“Many crucial issues need to be handled globally, and involve long-term planning. In contrast, the governmental focus is on the short-term and the national or local. Moreover, the actions of large corporations are less and less easy to regulate by any government.
In tackling climate change, for instance, we are asked to make short-term sacrifices for the benefit of people in remote parts of the world 50 years (or more) into the future — to pay an insurance premium now, as it were, to reduce the probability of a worst-case climatic disaster during the lifetime of a child born today. Politicians are influenced by the press and by their inboxes. So these actions will slip down the agenda unless there’s public pressure. Governments will only prioritize these actions if pressured by a popular crusade. But that’s how all big social changes happen: abolition of slavery, black power, gay rights, etc.”. - excerpt from interview with Martin Rees, astrophysicist
What separates children from adults, and humans from non-human primates, is the ability to think about time over long-term. That includes predictions, actions, consequences, and planning. Unfortunately, the tendency is to think short-term and even disregard long-term. I call it the “Me Now” mentality. Most profit-driven interests are short-term, and governmental actions have been following suit.
However, most successful businesses are those that plan for the long-term, while also considering short-term. Most financial planners, historians, and ecologists are trained to think in terms of many timelines: past, present and future. But our culture and society tend to nurture short-term goals and ignore or deny long-term predictions and consequences. We are experiencing the effects of that now; especially in the current economic and political arenas.
It’s time to change that. We are not children, and we are not monkey or apes.
Or, are we?
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