So when I think of that, I wonder what our grandchildren and our great grandchildren, when they ask themselves that question, I wonder how they will answer.

And if we're lucky, we can change the way our great grandchildren will answer Benki's question.

The world is expecting us to make poverty history, to turn poverty into something our great grandchildren will read about, but not really understand.

Likewise, if we are stingy today toward the world s poor, we should be lavish toward our descendents.

And by tacitly, all of us send our kids, or grandchildren, or nieces, or nephews, to school and tell them to learn, you know, learn what's in those schools.

What I try to do day after day is to conduct myself in a way that means I can hopefully leave future generations a world less worse than the one we received from our parents ... and needless to say, it is not an easy task these days.

What do we owe to our great great great grandchildren? What actions are we obligated to take now in order to diminish the risks to our descendants and our planet from the increasing likelihood of global warming and climate change?

And what we can do with our biology is going to shape our future and that of our children and that of their children whether we gain control over aging, whether we learn to protect ourselves from Alzheimer's, and heart disease, and cancer.

And while, today, we can practically guarantee that yesterday's packaging is going to be here in 10,000 years, what I want to guarantee is that in 10,000 years, our descendants, our children's children, will be living happily and in harmony with a healthy Earth.

In short, if the world s rich are stingy today toward our much richer descendants, and if we want to leave our environmental mess to them to deal with, we should be lavish toward the world s poor.