Late freedom
BY H. R. MOODY – Climate Change in an Aging Society
There is no better expression of the “Late Freedom” than these words of David Brower, lifelong environmentalist, written at the age of 79 (Terkel, 1996):
“At my age, they can’t do much to hurt me. I have a new freedom. They can’t change my career, I’ve got it made. If I go to jail or am executed, it doesn’t matter–though I’d rather stick around. I’d rather be out of jail than in, but not at the expense of this newfound freedom. Young people don’t have this liberty. They’ve got years ahead of them, families, and a need for income. They can’t alienate themselves too much from the system. I say to people my age, ‘You have this freedom. Please use it. You’ve had a role in whatever’s happened to the earth, and it hasn’t been that good. You now have a role in doing something about it. If you’re going to die, make sure your boots are on. There are so many of us… More and more of us….. You’ve got to sound off. The older you are, the freer you are, as long as you last.’ “
“We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
David Brower was the long-time Executive Director of the Sierra Club, America’s most influential environmental organization. Later, in his old age, he became the founder of another important advocacy group, Friends of the Earth. David Brower lived according to the ethics of the Late Freedom, which he expressed so eloquently. He died in 2000 at the age of 88, still laboring on behalf of future generations. It was Brower who loved to quote the African proverb, “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Read more about climate change fro Rick Moody.
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