Think about the seventh generation
Imagine if every time a politician made a decision, they considered what it would mean for the well-being of people who will live 200 years from now, rather than worrying about what it’ll take to win the next election. It’s contrary to a lot of decision-making in the United States, but this kind of long-term thinking is a tradition in many indigenous cultures around the world, Krznaric writes. The Māori — the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand — have a concept called whakapapa (akin to “genealogy”), an expression describing a long, unbroken chain of humanity that connects the deceased, the living, and the yet-to-be-born. Native cultures are full of cautionary tales about the long-term consequences of taking too much, writes Robin Wall Kimmerer, a biologist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, in the book Braiding Sweetgrass. These principles — called the Honorable Harvest — “govern our taking, shape our relationships with the natural world, and rein in our tendency to consume — that the world might be as rich for the seventh generation as it is for our own,” Kimmerer writes. In the last couple of decades, “seventh-generation thinking” has been adopted in sustainability circles. One of the goals of the global youth organization Earth Guardians is to “protect our planet and its people for the next seven generations.” In a 2008 speech, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom raised the question of how to preserve resources for the future, saying, “I think we should all reinstate in our mind the seven-generation rule.” You might have even seen a nod to this idea in the dish soap aisle: The Vermont-based cleaning product company Seventh Generation was founded on this same principle.Pretend you’re living in 2060
The idea of the seventh generation also inspired a Japanese political movement called “Future Design.” From small towns like Yahaba to major cities like Kyoto, Japanese cities have instituted an unusual type of city-planning meeting. One group of citizens at the meeting advocates for current residents, while another group dons special ceremonial robes and conceives itself as “future residents” from 2060. Studies have shown that these future residents advocate for more transformative changes in urban planning, especially around health and environmental action. Ultimately, Krznaric writes, the movement wants to establish a “Ministry of the Future” for the central government in addition to local ones. It’s a growing trend: Over the past 30 years, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Tunisia, Sweden, Wales, and the United Arab Emirates have all created positions, committees, councils, or commissions that advocate for future generations’ interests.Give a gift to future generations
Six years ago, Scottish artist Katie Paterson created the Future Library, a century-long art project. Each year, a famous writer (the first two were Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell) donates a new work to the project — one that no one else has ever read. At the end of the project, in 2114, the 100 books will be printed on paper from a forest outside Oslo that’s been planted for this express purpose, to be enjoyed by the readers of the 22nd century. Another project, the website DearTomorrow, allows you to write a letter to someone of your choosing — your child, perhaps, or your future self — to be delivered in the year 2050. The project was started by Kubit and Trisha Shrum, two alums of the Grist 50. The founders say that DearTomorrow is meant to close the gap between the far-off years referenced in climate reports (2050 is a common one) and make a personal connection to the future. Krznaric says that an “intergenerational Golden Rule” drives these kinds of projects: a “basic empathic principle” that we should treat others as we’d want to be treated, including people who might be distant from us in space and time. “When you think about the legacies we’ve inherited from the past, some of those are very positive legacies,” Krznaric said. “We are the beneficiaries of the people who planted the first seeds in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago, who built the cities we live in, and who made the medical discoveries we benefit from. But we also are the inheritors of colonialism, slavery, and racism…. So do we want to pass on that stuff as well? No! Let’s pass on a different legacy to the next generation.”This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A resolution for 2021: Be a better ancestor on Dec 30, 2020.