We're Doomed, Redux.
Much as the Fishworker lamented the dwindling of our intellectual giants, I now assert our inexorable damnation at the hands of Mother Nature. Well, you can't really put the blame on the old broad; she's just doing what comes naturally. It is we who force her hand, and create our own extinction.
Yes, I'm an alarmist. Alarm is called for, more and more each day. The polar ice cap, once predicted to melt and drown us all around 2050, now has an expiration date of around 2020. Thirteen years. Remember 1994? That was thirteen years ago. Seems like just yesterday, doesn't it? I still remember leaving the theater after seeing Eight Seconds, the bull-riding movie with the then-hot Luke Perry and then-non-Christian Stephen Baldwin, wishing I had walked out at least an hour earlier and asked for my money back. Well it's too late! Too late then, too late now! What was I thinking?
Back in the day, we filled the oceans with tires, hoping to make lovely, steel-belted reefs for the fishies. Now, those Firestone Snow-Biters careen wildly about the ocean floor, destroying everything in their path. Those oceans are being consumed by ever-increasing "dead zones," stagnant expanses where nothing can thrive. We've created an oil dependency that seemed reasonable at the time, not foreseeing that the conglomerates would ride that gusher until they squeezed out every last sticky drop, with no genuine interest in diverting finances to developing alternate energy sources for the inevitable day when that last drop, uh, dropped.
I could provide links to support my terrifying claims, but Jesus Christ! I have a life, people, so let me live some of it away from this infernal contraption (also an instrument of our demise, however amusing it is, with its vast resources of poker and pornography).
The reason I crank the Klaxon? Why does anyone, about anything? Because, alas, it finally hit home. For years now, probably close to two decades, your humble non-parader has made the effort to turn off the tap water while brushing his teeth. "Doing my part," as they say, even if only in a small way. I'm sure there are a thousand other ways I'm doing my part to make things worse, but this one little gesture made me feel better. Of course, it was the fact that I barely had to put any thought into it that was so comforting. That was also my folly.
Recently, I noticed a broken sprinkler head at a new housing development near my home, spouting what had to be gallons of water per minute. I passed it on my way to work one evening, and scowled at it, inanely. I then passed it the next evening. And again the next. For four fucking days I spied this sprinkler issuing forth a steady torrent of water, effectively negating my years of miserly conservation. Was there nothing that could have been done? Should I have called someone? Did anyone who could have stopped the deluge even know it was spewing? Who paid for that water, running pointlessly down the gutter?
I fear this is the ultimate lesson that's going to be taken from recycling and resource protection: no one will really care until it's too late.
Forget An Inconvenient Truth--I'm going to go watch The Road Warrior for the hundredth time. Maybe I'll even endure Waterworld again. Only now I'm going to take notes.
(If you are one who chooses to ignore the signs of our imminent self-destruction--and I don't blame you a bit--then just go back through this post and giggle at all the words and phrases that sound sorta dirty. You'll feel all better. "Doing my part," eh heh hee!)
Yes, I'm an alarmist. Alarm is called for, more and more each day. The polar ice cap, once predicted to melt and drown us all around 2050, now has an expiration date of around 2020. Thirteen years. Remember 1994? That was thirteen years ago. Seems like just yesterday, doesn't it? I still remember leaving the theater after seeing Eight Seconds, the bull-riding movie with the then-hot Luke Perry and then-non-Christian Stephen Baldwin, wishing I had walked out at least an hour earlier and asked for my money back. Well it's too late! Too late then, too late now! What was I thinking?
Back in the day, we filled the oceans with tires, hoping to make lovely, steel-belted reefs for the fishies. Now, those Firestone Snow-Biters careen wildly about the ocean floor, destroying everything in their path. Those oceans are being consumed by ever-increasing "dead zones," stagnant expanses where nothing can thrive. We've created an oil dependency that seemed reasonable at the time, not foreseeing that the conglomerates would ride that gusher until they squeezed out every last sticky drop, with no genuine interest in diverting finances to developing alternate energy sources for the inevitable day when that last drop, uh, dropped.
I could provide links to support my terrifying claims, but Jesus Christ! I have a life, people, so let me live some of it away from this infernal contraption (also an instrument of our demise, however amusing it is, with its vast resources of poker and pornography).
The reason I crank the Klaxon? Why does anyone, about anything? Because, alas, it finally hit home. For years now, probably close to two decades, your humble non-parader has made the effort to turn off the tap water while brushing his teeth. "Doing my part," as they say, even if only in a small way. I'm sure there are a thousand other ways I'm doing my part to make things worse, but this one little gesture made me feel better. Of course, it was the fact that I barely had to put any thought into it that was so comforting. That was also my folly.
Recently, I noticed a broken sprinkler head at a new housing development near my home, spouting what had to be gallons of water per minute. I passed it on my way to work one evening, and scowled at it, inanely. I then passed it the next evening. And again the next. For four fucking days I spied this sprinkler issuing forth a steady torrent of water, effectively negating my years of miserly conservation. Was there nothing that could have been done? Should I have called someone? Did anyone who could have stopped the deluge even know it was spewing? Who paid for that water, running pointlessly down the gutter?
I fear this is the ultimate lesson that's going to be taken from recycling and resource protection: no one will really care until it's too late.
Forget An Inconvenient Truth--I'm going to go watch The Road Warrior for the hundredth time. Maybe I'll even endure Waterworld again. Only now I'm going to take notes.
(If you are one who chooses to ignore the signs of our imminent self-destruction--and I don't blame you a bit--then just go back through this post and giggle at all the words and phrases that sound sorta dirty. You'll feel all better. "Doing my part," eh heh hee!)
posted by psaur at 11:39 PM
3 Comments:
I call my bathroom "Thunderdome."
What you remember about 1994 is Eight Seconds?
I remember Pulp Fiction. Or Natural Born Killers, even. We snuck tacos in.
Thirteen more years is plenty of time. I've already polished off the best parts of my life. I don't need to drag it on and on. I get it. Trees, sun, TV. Our generation lived through Y2K, 9/11 and Mama's Family. So let's have the privilege of watching this whole thing go away.
I like gin.
Rummy.
Can one really claim to have "lived through" Y2K?
I spent the days leading up to it feeling pretty sure that nothing was going to happen, but New Year's Eve at midnight I checked the phone for a dial tone repeatedly, because various news shows had specifically said you shouldn't do that. Again, just trying to do my part.
And of course I remember other movies from 1994. I was simply pointing out the futility of it all. Indeed, until the end of time, there is always going to be a Luke Perry, and he is always going to make some forgettable crap movie at the height of his popularity. I just won't be the poor dope suckered into seeing it anymore. Now that's a privilege.
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