Thinking in Seven Generations

...a work in progress. Please add your ideas and send them to me.

Assume for mathematical elegance, that folks tend to begin parenting around the age of twentyfive. This average gives us four generations every one hundred years.

Consider where we've come from. And where we're going.

The year 2005, will mark the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark
entering "salmon country." Eight generations back.

The same year, 2005, also marks the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of 1855 in Walla Walla when many tribes signed away their traditional lands but reserved the right to fish in all "usual and accustomed places," a piece of legal leverage increasingly wielded by the politically savvy and highly organized tribes of today. 1855 is six generations back.

Looking forward from the present...

In 25 years I will be my father's age when he died. My son and my daughter will be at midlife. World population will be moving towards 8-10 billion people, a head on collision course with the planet's natural resource base. Researches say that if all of the people in the developing countries of the world seek the same standard of living and magnitude of waste of an average American, it would take four planets.

The year 2050 is two generations from now. Will voluntary simplicity take hold? Will we have harnessed our technological ingenuity to communicate solutions and cooperation, or build blindside profits, ignoring the triple bottom line, exacerbating the digital divide, sowing social unrest, plague, resource wars?

The year 2075 is three generations from now. I will not live to know these people. But I can already hear their voices speaking to me. What is the critical work that I must do now in order to provide for the children born unto them?

The year 2100 is four generations from now...

The year 2125 is five generations from now...