You know why we won't have a flu (or any other kind of) pandemic this winter? Cos we already have the covid pandemic, and to have another at the same time, while logically possible is just too unfair for the universe to inflict upon us.

Much as I respect Bill & his friends for having inadvertently proved by being in the right place at the right time, that the lunatic Ayn Rand's John Galt theory of how capitalism (the world) works to be untrue, it was a very long time ago.

In the meantime he's never shown any enthusiasm for fixing his near monopolistic crap operating system, but now he's an authority on climatology by virtue of having got as rich as Croesus. Is that how it works?

I'd say a much greater problem is that of failing & failed states, a prime example of what can happen in those being the Beirut explosion.

Anyway, there's plenty of evidence that we're at the end of the Holocene, so it's an ice age up next. That being the case forgive me if I bask in the few global warming summers & mild winters left, before it's my personal long good night.

What happens after is not my concern. On the individual level it's only possible to try & help the next generation, the one after will have to look out for itself.

As the Roman said......Cui Bono.....that's a pov I apply to just about everything these days.

Cheer up edrek.......

So yeah, how many future generations should we try to help? One seems a bit self-centred (though philosophically acceptable).

Some of my trees won't be appreciated much for a generation or two. Some won't be at their best for 1000 years. But I'm not thinking really of future generations (just as they won't look at a 1000 year old tree, and if they feel any gratitude to a planter of such a thing, and will target that gratitude with any accuracy!). It's more a matter of what I enjoy doing. I'm liking planting these trees, my own little bit of terra-adjusting, feeling as if it is making a small patch of the planet a nicer place for people. I get more pleasure from that than I would say blasting round the countryside in a Porsche, or any more yachting, or spending large amounts of time in a jacuzzi with a spliff and champagne, or many other pleasurable activities people aspire to. 

I'm planting with warming in mind (40 degrees at that part of the Dordogne today, 20% humidity). I think Bill Gates is right (and you're right about the operating system. I'd love to switch to Linux, but need some MS dependent software for earning loot).

You're probably right about the short attention span for the good of future generations being self-centred, but in defence I was mainly thinking about my immediate family rather than the rest of the human race.

Of course forward planning is a mark of good governance, something visibly lacking in the UK at the moment.

There's an avenue of oaks lining the driveway of a big house near here, which I reckon (without any evidence ) was planted during the Napoleonic wars as a patriotic act, so that future generations would still be able to build ships.

I wonder if the planter, had he known that iron ships were a mere 50 yrs in the future, would have done it ? Impossible to know.

Keep on planting though....it's harmless, which these days is very important.

There's a patch of oak forest on Dartmoor which is a remnant of the forest that presumably covered the whole place till it was denuded to it's current bleakness. The trees are ancient and knarled and twisted and hanging with moss and lichen. Between the trees are big round boulders. It looks like a movie set, and seems spooky even on a bright sunny day. I know they wanted bent oaks for ships ribs, but I guess they gave up when they got to this patch of trees (Wistman's wood, if you pass this way). Mind the adders, which are all over the place.