Thursday, May 13, 2010

Dark Green Future

We make cars, washing machines, clothes, plastic water bottles, houses, concrete. We fabricate the very building blocks of what we do out of what nature created, or out of things nature never imagined. We are rapidly running out of things to create with, and we continuously find new ways to destroy the sources of the things that sustain our lives on this planet.

And this may be a good thing. The planet may not survive us, but hopefully the planet will survive if we don't. Our society can go from status quo to madness in less than forty-eight hours, and no amount of television coverage can make people behave rationally when they think their little slice of heaven is threatened.

But make sure you buy the latest 3D TV, because you'll want to see the latest oil well rupture in the clearest possible detail, or the skin texture of the burned, twisted corpses dragged out of the latest mining disaster.

When will we learn that what we think civilization is supposed to be is wrong?

Yes, dear readers, I have found a new thing to read, a new place to look, and weirdly enough, while what I've just written sounds unbearably depressing, it's actually a look over the edge. If our civilization is actually not meant to succeed, what does the next thing look like? The good people at The Dark Mountain Project are asking that very question, and they're not entirely afraid. I'm with them. Hoping to look, unafraid, at the next turn our species makes, and what might be the result.

3 comments:

fredges said...

Planet Earth will win. Humans (and I include myself) are stupid, short-sighted and lazy. Hit the "reset" button and start the game over, Universe.

stEn said...

Dude! Not that bad, really. The idea is to look out over the edge and go "cool." And then figure out how to live there.

Or - what you said.

marsharebel said...

OR, we could be looking at extinction, although I don't think so. It might be better for the earth if we did all die off. Hopefully, the remaining 144,000, more or less, will be of a better stock than the current batch of breeders. Otherwise, I say let's have another crack at dinosaurs.