Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth

[dweller]

Floods, storms and droughts. Melting Arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, oceans turning to
acid. The world's top scientists warned last week that dangerous climate change is
taking place today, not the day after tomorrow. You don't believe it? Then, says Geoffrey
Lean, read this...
by Geoffrey Lean

Future historians, looking back from a much hotter and less hospitable world, are likely to play special attention to
the first few weeks of 2005. As they puzzle over how a whole generation could have sleepwalked into disaster -
destroying the climate that has allowed human civilization to flourish over the past 11,000 years - they may well
identify the past weeks as the time when the last alarms sounded.

Last week, 200 of the world's leading climate scientists - meeting at Tony Blair's request at the Met Office's new
headquarters at Exeter - issued the most urgent warning to date that dangerous climate change is taking place, and
that time is running out.

Next week the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that tries to control global warming, comes into force after a
seven-year delay. But it is clear that the protocol does not go nearly far enough.

The alarms have been going off since the beginning of one of the warmest Januaries on record. First, Dr
Rajendra Pachauri - chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- told a UN conference in Mauritius that the pollution which causes global warming has reached
"dangerous" levels.

full text here

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[infusionman]

1. The Fact is...

The Earth is not going to destroy itself, we are going to destroy ourselves.

Be it the total annihilation through "NUKLEAR" devices or through global warming caused by our blatant use of fossil fuels, and other methods we are going to kill ourselves.

The earth itself however will be fine. It will clean up our mess after we are gone and move on. Some other species of animal will come to dominate the earth, perhaps quite possibly the cockroach.

[Emillereid]

5. I love the cockroach bit -- When I was in elementary school I

had this thought that if one based 'superiority' on survival and not so-called intelligence then I reckoned the cockroach had us by a mile. In fact, I wrote a cute little story about how when human kind finally got their day of judgment in front of God, they were astonished that he/she was a giant cockroach. The adults in my life didn't get it.

I think you are so right too about the earth -- it will go on -- we might not. Not unless we evolve past war and greed.

[AlabamaYankee]

6. I read a science fiction story with a humans as cockroach theme

Humans were the cockroaches of the universe and spread by inhabiting the interiors of (presumably much larger) aliens' spacecraft. It was an interesting theme, although I don't recall how it ended.

[Martin Eden]

7. More sci-fi: Venus on the Half Shell

by Kilgore Trout (aka Kurt Vonnegut)

A man travels the galaxy for centuries (he drank an elixir that gave him near-immortality) meeeting numerous strange and exotic sentient species, but none of them can answer the question that obsesses him:

Why were we created only to suffer and die?

Finally he hears of the most ancient species of sentient beings (resembling giant cockroaches) and he gains an audience with a being who was actually present at the beginning of time and knew the creator.

The being's answer to the man's question was the last two words of the book.

[Emillereid]

8. Well what are the two words -- or is the book good enough to read?

[Martin Eden]

14. The last two words (giving away the punch line)

The book was entertaining when I read it 25 years ago, though I wouldn't call it a profound or important book. The all-important question being asked by the book's main charcater was:

Why were we created only to suffer and die?

The ancient being's answer to this question, which constituted the last two words of the book ... if you don't intend to ever read Venus on the Half Shell ... (scroll down)

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Why not?

[Emillereid]

15. I confess I peeked -- decided that with the Bushits in charge I have too

much to read keeping up with them that I've begun to wonder if I'll ever have time for fiction.

The book you mentioned reminds me of one I read ages ago (part of a series I think) wherein the quest was the meaning of the universe or something. A computer or some kind of machine finally came up with the answer -- and it was a number. I can't remember the title just now -- it might have been part of the star traveler's guide to the universe or something like that. Do you know what I'm talking about.

[Martin Eden]

16. I must have missed the fiction you allude to

but I know what you mean about the Bushistas -- I've had very little time for fiction either, because reality today is more sinsiter than any contrived plot.

[Lisa]

17. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

By the late Douglas Adams.

The answer to live, the universe, and everything, was a 2-digit number (product of 6 and 7). In order for it to be correct, the original question had to be wrong (or at least, it didn't match up). One of the characters commented, "I'd always thought there was something fundamentally wrong about the universe."

