The funny thing here is that I’m on your side. I agree that Bryce should have been allowed to give his original speech and not have to sneak it past the school. I couldn’t agree more that “our” generation screwed up the planet, with our heedless attitude toward the environmental impact of our actions. I think a large part of that responsibility is corporate, smoothed over by decades of benign assurances that there was no problem with things like toxic waste dumping, but nonetheless, it happened on our watch, and there were warnings along the way. “Silent Spring” comes to mind.

Truth is, too many people have been screwing up the planet and the ecosystem for hundreds of years. The Industrial Revolution just put the consequences of our behavior into overdrive.

I have great sympathy for the generation that has to figure out how to turn things around and make the planet sustainable. The fact they face opposition at every turn from too many political decision-makers is tragic, and we can only hope that after you and I are gone, rational voices will carry the day. Given human history, that’s not a lock.

I would humbly suggest, however, that not all members of the younger generation have that awareness. I would suggest some of them are self-centered, entitled and largely oblivious to the issues of the world. As some percentage of kids have been in all generations, including ours. If you don’t think that’s true, well, we will just have to agree to disagree.

And I’ll try one more time on institutional responsibility. If an institution doesn’t know what someone is going to saying under that institution’s umbrella, then it could be anything. It could be the Gettysburg Address or it could be something from “Triumph of the Will.” Since the institution is going to have some measure of responsibility for the content — legal, moral, whatever — I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the institution to know.

If you put yourself in the position of the institution and still don’t think that’s true, well, then, we disagree on that part as well. We’ll have to be content with agreeing elsewhere.