This is a blog about hope. About the future and all the amazing things we have in store for us. About all of the transcendent technologies and scintillating science that will shape our world in the years to come.
But I’m afraid that it’s getting harder and harder to put on a brave face and continue to make hyperbolic claims of greatness night after night. Lately doubt has creeped in. Sadness too. Will I even be around to see the future? Will any of us?
As Master Oogway puts it in Kung Fu Panda, “Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.” But just how many gifts do we have left? Will anyone even be around to open them?
In other words: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. The Apocalypse is upon us. “Nuclear winter” becoming a year round occurrence. Far sooner than anyone wanted to admit.
In fact, it had been suggested that we had about 12 years left before the world went to shit. That’s why COVID-19 was especially so devastating. On top of everything else we’ve had to deal with we also have to come to terms with the fact that we’ve lost at least one, and maybe two or three, of those 12 years dealing with this godforsaken virus. That’s invaluable time that we’ll never get back. But to make matters worse it appears as though we didn’t really have 12 years left. Barely even 24 months. The world has gone to shit a lot quicker than anyone expected. Exponential destruction will do that, events spiraling out of control at a rate that we can never keep up with.
The proof is all around us. If you don’t believe me just look at this map.
The entire West Coast of the United States is on fire with hazardous air quality readings nearly stretching from Canada to Mexico. This is insane. Except it’s not. It’s the new normal. Not just yet another 2020 calamity during the worst year ever. Rather, this is years in the making. The fact that it’s happening now, during a pandemic, during social unrest, is just a coincidence. Things aren’t going to magically get better when the calendar flips to January. They’re going to get worse. Much, much worse. Year after year. Unless we do something about it.
And if we don’t? Well, the Earth is likely to enter into a “Hot House” state, a new era that hasn’t been seen on this planet in over 50 million years. That certainly doesn’t seem to bode well for our chances of survival.
According to Live Science:
“About 3 million years ago, Earth entered an icehouse phase, driven by waxing and waning ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere. Now, human greenhouse gas emissions are causing temperatures to rise to an extent not seen in tens of millions of years. This rise is well beyond the natural variations triggered by Earth’s changing orbit, the researchers concluded. And if current greenhouse emissions hold steady, the climate could skyrocket back to levels not seen since the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The transition from icehouse to hothouse won’t take millions of years, Zachos said — it will take hundreds.”
So, I beg you, urge you, plead with you….please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top….start doing everything in your power to reverse this trend. Vote out Donald Trump in November. Talk to your friends and family about the importance of valuing science over Climate Change denial. Do your part, no matter how small, to reduce your carbon footprint. While at the same time stopping to smell the roses. Spend more time outside while you still can. Savor every moment that you have left. Because there’s going to be a time, someday soon, where we can’t go outside at all. Where we have to wear masks 24/7, not because of a virus, but because of poor air quality.
“It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” but it doesn’t have to be. Not yet. And not forever. We can still turn things around. It may not be true but I choose to believe it. This is a blog about hope after all.
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