When I grew up, old people were the voice of sanity and wisdom. Young people were all spit and vinegar, but it was the old folks that had learned through hard won experience that things typically were not as bad as they seemed and that things had a way of working out. But these days who knows. Despite the fact that Israel is doing everything in their power to spare “civilians” (I still say that is a questionable designation in this war) as they invade Rafah, Octogenarian Joe Biden has betrayed them like Littlefinger betrayed pretty much everyone he dealt with in Game of Thrones. And now comes the story of two octogenarians attacking an original copy of Magna Carte to draw attention their cause which is apparently to stop the use of fossil fuels. No longer are we dealing with “young skulls full of mush” (nod to Rush) gluing themselves to some artwork in some European museum, nope, now it’s the old folks attacking the very roots of democracy. And so, the so-called “wisdom of age” is no longer apparent.

At first blush the world has become a very complicated place and Aurthur C. Clarke’s maxim, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” seems applicable. And so it is easy to conjure visions of global devastation as civilization grows increasingly technological. This hypothesis is supported by this phenomenon being among the young, that are as yet not fully trained, and the elderly that are growing confused in the later years. (When I was young you usually died before this old age confusion took hold.) But that leaves open the question of who is doing the conjuring and to what end?

Also at play is the very impatient desire in the young to “make a difference,” and older people that look back on a life see a failure to do so. But that strikes me as a very macroscopic view of “making a difference,” marking a complete loss of perspective. Big things in this world are composed of a thousands and millions of little things. No one, not even POTUS can really “make a difference” on that level. Think about it. The next president comes along and reverses the policy. People don’t buy into the policy and it just goes nowhere. Every ounce of fossil fuel we do not use, China and India greedily consumes. No one can actually “make a difference” on this level.

And so, the young and the old are conned, by someone to some unknown end, into pulling stunts that accomplish little but generate a few headlines. There is no wisdom there. It is not expected in the young, and no longer apparent in the old. Wisdom is a shield against being conned and the insight to know what is productive and what is not. Where has wisdom gone?

It has become cliché to point out that the current environmental movement is religious in nature. The cynical then use that fact to support their contention that religion is simply a useful tool for the manipulation of the simple. And yet, that assertion is belied by the fact that the climate change religion is born of and evangelized by the most learned among us. And it is the so-called “simple” that are not buying into the climate change religion. While the university student may move around campus on their battery driven scooter and present themselves in a sanctimonious fashion, the did-not-graduate high school farmer is in his V-8 pick-up moving hay and livestock around. The simple are not buying it.

Maybe, just maybe, there are true religions and not true religions. Because it strikes me that this whole climate change religion that has no wisdom is filling a void that has been created by the shoving aside of the religion that says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” I don’t think wisdom is dead, I just think it is lost, and not all that hard to find again – we just need to look in the right place.

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