that danger may elicit. One way to do that is to try to control the external danger that generates the fear; the other is to control our internal fear. The classic responses of virtually all animals to an external danger are the same: to fight, take flight or freeze. The appropriate response depends on the circumstances. If you believe you can better your opponent, you will stay and fight. If you cannot, and you are swift or clever, you will flee by running away. And if all else fails, you may freeze and hope the danger goes away. It is clear that the changes in our


global environments described by mod- ern science pose real dangers both to us as humans and to the natural systems of which we are a part. Which of these three responses would be reasonable given that global situation? Clearly, freezing is out of the question, yet many politicians and decision makers within the global com- munity seem to want to do nothing about the various crises facing us, preferring instead the status quo. The status quo is also supported by ‘deniers.’ There are ‘deniers' for all sorts of issues — climate change, carcinogens, acid rain, clear-cut logging and so on — and all make a pitch for freezing in the status quo. Their modus operandi is, first, to deny that there is a problem at all, then downplay its severity or predict economic ruin if it is addressed, and then propose relying on human ingenuity and technological progress to solve the problem, all the while exploiting scien- tific uncertainty, using decontextualized scientific reporting and flawed studies by non-scholars or pseudo-scientists, and insulting those scientists and politicians who are pushing for change. (Moser & Dilling, 2004) Freezing might be a typical societal first response to


crisis, but we can freeze individually, too, feeling that the problems we face are too great. When we do look at the large-scale problems in front of us, we can end up feeling helpless, and we can feel hopeless in the face of the situation. Yet the option to freeze, cannot be the message for our youth, nor can we teach a response of hopelessness and helplessness. Fleeing is a second response to danger. In our current


state of economic uncertainty, the Canadian government’s response of “economic stimulus packages” seems to be a fleeing from the real issues. Governments are acting as if simply throwing money towards more of the same — con- tinuing to support our outmoded and destructive 19th and 20th- century industries and institutions — will surely make things better. Marshall McLuhan (1967), the great Canadian media theorist, referred to this kind of thinking as moving into the future with our eyes firmly planted on the past:


When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the fla- vors of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future…. Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors.


We cannot recommend this kind of


response to danger to our youth either. We cannot flee backwards into an unsustainable past and expect that doing more of the same will be an adequate response to the challenges of tomorrow. The only response that looks straight


at the danger and confronts it in an active manner is fighting. Fighting takes skill, knowledge, strength and, above all, courage. It can also take collaboration, coordination, conversation and compromise to achieve one’s ends. If we are going to fight, it must be against the greatest opponent that all profound revolutions are fought against: our present-day understandings and actions, our assumptions and presuppositions. The great economist John Maynard Keynes wrote “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds” (Keynes, 1935).


We have to force our eyes away from the rearview mirror and look clearly out through the front window. Our form of fighting has to involve consciously planned


responses to danger and our resulting fear, based on our best knowledge and understanding. Means do influence ends, and the means of our fight will have impacts on the ends achieved. If we are to be successful, our response to the dangers of the future will have to involve resistance to the pressures and systems that force us to adopt unsustainable means of operating. To tell youth that they should freeze in the status quo is of no use. And in truth, where can we flee to?


Facing our fear and the future


So how do we talk to youth about the future? If Whitehead is correct and it is the business of the future to be dangerous, and the science of our times tells us that the future is dan- gerous, we need to talk about that. And the truth is that the recent future has always been dangerous, especially since the rise of modern science. As Whitehead says, each generation faces its own dangers and needs skills both to disclose and to avert evils. Tolkein put into Gandalf mouth the words about having to decide what to do with the time given to us; one must work towards the fulfillment of a vision, but realize that it’s fulfillment may be a long time in coming. But what are the skills and attitudes we need? From his


prison cell, the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, later executed by the Nazis for his role in a plot to murder Hitler, wrote in 1944, “We have spent too much time thinking, supposing that if only we weigh every possibility in advance, everything will somehow happen automatically. We have learnt a bit too late in the day that action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility” (Bonhoeffer & Gruchy, 1991, p. 295). A readiness for responsibility is clearly a key for the skill that we need, youth and elder alike. We also need the skills of effective action in a variety of


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