Where goes the parade?

We all know the truth of the old saying that predictions are hard to make, especially about the future. But it does seem to me that the foreseeable future, what ever that means or how long it takes, will be filled with massive uncertainty and disruption.
 From where I sit, and I suspect the few people to read twitters on Alberni.ca sit, or rather sleep, we are in pretty comfortable cabins in the bowels of the good ship earth. Very occasionally getting births closer to a porthole on the sunny side when we go to PV or some such. Meanwhile we get to spend time in a nice, peaceful, non stressful part of the world with a high degree of material comfort and reasonably cheap living. For most of us, our kids, generally on some what lower decks, might not have quite so rosy a view.
Sure, from time to time what are mostly just statistics – crimes, cancer rates, layoffs and so on, hit close to home and become a tragedy, but to a remarkable extent the storms tops sides, to extend the ship analogy, while seen on TV do not impact us at all. Syria, being turned to rubble and refugees by fighters and ideologies we cannot be bothered to demystify, should bother us, but generally it does not. Troubles in Africa – too big and too far away. What does it matter to us that the Swiss decouple from the Euro? Unlike many Hungarian businesses and homeowners, our loans are not denominated in Swiss francs – imagine taking that sort of bath overnight, especially after listening to the reassuring lies of central bankers. Youth in France and Greece and Spain with no chance of finding work and meaning ... we could all go on and on with our own litany of pet storm and major issue examples, and their potential for long term harm. Obviously there are many of them.
 No, we are generally so immune from these day to day big picture global issues as to be lulled into a pretty comfortable sleep. Things never seem to unfold quite as quickly as the doomsayers tell us they will. Obviously to some extent we are the frogs in the pot. That 1% of the worlds population own 50% of the wealth may offend, but does not make me lose sleep. I have friends who deny climate change and to some extent they are right. I know I will be dead by 2035 and the magnitude of the changes on our day to day lives due to climate is very difficult to predict – yes the sea levels will be a bit higher and weather patterns more erratic I suspect. My guess is that there will be no sockeye in the Stamp system, the bounty of the Nth Pacific will be greatly reduced, as will the scope and breadth of our expectations. We will all be greatly diminished by these things, but still here.
 One interesting aspect of all this has been the profound inability of the baby boom generation, born prior to say 1965, to throw up any really first class leaders and perhaps even thinkers. Maybe the new realities of politics, as it is played at least in the powerful countries in the developed world, makes some Churchill (god forbid) figure impossible to elect. Yes I know that there is nothing in it for them in a 4 year cycle to be doing anything more than yakking about long term issues, we get that. But sooner or later surely the accumulated 'short terms' will add up to something that requires leadership. Or will we citizens, aware of the multi-generational and ethical aspects of many of these big issues, simply have to come together in some new politics and lead the parade?