The World Is On Fire and We're Stuck in the Flames : Mad Scribbler

I do hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the world is on fire. 260-something years ago (starting around 1760) the Industrial Revolution began, and we’ve been burning through the resources of the planet at an extremely alarming rate since then while murdering anything in our way.

The Amazon rainforest (colloquially known as the lungs of the Earth, producing 6% of the planet’s oxygen) was suspiciously engulfed in flames as a right-wing politician in Brazil was elected after promising to weaken the Amazon’s environmental protections¹. We don’t get the option to renew the rainforest, either – planting a bunch of shit isn’t going to bring an estimated thousands of species² back from extinction.

Sure, the world is on fire but for a short time, man, did those clowns make a bunch of money for a very select few.

You’re Trapped – The Wealthy Aren’t

It’s currently the beginning of Summer, and the Arctic Circle has recorded days where the temperature reaches over 118 F³. The ice caps are diminishing impressively quick, the western part of the United States is posting consecutive record highs that have people dying, and the fucking Gulf of Mexico is on fire thanks to a broken oil pipeline.

There are some, however, who continue to rally against fracking protections in specific areas, limiting carbon output for factories, and even arguing against renewable resources. These people have been hoodwinked by a few sinister agencies operating solely for the benefits of those that can profit.

The world is on fire, and we’re failing to realize it.

The richest men in the world are all squabbling to go fuck around in space after using the world’s resources (which we all rely on) to build their fortunes. When this planet becomes all but uninhabitable, it’s dubious that we’ll be offered an opportunity to go ride on their coattails towards a new planet where they’ll skullfuck the resources at an alarming rate once again. Unless we’re allowed to go as their neo-slaves.

Somehow, this has all become politicized. The discussion on whether or not companies taking non-renewable resources from the planet, and then selling them to humans at a mark-up, is a question that political majors hem and haw on for decades with next to nothing gleaned or gained. Corporations dumping pollutants that negatively affect entire regions becomes a ‘conservative versus liberal’ discussion.

The only people who are profiting hand over fist from ravaging this planet are defended by an entire demographic of proles, instead of humanity rising up to protect the extremely scarce number of resources left on the planet. The wealthy fucks, I assure you, give no shit – they’ll be able to purchase their bottled air and still afford water in one hundred years. It’s the rest of humanity that needs to fight, but they won’t.

The world is on fire, and we’re desperately running out of time.

Another Desperate Plea to Deaf Ears

You’ve likely heard this before, that the world is on a timer that, once crossed, life will cease to be as we’ve had it😠. Respirators are one of the very few new paradigms that we’ll all have to deal with as we’re coated in the disgusting mess of the rich that they can afford to dodge. Drinking water will become scarce, food will be a luxury, and everyone will get to experience the joys of dust storms.

The Religious Theory

I know, every time we start talking about something I waylay into religion. But fuck me sideways if it isn’t consistently edging its way into every debate we get to have, from conservation to stem-cell research. This entire demographic must have a different script than the ones I’ve read from, but whatever.

A common argument against conservation (can you believe that’s an accurate sentence in our modern age?) is that a deity controls’ the world, and he/she/it wouldn’t allow us to ravage the fuck out of it. Which we’ve done, multiple times. No deity has interfered with any grotesque inhumane dances in the past thousands of years, and it sure as shit doesn’t appear to be readying to appear now.

Even if there is a magical afterlife, or whichever deity is going to come back to Earth and make it an eternal paradise, they might want to move based on the whole ‘no water left’ thing. Go hang out in Kuwait for a Summer and let me know how you feel about an eternity in a desert.

A lot of these ‘global crises’ posts seem to primarily twist in the wind, with no major shifts in altruism or conservationist effects. A lot of them also try to end with something positive, as though there is an iota of hope to be held closely. We’re realists.

None of this will change in enough time to make a difference. People will continue to support corporations fucking the planet, and the last few hold-outs will realize that they fucked up as it’s finally killing them, like we’ve seen time and again as COVID deniers come face-to-face with their stupidity with their dying breaths. Maybe a few breakthroughs in science will mitigate the suffering in humanity’s final hours, but those breakthroughs will be politicized as well.

The world is on fire – you might want to buy a fiddle.

Sources

Meyer, R. (2019, August 24). The Amazon Cannot Be Recovered Once It’s Gone. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/amazon-fires-are-political/596776/.
Messenger, S. (n.d.). Amazon Rainforest Teeming With Undiscovered Life. Treehugger. https://www.treehugger.com/amazon-rainforest-teeming-with-undiscovered-life-4856507.
Specktor, B. (2021, June 24). Arctic Circle is already recording 118 F degree days (and summer is just heating up). LiveScience. https://www.livescience.com/arctic-circle-siberia-hot-day-2021.html.

The World Is On Fire and We’re Stuck in the Flames

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