sp200101 A new year, a new life: The inconvenient truths 

Where there is  life there is hope 

Hope springs eternal. Twenty-twenty is the year now, but it’s also a reference to what amounts to good vision, as in, “I have 20/20 vision.” I can say something philosophical about 20/20 vision of the past, present and – by a stretch of my imagination – the future.

Sadly, it’s not a pretty picture. Since 1992 I have feared what an organization of scientists had said was likely to happen if humankind worldwide did not change it’s ways. I made my own version of 2022 after reading the World’s Scientist’s Warning to Humanity and I called mine “EarthSafe 2022.”

It was in essence a statement about artists’ roles in joining the world’s scientists’ warning and giving a hand in their effort to warn humanity. Artists, after all, play a key role in communicating. An example is when Al Gore tried to warn Americans with his books and slide shows. It was only when artists lent a hand that his message got great notice and won an Academy Award.

But it wasn’t enough. Several other artists in the film industry tried to do something, but as Al Gore said, their message to humankind (and Americans in particularly) was an inconvenience.