Your kids, and kids' kids, are #$%&-ed

Call me pessimistic, fatalistic, or alarmist. I'll take it. Because I'm prepared to declare that the end of the world has officially started. According to a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released yesterday in Paris, global warming is real (duh), unstoppable, and we have only ourselves to blame. People. Now, I didn't see "An Inconvenient Truth," and I don't intend to. Propoganda of any kind just makes my head hurt. But this is the sort of conclusive, ideology-be-damned news story that makes me want to drop everything and head for the rain forest. (Or at least take a deep breath, and decide for good that most of the crap we fret over day-to-day is very inconsequential.)

While in the U.S. media outlets still, amazingly, feel the need to capitulate some to the dark side on this topic in the form of "objectivity," the Europeans, especially the British, are a little more in tune with the sobering reality, and all its nasty sub-topics. The Guardian, for instance, goes with a story today that says some IPCC scientists were approached with what were essentially bribe offers to dispute the findings. From ExxonMobil. What can we do? For starters, turn off the lights on the Eiffel Tower. For five minutes. Mother, help us. (Then again...)

Comments

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I wonder how many other people feel exactly the same way as you: On one hand, drop everything and head for the rain forest. On the other, decide for good that most of the crap we fret over day-to-day is so terribly inconsequential. I know I do. And ping-ponging between those two extremes really doesn't do me - or the world - much good either. Pessimism or hopelessness.