“All in all, we may be provided with evidence of the urgency of acting and with means to do so, but the climate changes that must occur first are in our minds”
During my childhood as a French baby-boomer, I could hear my elders comment on the weather changes, due in their opinion to the various new technologies (by-products from the recent war) and to the space-related research across the world, which were going to destroy our planet.
The girls of my generation were encouraged to study in the field of their choice in order to become independent, if it came to that. But, make no mistake, they also had to acquire house-keeping skills, thus ensuring a proper care of their future families.
At that time, good domestic habits were more a way to save money rather than the planet: no waste allowed, either in food or electricity; all equipment repaired and reused; no-nonsense purchase, and so on.
Metals were recycled locally, collected by trucks; fabrics from old clothes were converted into new ones; chinaware and furniture were passed-on to the younger generations.
Like everyone else, I learned that slow and climatic and geological changes were constantly occurring to the Earth, historically recorded along the centuries. But, from the Seventies onward, there was a new awareness concerning the future of this planet, due to a brutal acceleration of the evolution's progress.
The scientific observation of a global warming was the first alarm, induced by a level of pollution never seen before and growing fast. With ice melting fast, disastrous water floods were now threatening lands and living creatures on a worldwide scale.