electricity from coal or methane. Bike to work, and you won’t even need to pay for a gym membership. There’s an awful lot we can do without having any real impact on our standard of living. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/96 "2023-01-22T20:09:08Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > That’s always true, but I’m wondering if we are in a polarized world where it’s particularly difficult to write a good argument-making column that’s, like the old Cecil productions, apolitical. > > Longtermism was a great start, but this one is a bit of a culture war shot — even though I agree with the POV. Way back in 1995 [Cecil addressed the question of what the Second Amendment means](https://www.straightdope.com/21342263/what-does-the-right-to-bear-arms-really-mean), and he came down mostly on the side of those who consider it a personal right rather than a collective one. I wonder if that column had been composed today if Cecil might be accused of being a MAGA sympathizer or a January Sixer. I think people today are far less willing to accept differences of opinion as harmless and more ready to condemn opposing stances as leading to imminent harm. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/97 "2023-01-23T00:26:55Z")
There are plenty of folks on this board who consider the Second Amendment an individual right, who aren’t in the slightest MAGA sympathizers. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/98 "2023-01-23T00:44:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There are plenty of folks on this board who consider the Second Amendment an individual right, who aren’t in the slightest MAGA sympathizers Glad to hear it. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/99 "2023-01-23T05:12:29Z")
Baby Boomer here: 1959. Even if the human race ceases to exist and takes many other species with it, the planet will go on. It would take a catastrophe, I think, beyond current human tinkering to destroy the planet. I think it’s stupid to blame one generation or another for disastrous outcomes such as post apocalyptic struggle, making the planet borderline unlivable, or out right extinction. We are all responsible for the stupidity we’ve inflicted on ourselves and the ecosystem. I get sooo tired of “OK, Boomer,” and “Millennials are lazy,” “GenZ can’t stop playing video games or look up from their phones,” or whatever the popular over generalization/slur that is foisted on which ever generation/age range someone wants to blame for crap that has always happened. Most of us are powerless (or pretty close to it) to do anything about problems the size of stupidly driving ourselves to extinction. Blame the powerful class not the generation. Because frankly there are greedy assholes of every age, but only a few of them have the power to kill us all. Yep, we can vote, organize, demonstrate, volunteer. And people of all ages do. But if they are not part of the powerful elite their power to, “save the planet” is pretty weak. By all means, though, blame the Boomers, or anyone else who are just the most popular target. It won’t get you far, but it will give you a huge dose of righteous indignation and cover for your own failings. Just sayin’ ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/100 "2023-01-23T20:38:56Z")
> [@Sylvanz](#): > > Baby Boomer here: 1959. Even if the human race ceases to exist and takes many other species with it, the planet will go on. What a comfort to know that the planet will go on after we’ve made it uninhabitable for humanity and many species we depend on. Personally I am only tongue-in-cheek blaming boomers for “ruining the planet”. It’s a collective effort, and people of all ages are certainly contributing. But there actually is a risk of seriously damaging the global ecosystem that feeds us and puts air in our lungs. And it’s enraging to see people who have only 15-30 years to live, who know they won’t see those consequences, act so smugly nonchalant as we take a giant shit on the planet my kids have to grow up in. All the while congratulating themselves that, for the moment, standards of living are higher than they’ve been in the past. That’s indeed a special boomer trait. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508.md?page=6)