[Emillereid]

18. Yesh, that's the one -- I had great fun reading those books.

[Beetwasher]

20. FYI, Venus Was NOT Written By KV!!!

It's was written by another author using the pseudonym of Kilgore Trout. He did a good job of mimicking KV's style, but KV did not write it!

[Martin Eden]

21. I always just assumed

that since Kilgore Trout was a Vonnegut creation, any book authored by "Trout" would be Vonnegut.

Who was the actual author?

[patdem]

22. Kilgore Trout was a character of Kurt Vonnegut..and KV had him write

his own book. Yes KV wrote under the pseudonym of Kilgore Trout...it was HIS character!

OOPS..You are correct: At least one actual published work is attributed to a Kilgore Trout: the novel Venus on the Half-Shell, written by Philip José Farmer but published under the name "Kilgore Trout." For some time it was assumed that Vonnegut must have written it; when the truth of its authorship came out, Vonnegut was reported as being "not amused".

[Martin Eden]

24. Philip Jose Farmer's "River World" series

is something I enjoyed reading.

The recent attempt to bring it TV was quite pathetic, though.

[patdem]

23. You are correct and I am wrong..Philip José Farmer seems to have written

it! Boy am I surprised after all these years!

At least one actual published work is attributed to a Kilgore Trout: the novel Venus on the Half-Shell, written by Philip José Farmer but published under the name "Kilgore Trout." For some time it was assumed that Vonnegut must have written it; when the truth of its authorship came out, Vonnegut was reported as being "not amused".

[Beetwasher]

25. Yeah, I Actually Have a Rare Copy Of It!

It's a very good imitation lf KV's style...

[Freedom_from_Chains]

19. I have always found it humorus

that some scientist have theorized that in the event of a full blown nuclear holocaust, if nothing else survived the cockroach most likely would.

[minkyboodle]

10. this is true of course

However the cockroach is overrated these days. Once mankinds lovely heated indoor environments dissapear the cockroach will loose about half of its livable environment.

[FloridaPat]

2. Once the Rapture comes, Jesus will fix everything. Not to worry.

I believe this is one reason Bushco is getting rid of enviromental laws in exchange for money from polluting companies. Everything will be fine in a couple of years. Just watch!

[Applan]

9. I've believed this for a while

It's why Bush doesn't give a shit about the environment, the economy, sacrificing a few thousand troops, whatever. Because he believes the rapture is nigh. Like Reagan did back in the 80's.

[4_TN_TITANS]

3. Scary stuff....

Makes me wonder why I brought kids into the world. What amazes me is that Blair and the other world leaders see the writing on the wall, but good ole W & Co. could care less about the world they are handing to future generations.

[mordarlar]

4. OMG! i just thought of Blair offering a trade. Help in a new war for

a bush promise on the environment. I wonder if this had anything to do with Blair in Iraq. And bush fell off his promise as usual. I know Blair has really been pressing bush on this for years.


God i am getting so paranoid.

[yebrent]

11. The Boiling Frog

Daniel Quinn, in his book, 'The Story of B' describes this phenomenon as "The Boiling Frog". If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water (and by no means am I advocating this) it will immediately jump out if it is able to. However, if you place a frog in room temperature water and gradually turn up the heat, the frog will sit there blissfully until it boils to death.

We are gradually making the world uninhabitable for humans. Figuratively, the water around us is getting pretty hot and we are blissfully going about our day. Since the destruction of our environment has happened over several generations and the change is so subtle from year to year, it has little effect on the day to day behavior of the general population. Despite the fact that thousands of experts are sounding the alarm, the effect so far on the average person has not been great enough to cause any major change in their behavior. The death of a family member or even a loss of a job creates a far more visible and emotional impact on an average persons life.

However, if you took a person from 1000 years ago, or even a hundred years ago, and brought them to today they would be astounded at the trouble we have gotten ourselves into. Like the frog that that hops out of the boiling water, they would have a strong memory of how the earth was and could be. The average person has forgotten what a "room temperature" world is like.

[yebrent]

12. I found an excerpt from Daniel Quinn's 'The Boiling Frog' essay

I haven't read it in a while. It is quite fascinating.

http://www.eces.org/articles/000147.php

[infusionman]

13. Excellent analogy and point. Great Job.