Thursday, June 21, 2007

latest sign the apocalypse is upon us, for real

For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet Earths. The five billion people of the developing countries may never wish to attain this level of profligacy. But in trying to achieve at least a decent standard of living, they have joined the industrial world in erasing the last of the natural environments. At the same time, Homo sapiens has become a geophysical force, the first species in the history of the planet to attain that dubious distinction. We have driven atmospheric carbon dioxide to the highest levels in at least 200,000 years, unbalanced the nitrogen cycle, and contributed to a global warming that will ultimately be bad news everywhere.
--Edward O. Wilson, "The Bottleneck," Scientific American, Feb 02. Extract from The Future of Life (2002)

I would suggest reading the whole article, because it's fascinating and scary, but what's the point? It's just a very detailed and convincing portrait of what we pretty much know already: that we're all going to die. And by "all" I don't just mean us as individuals, but us as the human race, as in extinction. At least we won't live to see it.
Now did the Mets win tonight or what?

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