WHY WON’T WE DO ANYTHING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?
We are looking at the end of all our dreams, destinies, aspirations. All our art, architecture, sculptors, paintings, writings, musics. The end of our families, our grandchildren, our friends, and neighbors.
How many years will it take for humans to be erased after a climate disaster wipes us out?
Geologists would say 2 million years. Maybe a little longer. But even 10 million years is a snap of the fingers in geological time.
10 million years should see all remnants of human occupation turned to dust, crushed far below the surface of the planet.
Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.
- John Steinbeck, East of Eden
We live with this every day of course, a vulnerable planet hurtling unprotected through the universe at 22,000 mph. But it’s what we are doing to ourselves that is most disturbing.
Our wilingness to gamble with our water, our air. It’s almost like we’re begging for our world to be a Mad Max movie. It can drive you crazy when you look around and realize to a large number of humans, that looks like fun.
No taxes!
No work!
Just boys in the woods killing things. Of course, no woods either.
Think about it. How many zombie stories have we made? Is it possible a savage zombie-like world where survival of the fittest is a daily challenge is in fact a human aspiration? Why wouldn’t it be? We certainly box office boffo everything from Walking Dead to Armageddon.
A nice, tidy civilization is boring. It’s also the exception. Most of what you’d expect in our daily discourse has only been in play since the 18th century. None of it is business as usual as far as human behavior is concerned.
Take the current state of play in American politics. MAGA is the human norm, not liberal ideals of rule of law. Most of human history has been tribal and bloody. We yearn for those good old days of plague and plunder. Looking at our stories,It's pretty clear.
There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't. - Stephen King, The Stand
Yesterday, I read a plan for the first 100 days of the next Republican presidency. The plans calls for the total dismantling of all our environmental regulations. Why would THAT be the plan? To hasten our demise? What’s the goal?
According to a growing sheet of data we’re well past the tipping point now. Science is beginning to indicate ocean currents could radically shift in 2025. Honestly, we have no clue what that means.
All we know is the world could become a different place in a couple of years. Vast tracts of it uninhabitable. Even as I write, parts of the United States are only bearable because of energy-crunching HVAC systems. Without air conditioning things are going to get dicey fast for millions of Americans.
Texas is already cracking under the pressure of a climate-challenged and antiquated energy grid. Florida is obsessing about drag queens, while coral reefs are boiling.
In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho wrote it’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting. What about the possibility of our nightmares coming true? How much is that curiosity? Or is it desire?
We refused to build a sustainable world. I mean that was a choice. Rather than do the work, we munch popcorn and watch yet another disaster flick.
Is the apocalypse of human existence actually our dream world? Is that because it looks like fun, or our just desserts for being sinners? Guilt is a major motivation for human behavior. Is our refusal to do anything about the doom of the human race simply because we believe we deserve it?