I was recently in a discussion about apocalyptic events and, as is the vogue, global warming was brought up.
Global warming is one of those sensitive subjects that makes people jump into their cars and drive to London to attend a multi-media demonstration. Also it appears increasingly more obvious that a person’s intelligence is judged on their attitude towards global warming (at least this will, hopefully, stop people banging on about their IQs, a test that was invented to show people are not stupid, just some need more help than others), so, anyway, me being pretty dumb (but not remotely pretty) wondered how this was an apocalyptic event given the history of climate changes (five great extinction events so far) with ice ages and so forth. It was quickly pointed out to me that I did not understand science and that this was worse than the other events. I smiled and nodded whilst inside I banged my head against the wall.
So, being as The Kinks said, a Dedicated Follower of Fashion, I decided to talk about GW (how hip am I?! O yeah, me and GW go waaaaay back…) here.
Possibly, the greatest cataclysmic event in terms of the environment happened some 65 (.5 to be precise) million years ago when some dinosaur scientists speculated about the impact (tee hee) of that meteor in the sky. It turns out that the impact (tee hee) was pretty bad for the dinosaurs but the cowardly furry mammals hid in the ground and emerged later when the dust had, literally, settled with a strange notion that iPhones were the height of evolution.
The difference between that event and the current event is that we are here (hello! *waves*). We view these events through the prism of the I (tee hee, once more) and with all prisms the image is distorted.
If we fell off of a mountain into a river the air would be broken by our scream, the surface would be broken by our impact but then we would be eaten as we decompose and vanish from thought thanks to the great ambivalence and indifference of nature. We, and I stress this, we all are not important. We live, we die, we become extinct. That is the way of nature and this desperate search for some greater meaning for our very (personal) existence is absurd- life has no meaning so the meaning of life is to find meaning, not to make one’s self into a God (these times matter because I am alive).
I get accused of being a nihilist and one person even stated that it would be horrible to be in a relationship with me given my nihilism. Here we have a case of people using words that they do not understand, thinking that their opinion is gospel (ironically whilst shouting that there is no God). The truth is, as far as truth can be known, we exist within space and time and this is our space and time and what is important is to try to do the best for the world and all those in it. And as for global warming, yes it is real, yes we can try to soften the impact (wait for it…) but it is hard for me to believe that humans are most catastrophic than a meteor (there we go…) but just to be on the safe side the next time I, am forced to, watch Deep Impact I am going to be rooting for the meteor.
Remember what it says in Jurassic Park (anyone else bothered that the symbol for the film is the Tyrannosaurus Rex which was from the Cretaceous period?) life finds a way and I am sure it will continue to do so long after we are gone.
‘till next time!
thegreaterfool2016 