So I stupidly picked up a book on climate change and the Maritimes at the library. It's not always a good idea to do something that means all your dreams are going to go up in smoke (or carbon dioxide as it were). While I know that nothing is really certain with climate change and that any book is merely an educated guess at what might happen, I recognize that there is a reasonably good idea of what is coming.
The book presented two scenarios with basically humans surviving in one and going extinct in the other. And this basic description ignores the millions of other beautiful species that will die out on this planet. It's a pretty grim read:
"One Thousand Years From Now (3008)
The ecosystem has collapsed. People are extinct along with their much vaunted civilization and 95 percent of all species have died out. The average global temperature is an unbelievable 40 degrees Celcius. The oceans are effervescing CO2, methane and hydrogen sulfide. No ice is to be found anywhere on Earth, other than on the peaks of a few very high mountains.
The CO2 levels are at 5,000 parts per million (now they are about 350 parts per million).
The ocean levels are 120 metres higher than they are today.
The Earth's hyperwarmth will last for an estimated one million years, before the global cycles of ice ages return. This time the Earth will be a lesser place. It will take three to five million years for the niches to begin to be occupied again and new species to populate the land, air and sea."
The only good news in this scenario is that life will survive in some way (hopefully). But humans will have destroyed the earth for millions of years. Clearly climate change, caused by us, is the worst thing we could ever do to the Earth.
This was pretty hard to read. You know, all I want to do is live the kind of life that will allow my descendants and other species to live for as long as possible. I don't want things given to me by the state, I just want friends and family. I don't want to own any big machines or watch television all the time. I'd be happier on my two feet walking toward a brilliant pink sunset. What more do we need? Even if we did need more, it's not worth the cost.
So I really need to think about what I can do to bring down civilization. I was hoping that it was going to crash on its own and I'd be a museum fremen but sadly it's hanging on. This recession is the joke of the century, nothing is changing as I learn when I walk into any store packed with shoppers. Swine flu isn't killing enough of us and bird flu is missing in action. Maybe I could travel to Mexico and ride the subway and hope that I become the host for a mutated form of H1N1, the one that will kill millions of humans. C'mon Earth, God, whatever you are. Act. We aren't worthy. We've got to go. Maybe leave some of us in a "primitive" state somewhere but 6 billion is 6 billion too many.
Oh yeah, I didn't even mention the real problem that I had clarified for me by the book: runaway climate change. This is what will destroy humans and the Earth with them. At some point, the levels of greenhouse gases will be so high that they positively feedback on one another driving warming to the levels described above. So temperatures rise forcing CO2 out of the oceans and warming them to the point where methane stored deep below the ocean and in permafrost is released which in term causes more warming which releases more greenhouse gases. And if we reach this point, and judging by my fellow shoppers we are, then it's over, there's really nothing that you or I or Barack Obama can do to save 95% of all species, us included.
Maybe I'll write a letter to Stephen Harper. Or vote in Nova Scotia's election for the provincial political party that is calling for a smaller population and less consumption of resources. Or maybe I'll turn off my lights for one day a year. Or buy a new more fuel efficient car and scrap my old one. Or maybe I'll get a job in the massive political/business bureaucracy that is causing these greenhouse gas emissions and change it from within.
Not many real choices left. At least we'll have a few more decades of fun, right?
(I guess this was a little taste of Mentat Musings for old time's sake)
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Good to know that a bit of the Mentat rage is still kicking around. My bureaucratic optimism will probably make you barf but I'll comment anyways so you know I'm still with you.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised to hear that after all you've accomplished in this short time in Cape Breton that you're still not satisfied with the role you're playing.
I think you're serving up tonnes of inspiration, though I can appreciate it might be difficult for an engaged person like yourself to feel disengaged from the direct target that was so visible in urban centres.
But I would caution that it's going to take time to realign a few hundred years of momentum... so dig in for the long-term Thomas and keep building the kinds of changes you wish to see.
Re-establishing your goal to accelerate the collapse of civilization will detract from the great things you're already doing and bring you no closer to the satisfaction you seek. You're too little to bring down civilization but you're just big enough to help right its course.
At the least, give it until Copenhagen to judge whether a sustainable future can be forged.