Recent
events in the Arctic have confirmed that global warming is self-sustaining,
which along with accelerated extinction rates and other news has led
me to believe that my worst-case projections
of future global trends are likely correct. For several months I
attempted to create a global
survival plan that mapped out this and other threats to humanity
and what we might do to confront them, but the results of this year's
U.S. election, especially at the national level, appears to have
nullified even a remote possibility of enacting such a plan and
saving our species from extinction in the very near term.
It
is small consolation that I did what I thought I could to fight
against this outcome even as my research exposed that it is an
inevitable consequence of our nature. Loss
of hope had not squashed my lack of acceptance as I made a case
for delaying the outcome for as long as possible; but at least in
this country there was just too large a fraction of the population
that either didn't care, or wasn't even paying
attention to basic facts that belied their beliefs (including the
obvious clues about the evil they were about to unleash).
I
zeroed in on what I could personally control by enacting a plan to
cut back on my own contribution to the drive toward oblivion: paying
off credit, developing ways to scale back on my ecological footprint,
and exposing through writing how people in
a healthy world might live, as compared to our own dying world.
It remains a fact that although it may soon be more possible for
people to exceed limits of planetary habitability, we don't have
to act on it. More specifically: if they drill for more oil, we
can still avoid buying it. If more jobs become available in what I
think of as the planet-killing sector of the economy, we can refuse
to take those jobs. As protections are removed from our food, drugs,
and financial industry, then we are justified in not trusting them,
and seeking more reliable and responsible means to survive. I
understand that "we" are likely a very small part of the
world economy, but at least we can have clear consciences by
contributing less to its death.
In
a way I feel very sorry for the decent people who voted for the
acceleration of our global nightmare. Many just want better jobs, or
recovery of jobs they and their friends have lost. If we lived in the
world of a century ago, which presumably is when America was "great,"
the costs of stripping away restrictions to growth would have been
bearable, and the horrific outcome we now face would have been
perhaps decades in the future (giving them enough time to live out
their lives, even as the loss of future lives was ensured). I
personally know a few of them, and it's not lost on me that for most
of my life I had a lot in common with them.
My
father remains my personal hero, and he was one of the most
conservative people I've ever known. I don't know if we would be at
odds with each other if he were still alive; but I do know he would
have respected the results of scientific research, and perhaps would
have tried, as I did, to derive his own understanding of what's
happening. A child of the Great Depression, and a combatant in the
world war that challenged the great fascists of the last century who
are emulated by the new leaders of today, he would have at least
recognized that threat, and challenged me – as he often did – to
be "not just a man, but a hell of a man," and stand up for
what's right as I see it. The great war of this century may already
be lost; but those of us with honor and the vision to recognize
it must try to delay that outcome for as long as
possible.