Quote of the day

A beleaguered Kathy Deacon looks forward, not backward:

So I suppose I’ll get used to the mysterious noise, just as I’ve adapted to everything else — the odors from old Exxon MTBE spills, the onslaught of drunken yachters whose number seems to multiply exponentially each year — and struggling to breathe from time to time. I guess it’s no big deal in the scheme of things. Maybe these troubles are all a bit quaint and nostalgic anyway — even petty, as my friend here seems to think. The world we know is getting fairly uncomfortable and may be at the dawn of something really bad, runaway global warming — with a hundred million or so dead by 2030, according to informed reports — will we just have to get used to that?

Yes, I do believe we’ll adapt to the horrific death tolls now sitting on the horizon line — we’ll adapt if we’re among the lucky ones who actually survive the holocaust. What choice would the living have save for suicide? We’re programmed to carry on. We’ve survived volcanic supereruptions, ebbing and flowing ice ages, modern warfare and much else. Our existence is and always was improbable, so too our continued existence. We can thank the Industrial Revolution for our probable demise, a cause greatly strengthened by our inability to recognize in a meaningful way our common humanity and our true place in nature.

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• Little Ice Age: The Approaching Disaster (iceagenow.info)
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