Global warming and the sixth extinction seems to be the greatest threat on a scale seen only so far back in history that it stretches our human, limited ability to comprehend it. Scientists and experts give us no doubt accurate information too vast to embrace and terror makes those of us who tend towards a historical perspective retreat into a more recent past looking for solutions. Be kind. Conserve energy. Stop polluting. Save whales and elephants. But in a now not too distant future the demise of everything as we know it (especially since it looks like WE may be one of the species that vanishes because of the way we have thoughtlessly precipitated environmental change in pursuit of “progress”) makes both tech/scientific and historical perspectives seem sadly feeble, at least to the educated layperson. At this point the only hope for a thoughtful individual seems to be in a kind of Deus Ex Machina that drops from the sky to save us, quite irrational at best. The fundamentalists become easier to comprehend even if we can’t believe what they suggest. Retreat into faith feels just like that, a retreat for the doomed here on earth. I want to believe this is merely a tidal wave coming and that history will still be there for us when, somehow, we survive it. History seems to suggest we might be, if we don’t look back too far and the inevitable apocalypse is not complete. It’s harder to know how we will be able to comport ourselves afterwards, should this be the case.
Global warming and the sixth extinction seems to be the greatest threat on a scale seen only so far back in history that it stretches our human, limited ability to comprehend it. Scientists and experts give us no doubt accurate information too vast to embrace and terror makes those of us who tend towards a historical perspective retreat into a more recent past looking for solutions. Be kind. Conserve energy. Stop polluting. Save whales and elephants. But in a now not too distant future the demise of everything as we know it (especially since it looks like WE may be one of the species that vanishes because of the way we have thoughtlessly precipitated environmental change in pursuit of “progress”) makes both tech/scientific and historical perspectives seem sadly feeble, at least to the educated layperson. At this point the only hope for a thoughtful individual seems to be in a kind of Deus Ex Machina that drops from the sky to save us, quite irrational at best. The fundamentalists become easier to comprehend even if we can’t believe what they suggest. Retreat into faith feels just like that, a retreat for the doomed here on earth. I want to believe this is merely a tidal wave coming and that history will still be there for us when, somehow, we survive it. History seems to suggest we might be, if we don’t look back too far and the inevitable apocalypse is not complete. It’s harder to know how we will be able to comport ourselves afterwards, should this be the case.