# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/161 "2023-01-26T18:27:20Z")
Unless they work at Twitter, no one’s suggesting that everyone live full time in their office space. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/162 "2023-01-26T18:44:06Z")
Yeah, i keep my house heated even when I’m at the office. Frozen pipes ain’t good for anyone (and my husband worked from home even before i was able to). My employer hasn’t reduced its footprint yet, for people working from home. But i expect it will. Real estate is a huge cost to it. Before the pandemic they were trying hard to shoehorn us into less and less space. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/163 "2023-01-26T19:00:48Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yeah, i keep my house heated even when I’m at the office. Frozen pipes ain’t good for anyone (and my husband worked from home even before i was able to). I don’t. I find that only a minimal amount of heating, (if any) is necessary to keep pipes from freezing for the 10-12 hours I might be away. That’s the benefit of Smart thermostats. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/164 "2023-01-26T19:07:06Z")
I’m going to suggest that a decent fraction of homes have someone present during the work day. Kids. Someone caring for kids. A spouse who works from home. Partners with different working hours… And most commutes cost more energy than “fire up the internet”. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/165 "2023-01-26T19:20:23Z")
I found this article that indicates the benefits to the environment are uncertain. > **[Is Remote Work Actually Better for the Environment?](https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment)** > > Common sense says that without a commute, employees who can work from home (WFH) have a lower environmental impact than their in-office peers, but this isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, when multiple environmental net impacts are taken into... I don’t know about the environment but I’d place bets that employees are happier and healthier. And we know that they are more productive. > **[Surprising Working From Home Productivity Statistics (2023)](https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/)** > > With the world discovering alternative ways to work without human contact, the work from home force is getting a facelift.… Read More » ---
**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 26, 2023, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/166 "2023-01-26T19:39:43Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Weren’t the boomers referred to as a generation when they were still kids? Not really, unless you include “college students” as “kids” (I would not). > [@Wikipedia](#): > > The first recorded use of “baby boomer” is in a January 1963 _[Daily Press](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Press_(Virginia))_ article by Leslie J. Nason describing a massive surge of college enrollments approaching as the oldest boomers were coming of age.[[24]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers#cite_note-24)[[25]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers#cite_note-25) The _[Oxford English Dictionary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary)_ dates the modern meaning of the term to a January 23, 1970, article in _[The Washington Post](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post)_ .[[26]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers#cite_note-26) And I’d point out that even though the term supposedly took on its modern meaning as a generational cohort in 1970, it wasn’t really until the 80’s that it was commonly used as a distinct cultural identity, both self-applied and externally applied by advertising types who knew a goldmine when they saw it. Then in 1991 _Generational Identities_ was published which cemented our current usage of both Boomers and Generation X, as well as the whole practice of generational labeling. I jokingly call it “cultural astrology” but it’s important to note that it’s not all bullshit. The Baby Boom was a real demographic phenomenon, and those people lived through a specific series of cultural events that was every bit as real as WW2, the Great Depression, the Roaring 20’s, the Gilded Age, etc. Certainly people of that time have distinct experiences and tendencies because of it. And that shared experience was enhanced by a mass-media experience that was more accessible, widespread, and homogenized than anything before. We don’t call those people “Great Depressers”, but maybe we would, if there was one outsized age cohort that experienced that time period at the same stage of life with the same level of media access. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/167 "2023-01-26T19:56:50Z")
Interesting. > Equally problematic is that the primary [short-term WFH policy](https://www.rsc.org/news-events/articles/2021/jan/precious-elements-lockdown/) adopted by several companies has been to provide employees with laptops, even at the risk of duplicating devices. I used the same laptop when we switched to all WFH that I did when I was commuting every day. They did buy me a new wireless mouse. I was logged onto the internet all day in the office, too. It’s true that I’ve replaced in-person chats with Teams calls, but I doubt that actually costs a lot of energy. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/168 "2023-01-26T20:04:01Z")
We all got laptops. I never use mine. My job requires a full screen monitor, and I’m even looking at getting a second one. So I use my home PC, which would annoy our tech person if she knew, but I’ve decided I can live with this secret because I absolutely cannot do an efficient and effective job on a laptop. I am willing to die on that hill. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/169 "2023-01-26T20:28:59Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > However, _someone_ will always try to defend rude language no matter how rude as long as they agree with what the person is saying. A few years ago people here were defending the use on this board of vile, sexist, and prejudiced language not even fit to repeat as a quote because they said that people were just afraid of an “angry Black man.” I, however, think that one doesn’t get a “tone pass” for anything one wants to spew just because your opponents are “uncomfortable”. > > Whether that’s true here, however, is up for debate. But it should be up for debate. Are you seriously comparing what I said to Cecil to someone dropping a N-bomb? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/170 "2023-01-26T20:32:19Z")
