Maybe we should just admit we're a race of fatalists. A final kiss, a shrug, a sigh to indicate it was fun while it lasted, then a leap into the great void. Let's just say goodbye right now.
The UN-funded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--catchy name--issued a report yesterday basically saying that we're frying the planet and we really, really ought to think about stopping. The panels is made up of top scientists from around the world, telling us stuff we all know.
Because, really, aside from a few far-right lunatics, who among us doesn't know we're trashing the planet? We've known this forever. Bad science fiction movies set in an enviromentally ruined future have been around since some producer realized if you shot in Bronson Canyon and said it was once a lush forest, you had production values. MAD magazine used to feature gags about kids going to school wearing gas masks. Silent Spring, people--it's been around since I was a kid, and I'm in my forties.
And the reality of what we're doing to the environment, and what it is doing to us in return, keeps getting worse. And we keep right on doing it. Problem ackowledged, but we've got a lifestyle to maintain. To ask us to change it is just a crazy notion.
So screw it. Let's just admit that we're really bad stewards, that our time here is brief, that the planet's gonna die and there's nothing we can do about it. Let's use all the gas we can while doing the most trivial things. Let's take the Hummer to pick up a pizza. Let's have some good times, so that when the end comes--much sooner than originally though, but hey--we'll at least have some good times to look back and laugh about, or would laugh about if our toneless bodies, too slow to adapt to the new environment, allowed our faces to be anything more than a frozen mask of uncomprehending fear.
Let's party like we just dont care!
