Climate Change and the Arts - Gary Snyder

For me this poem encapsulates the ambiguity of the times we live in. No one alive today can predict what the world will be like in the 22nd century (imagine someone from the 19th century trying to predict the events of the 20th!) This is an area where intuition and emotional response can tell us as much as the intellect.
May we all learn to... well, I won't spoil the last three lines of the poem.

FOR THE CHILDREN

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

--Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder (b. May 1930) was an American Beat poet,  Zen practitioner, environmentalist and
general free spirit. Google him.