I don’t think that’s what they are saying. I don’t know what this person is referring to, but it sounds like they are claiming someone was using vile and ugly language but got a pass because they were Black. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/171 "2023-01-26T21:01:07Z")
I struggle to see the relevance in either case. More deflection. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/172 "2023-01-26T21:40:54Z")
I am failing to see the relevance to Cecil’s column. Let’s stay on topic, please. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/173 "2023-01-26T21:48:18Z")
Something not mentioned yet, it could be argued that baby boomers - by virtue of their being born - forced their parents to move into suburbs. If baby boomers are the proximate cause of suburbanization, they are directly responsible for the widespread environmental destruction that entailed. Not only in converting rural and natural environments into suburbs, but also the transportation networks, the strain on local water resources (as suburbs aren’t necessarily built by fresh water like urban areas tend to be), and the increase in automobile usage (and therefore emissions!) both due to commuting and the logistics of supplying a wide area rather than a condensed urban hub. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/174 "2023-01-26T22:13:32Z")
I’m not sure that simply being born makes you directly responsible for anything. Surely we could blame the adults who had agency in deciding how to respond to the baby boom. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/175 "2023-01-26T22:14:29Z")
I’m also unclear on how having a kid “forces” you to move to the suburbs. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/176 "2023-01-26T22:17:28Z")
The bottom line is that there is no biological or neuro-psycological difference from one generation to the next. Evolution doesn’t work that fast. Everyone is a product of their nature and nurture (the environment they live in). Any group or generation is capable of doing proportionally the same amount of good or bad. If one generation does proportionally more good or bad in any particular area, it’s because of the environment they grew up in. And, you can’t blame _their_ parents because they likewise were a product of their nature and nurture. And so on and so forth. If you switched the births of one generation for another generation (say, switch Gen Z with Boomers), do you believe the proportions of good or bad, or the current issues at hand would be statistically different after the switch? I don’t. I don’t blame Boomers for being unenlightened, because there was little enlightenment to emulate at the time they were raised. I don’t blame Gen Z for being lazy and entitled, because that was the way they were raised. This is not, by a long shot, an excuse for the failures of any generation. Individuals within a generation certainly have agency to rise above their nurture and do good—and many do. But, the proportion of those who rise above, fall below, or stay the same with regard to a good/bad ratio should be statistically the same. Blame human nature for there being a poor good/bad ratio in our specie’s genetic makeup, controlling behavior. It will be expressed in any generation, at any time, in different ways. Now, if you take a species with a better good/bad ratio to start with, like, say Felis catus, well, that would be a horse of a different color. Wait a few million years for F. catus to take over and we’ll have a better world (if it’s still habitable by then). And, we’ll have fewer mice. 🐈 ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/177 "2023-01-26T22:22:10Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I’m not sure that simply being born makes you directly responsible for anything. Surely we could blame the adults who had agency in deciding how to respond to the baby boom. > [@Miller](#): > > I’m also unclear on how having a kid “forces” you to move to the suburbs. We all know how the blame game goes. 😉 “I always preferred living in the city.” “So why’d you move to the suburbs?” “Had to. Damn kids.” ~Max ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/178 "2023-01-26T22:25:34Z")
No, I’ve never heard that. I know people who chose to live in suburbs because they wanted more space when they had kids, or they had less time to do city things anyway. But forced to move to the burbs? Nope. I raised toddlers in NYC. NYC is full of kids. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/179 "2023-01-26T22:29:45Z")
But are those people who moved to the suburbs in the 1940s and 1950s? It would have been at a time when there was an [urban housing shortage](https://picturethis.museumca.org/timeline/world-war-ii-homefront-era-1940s/protest-war-vets/info) (another link [concerning NY State](https://www.jstor.org/stable/23149687) and [NYC](https://www.brownstonedetectives.com/the-brooklyn-housing-shortage-1946/)), when the GI bill gave many men a good mortgage rate, when crime in urban areas was going up, when most cities had pretty bad air quality, and before all too many urban homes had air conditioning. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508/180 "2023-01-26T22:34:00Z")
FWIW, there was a baby boom out in the country, also. The area I grew up in was mostly farm country at the time, and they couldn’t by any reasonable method fit all of us into the school. I had one grade school class that was in an L-shaped room in which the kids on one arm of the L couldn’t see the kids in the other; the teacher had her desk at the joint of the L so that, at least by turning sideways, she could see all of us. I don’t know what that room had been previously used for, but it certainly wasn’t designed to be a classroom; it was just the only room they could come up with. I had another class which was 5th grade on one side of the room, 6th on the other; because they didn’t have enough classrooms to give each grade its own, and the rooms were too full to jam us into the other 5th or 6th grade rooms. My parents had recently moved there from the city, but that wasn’t because of me. I wasn’t born until two years after they moved. My older sisters weren’t Boomers, they were born in the early 40’s. (My oldest sister hated the move, and I think never got over it.) And nearly all the parents of the children overcrowding the school were long-term residents of the area. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-1-20-2023-have-baby-boomers-wrecked-the-planet/978508.md?page=10)