Man has gone too far...

I just read an article on the DrugeReport.com about Global Warming. The ice caps are melting way faster than we've been led to believe (Bush tried to silence a top NASA scientist about it). Basically, the gist of the article was this: if we don't act now, in 10 years the global temperature will be warmer than it's been in 500,000 years. How much warmer? Only a couple of degrees, but that will be enough to alter this planet so much that we will not recognize it. The ice caps will be gone and the sea levels will rise so much that earth (not the planet, but terra firma) will be in short supply.

Is all this real? It's so hard to believe, and yet it's not. This winter, there has been three snowfalls. Today it was 68 degrees. It's not even March yet. I was walking to the Metrolink station today and was caught up in a strange rain storm. I got to the platform and noticed that everyone was freaking out. I took out an earbud (I was listening to my iPod) and what did I hear? Sirens. Tornado sirens. Why am I hearing tornado sirens in the winter? Why does New Orleans no longer exist? Exactly. Shit is starting to change/happen.

I'm not a scientist, so I'm going to stop right here on the whole "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" soapbox. I am going to say this: mankind has gone too far. I look at the world I live in, and how I live in it...it's not right, it's not the way existence is supposed to be. Reams of paper get thrown out everyday, how much paper is there in the world if I, little old me, throw so much of it away everyday? How much paper can there ever be? Or oil, or anything else. We survive by working jobs that, often times, do not manufacture anything useful. Do you grow food? I don't. Do you make clothes? I don't. What do you do? You sit at a computer and punch buttons...how is that doing anything. When we die, what will any of this button mashing mean?

1,000 years ago...100 years ago...hell 10 years ago, the world was very different. There was less and that meant there was more. Does that make sense? Take a man from 1900, plant him in 2006--this man would be useless here, wouldn't he? And yet, the second the power goes out, suddenly this man would be quiet useful. He'd probably know how to make fire, kill animals for food, perhaps even grow edible plants. What can you do? Can you do any of these things? If the world ended, how quickly would we all die. I can use a computer, but I have no more knowledge on how their insides work (or the process by which they are made) than our friend from 1900. So, with that in mind, how does that make me "superior" to him? Mankind hasn't grown or evovled in many years (decades? centuries?) I suspect. We're all just standing on the shoulders of giants...the few imortal, genius people whose brillance flourish then fade away. The rest of us live within their shadow or hoisted atop their stinking corpse.

No, if you think you're any smarter or better than a man from 1900 or 1800 you are sadly mistaken. Rather than actually knowing things, people tend to float on the great intellectual ocean...instead of diving deep and actually posessing information. Our slippery grasp of reality means we're easily knocked from it. I worry about people. I worry about what's going to happen. We've taken to big a piece of the pie, now the bill is about to come...and we've accidentally left our wallet in our other pants.

Don't get me wrong, at one time mankind was doing great things. We were achieveing, progressing forward. In 1969, a man from Earth (not just from the United States) actually walked on the moon. Let me state this again: in 1969--a man--from Earth--WALKED ON THE MOON. In 2006 we're barely able to claw our way into orbit. Sure, we have more satellites than ever, but the world's greatest superpower is having a harder and harder time getting a person into space...let alone onto the Moon.

Now, I hear you saying "but the space program is a bad example. There are political, economic factors that have stunted it...sent it retreating back to it's pre-1969 glory." This is a sound argument, however these factors are the same ones that are causing manking as a whole to snapback like an overstreatched rubber band. I used to be a History major...let me tell you something really scary.

History is not a straight line. History shows us that civilization does not constantly progress. Time and time again we see the system collapse and mankind retreats. Imagine you have a time machine for a second. Go back to ancient Rome. Walk up to an average person...and tell him about Rome's fall...and the Middle Ages (Dark Ages) to come. Think he'll listen, or believe you? Hell, maybe Caesar will try to silence you a la George Bush. This realization sent me running out of the hallowed halls of history. Right now we think things are getting better and better and that it's always going to be like this...but that's not correct. Eventually, the opposite is going to happen. No one wants to live at the end of all things...but someone will be born on the last day of everything. How sad is that? That someday, on the last day there will ever be...a person's life will begin.

I'm glad I've had 20+ years of fun. I really am, because I think the good times are almost gone. I think this is the last years of Caesar. The final Golden Age of man. Our great, great grandchildren are going to look at our ruins and wonder. Wonder and wish--wish that it hadn't ended. They'll wonder what it was like to live in a world that was disposable and air conditioned. A planet that once had ice on it. With cities, now under the sea called London, New York. The lost island of Cuba.

These are dark thoughts. But really, what's more beautiful--a sunrise or a sunset? I'll take the sunest any day. There's a cetain extra bit of beauty that accompanys the sadness. I encourage everyone I know...anyone reading this to stare, and I mean stare, at the sun as it dips below the horizon. Drink in the last warming rays of man's supremecy and greatness. The coming nightfall will be long. And permenant.