It is hard not to think about the end of days with all that is going on. Just over a year ago, in the United States, there was an attempted coup. Just over a month ago, something similar happened here in Canada, in the guise of a protest in the capital. And then, hot on the heels, Russia invades Ukraine. Couple all this with a global pandemic and also the climate change crisis, both which have taken a back seat to these various more exciting events. It is like the world is out to get the human race, in some sense.
I have to acknowledge here that several of the things I’ve raised as being significant events are really only significant to people in my region of the world. The events of the United States and Canada are of particular interest to citizens of the United States and Canada, and not necessarily to others in the world. If an insurrection occurs in the Western countries, does anyone in China really worry about it? I truly cannot say; I do not live in those areas, nor do I know what those citizens think about. So, it might be more accurate to suggest that these thoughts that I am having are particular to my situation.
That in mind, it seems to me that the occurrences that ought to be getting the greatest amount of attention are those which truly affect the greatest number of humans. In other words, a global pandemic and the climate change crisis. Of those, the pandemic is not necessarily an extinction level event. Even if the virus happened to kill people with an efficiency unheard of, there would still be those who were resistant and even immune to its direct effects. And this particular virus seems to be peaking at around 5 to 10% at most. So a lot of people can and will die as a result of this disease, but far, far from eliminating the entire human species.
This leaves the climate change crisis. Here is an ongoing event that I personally have been aware of since my childhood in the mid 1980s. An early “book report” I did was on the hole in the ozone layer of the Earth, a topic that gets very little attention presently. Climate change affects every single living creature on this planet, not simply the humans. Climate change has been slowly causing catastrophic events to occur with increasing frequency over the past 20 years, at minimum. However, climate change doesn’t affect us all equally or directly. Climate change is the cause of strange and severe weather patterns and other occurrences.
In other words, like the wind, no one sees climate change itself, only the effects it has on the world around us. Do we doubt there is a wind because we cannot see it? It would be lunacy to suggest the wind does not exist; what else is causing all those trees to swing around so violently…
Despite the severity of the climate change crisis (or whatever other name one wishes to give to this ongoing event), it repeatedly gets a back seat to other “more pressing” concerns. It seems it is better to focus on something that might kill a few of us now, than something that will kill all of us later. After all, the thing killing some of us now is doing so right now, and we have barely any time to react. The thing killing us later is doing so later, so we still have time to do something about it, right?
Unfortunately, this is not how this particular event works. As I learned about the ozone layer issue, those choices we make today will manifest in changes to our world in the years to come. A reduction in chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) use today will be reflected in a reduced concentration of CFCs in the upper atmosphere years later. In other words, the choices we make today will not take effect for a while. When looking at climate change in general, the scales of time reflected in the cause/effect relationship are much, much greater.
It is likely too late to “fix” anything at this point. We are seeing the increasingly severe weather patterns presently, and still there are those in power who insist on no budging, claiming that climate change is simply a hoax. Denying the evidence that literally pounds them in their faces. Those who are in the position to possibly do something have instead decided to start wars with neighboring states and focus on economic solutions to the worlds problems.
As a species, we are under the delusion that if we can just do a little more, we can alleviate the situation. The fact is, the answer we need to follow is that we need to do less. We need to curb our activities. We need to reduce the things we do, including reducing the number of children we bring into this world. There are already far too many humans on this planet, and their increased activities simply further perpetuate the problems. The answer is less, not more. We need to change our collective culture to be about doing less.
Unfortunately, those who may heed my warning and attempt the strategy I propose will not survive. Those who have chosen the option to purposefully handicap themselves when faced against those who choose not to handicap themselves. Those who decide that climate change is a hoax, or perhaps they do believe but do not wish to allow it to unfocus them from “more important matters,” will very easily overcome those who believe. This isn’t really all that complicated an equation to see.
What this all distills down to is the very real fact that those who wish to attempt to rectify the situation will always be overwhelmed by those who simply don’t care. In the end, those who wish to sacrifice all of us for their petty interests will always win against those who try to make their impact less in an attempt to “save the world.” And so, unfortunately, as math simply does not lie, in the end, the human race is simply on a slow road to its own demise. And then I have to ask myself, as I’m sure so many already do, whether it is even worth bothering. Why chose to limit myself in a world where no one else seems to be limiting themselves. The end result isn’t going to change.