Squandering a birthright

In the Guardian today George Monbiot looks at his baby daughter and ponders on the things that we take for granted which might have disappeared when she reaches his age. It is partly a eulogy about the health service but is much more too.

When I was born,  the National Health Service was just 15 years old. It must still have been hard for people to believe that – for the first time in the history of these islands – they could fall ill without risking financial ruin, that nobody need die for want of funds. I see this system as the summit of civilisation, one of the wonders of the world. Now it is so much a part of our lives that it is just as hard to believe that we might lose it. But I fear that, when you have reached my age, free universal healthcare will be a distant fantasy, a mythologised Arcadia as far removed from the experience of your children's generation as the Blitz was from mine. One of the lessons you will learn, painfully and reluctantly, is that nothing of public value exists which has not been fought for.

He also laments the way the environment is being wasted...

By the time your children are born, the tiger, the rhino, the bluefin tuna and many of the other animals that have so enthralled me could be nothing but a cause of regret......  You may live to see the extremes of climate change I have spent much of my life hoping we can avert, accompanied by further ecological disasters, such as the acidification of the oceans, the loss of most of the world's remaining forests, its wetlands and fossil water reserves, its large predators, fish and coral reefs. If so, you will doubtless boggle at the stupidity and short-sightedness of those who preceded you. No one can claim that we were not warned.

Is this pessimism inevitable?  Does it have to turn out like this? Is there another way? Are the small voices that point to a different path being heard?

George Monbiot is a present day prophet in the biblical tradition - pointing out what might be if we keep going the way we are are asking us what we really value. Like those prophets from pre-history there are many who have stuffed their ears so that they do not have to listen to an uncomfortable message. There are plenty who would try to silence the prophet and discredit his message.

Do we value rhinos and rainforests or the health service enough to make a stand before it is too late?