Still considering some of the things I heard and experienced at Personal Democracy Forum 2007 this past weekend, I am reminded of Thomas Friedman's summary of the three new chapters that will be in his upcoming 3rd Edition of his book, The World Is Flat.

One of the things that stuck me in one of his new chapters was what he discussed around Global Warming, and how the crisis is beyond what we have ever faced before while also being on a greater scale than we can imagine. We have to be the stewards of the earth, he said. What struck me was his reason for why there are not many large protests or civil actions to force rapid change–we will all be dead before the significant changes occurs. This is why we have to be stewards–those who global warming will most affect have not yet been born.

For us Americans, to the best that I can tell from my experience, this is the troubling thing about global warming. We often forget our past and are not the best for planning for the future. How can we be expected to do something that will most benefit those two generations away? After all, we are not too good with setting time tables of any sort; we just go with the flow and hope for the best.