Legacy

Most people hope to leave a useful legacy to family, friends or organizations. It enters into their planning as they age. The well off expect that the money they leave will help the benefactors to enjoy a pleasing life style.

That view of legacy is common myopia. The reality is that this generation will be leaving a legacy of:

• a fallacious belief that they can become financially wealthy without their activities degrading the natural wealth that natural forces have slowly evolved 
• a vast infrastructure that ages as it provides society with goods and services by irreversibly using up limited natural resources
• an addiction to these temporary services
• lack of skills to provide basics such as food without depleting irreplaceable natural resources
• a misunderstanding of the consequences of using fossil fuels to provide energy without taking into account what the material wastes produced by this process, including contribution to climate change and ocean acidification
• the failure to understand that technology has only been successful in providing goods and services by irresponsibly using natural laws to consume natural resources. It has not created anything. 
• technological systems that are devastating biodiversity and degrading terrestrial and marine ecosystems
• an addiction to the temporary power of money
• a belief in economic growth even as its foundations disintegrate 

Future generations will find it hard to cope with this legacy.