Boomers lived through the easiest, most rewarding period of American history and immediately and repeatedly ensured that no cohort following them would ever have the same again.

As a group, they are the weakest, most selfish, and least adaptable generation in modern history.

remembered for thousands of years.

Remembered by whom? Big assumption there...

We'll now begin our unit on "the time the people who wanted to end the world got control of the world, and how that all happened in spite of them not even being fucking subtle about it."

It's very interesting that the nukes dropped will be mentioned, but the real death toll of the century was plain simple greed and selfishness. Those two working together have and will kill countless more in the upcoming century

But how will we get more money to the shareholders if we stop pushing humanity towards extinction!?

Are those generations really worse than those before it? Yes the environmental destruction is unparalleled but so were also the tools that enable that. In the Stone Age people could not have even come close to doing what we are doing right now to the environment even if they wanted too.

The term the tragedy of the commons originally referred to English cattle herders letting their cows overgraze public land because if they don't overgraze it some other herders would do it instead. Stories like this are everywhere in history. The Vikings cut down every single tree in Iceland and the Faroe islands when they arrived with no care for the environmental whatsoever.

Whaling, the clubbing of seals, the extinction of the dodo. There are countless examples. And if we are talking pure human to human cruelty, no war in the 20th century comes close to what the mongols did.

The people of the 20th century were not more cruel or selfish than previous ones. They were simply the first ones given the tools and ability to pollute the whole earth.

we're really just starting to feel the ramifications of the industrial age, we will not be the villains because at least we did try to do something. the robber barons are the true villains in this. they created annd exasperated the problem while creating the race to riches that continues with the oil industry ignoring the problems they create

the early years of just pumping coal exhaust from factories, acid rain from uncontrolled diesel fuel burning and the nuclear waste buildup will compound to create a truly ugly mess.

The Handford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is 586 square miles that is fucked for thousands of years. even if we find a clean way to power the world. It will keep polluting the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean for much of this time and the Federal Government keeps cutting funding for the cleanup.

in my opinion, the whole world needs to help South Americans restore the Amazon and we in North America need to develop a solution to the Pine Beetle, or start planting invasive trees to take over when they destroy all the pine forests. It should be every humans roll to plant a tree once a year. If we cared more about plant life, we'd make a huge impact now

We also need to find leaders who will embrace wind and solar as our future and tax the fuck out of carbon based energy

we can find ways to slow and possibly even reverse this process but unfortunately the current powers that be don't give a fuck

when the oceans start consuming the big coastal cities, only then will it become a priority

Now our advertisement overlords won't be pleased.

I’m also like this. The one stupid annoying detail just getting bigger and bigger on the screen and everything else fading away.

We found out ages ago, told everyone, and no-one did anything

People who don't like to think or be told they're wrong are convinced their stupidity is equal or greater than facts and logic.

I think thats part of the joke, they know enough to confirm it.

Because exactly those things you describe (as well as some other factors/events) were reckless, violent experimenting (ideological, military, technological). And now we're finding out. Like I'm not sure if you're aware but the world changed ridiculously fast during the 1900s and now the early 2000s compared to the rest of history.

easy, google

wet bulb temps not supportive of human life

everything else short of the cold war nuke apoc is lol and at least that had the option of not happening

we’re already in a positive feedback loop

America invented income tax in that century to tax the rich, before that it didn't exist. Low end was taxed little, anything over $500k was given to the country. Now it robs everyone but the rich. Also, for some reason they structured it so citizen->country->state rather than citizen->state->country (I believe the EU is structured in the latter) yet nobody has questioned this terrible error. An American citizen can't skip paying Federal taxes, as they are imprisoned. Even though debtors prisons America purports to not have. Yet when their own Federal government destroys their state via many means, they can't do anything about it as an individual.

America sat around while Nazis and their prequel happened, thought about doing it. Set up a honeypot for Japan to attack Hawaii, then "saved" the world, made movies about it for decades. The hero that did nothing until we found it convenient.

America pushed nuclear power so hard as it would revolutionize everything...in the 1950s era. We wouldn't have to be so desperate for "efficiency" if inefficient processes like resistive heat, electrolysis, and other things to generate things we need were throwaway bonuses. Power bills would be a thing of the past, every energy bill would be, natural gas, fracking, etc. would be unnecessary. Nuclear power would be safer than it already now is. They inflated the bad incidents like 3 mile island, and enlisted the Simpsons to poison a generation. (Hopefully people pick up that the Simpsons bit was a joke, ish.) Even ozone-destroying chemicals (theoretically) could have been reduced because the refrigerants used in every heating or cooling pump could have just been Peltier devices instead of a chemical. At scale, massively inefficient. Unlimited power? Why not?

America liked oil like it was crack and decided that was the better choice. We needed to fund airlines and cars. Backed by taxpayer-funded airports and roads. Move over trains, we have a bigger way to delete your money.

So, tl;dr, omitting a lot of details that could span a week of typing, we in the FO part now dawg.