What’s Old Is New

To continue our tribute to Earth Day 2008, we just wanted to point out how it seems that everything that’s old is new again.  Back in the late 1980s, the media’s message about the world was all about causes that seem to have become popular again.  A call to action always included a verb followed by a noun:

• “Save the Planet”
• “Free Tibet”
• “Save the Whales”
• “End Hunger in Africa”
• “End our Dependence on Oil”

Today, it seems that nearly all of these issues are in the news again.

Here are some classic pieces of media from the late 80s.

Is it any surprise these issues still exist today?  Has the media just refocused our attention to it, and we’ll forget all about it in a year?  We can make incremental goals while our attention is focused… I think the whales are no longer in such danger as they once were… the last time we tried saving the planet we eliminated flourocarbons and saved the ozone layer… we now offer more aid to Africa than ever before (which created other problems)… and we didn’t really do much about Tibet.

If we can focus our attention on these important issues for more than just a soundbite at a time, then we can maybe get some real work done!