No Other Species Knowingly Gravitates Toward Extinction

None. We humans are unique in that aspect.

In an interesting conversation with a friend, with a finer mind than mine, Joe brought up the heat-wave that’s currently bedeviling India. We each agree that humanity is headed toward the chopping-block and are angry that, equipped with our large and infinitely inventive mind, humans essentially seem not to give a shit.

Yet India is not the only place on this benign and lovely planet where formerly normal temperatures have turned deadly

Far too many of us, with a glance outside, soothe our unwillingness to know with what appears to be another lovely day. Yeah, California seems to burn down annually and the annual hurricane count is way up, but most of us live elsewhere. And My Fair Lady reminds us that “in Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen.”

According to Carl Sagan, American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist and author, “it is clear from the fossil records that almost every species that has ever existed is extinct; extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.”

Joe and I also pondered the Crimes Against Humanity trial currently underway in Ukraine, where a Russian soldier is accused of the rape and killing of civilians during war.

As before, such events remind me to repeat Joseph Stalin’s remark that “a single death is a tragedy and 100,000 dead is a news event.” That mirrors the current world we inhabit, where oil and coal companies are the cause of 20% of all annual premature deaths worldwide, including an astounding 300,000 in America alone.

Well, who knew?

Joe knew, he’s a journalist. Which is interesting, because it’s apparent that Big Media works for what everyone else works for, including you and I—money. And there’s money in every breathless account of another day at the Johnny Depp--Amber Heard defamation case.

It won’t surprise you to know that Big Oil’s ruination of the planet does little to stir our souls. But Johnny and Amber, or anything to do with the Kardashians is cheap to cover, uncomplicated in its story line and sure to attract eyeballs. In-depth journalism is expensive as hell, so as humanity rockets toward its end-game, we are sure to be entertained every step of the way.

Johnny and Amber will soon be forgotten—and that’s as it should be—but your favorite brand at the gas-pump is coming for life as we know it.

And, as for who else knew.

Big Oil has known for fifty years, quite possibly longer and, like Big Tobacco before them, lied and hired sham-science to support the lie.

Yeah well, Jim, I’ll bet you ride public transport and never smoked.

Not true, old sport. I’ve owned over forty automobiles (35 of them new) over a rather long life and smoked a pack a day for 72 years (having quit now for five). I understand addiction as only an addict can. What angers me is that, in the face of wildfires, floods, hurricanes, crop failures, tornadoes and increasingly devastating heatwaves, we have yet to make a national priority out of saving our collective asses. The time has come when our collective asses are trying desperately to have us pay attention.

Today, that attention centers around having Big Oil get tagged with an excess profit tax, because it makes us crazy to pay $8 a gallon at the pump and read about Exxon and Shell bagging record profits.

That gets an American’s attention.

Humans becoming just one more failed species among the millions that failed ahead of us is far too abstract. If it won’t happen in my lifetime, who gives a shit?

Well, it won’t.

So relax, sit back, have a drink and calm yourself. It’s going to take a couple hundred years. If you’re reading this, you’re going to dodge the bullet. If you have a youngster, he or she will get away free from the end-game as well, although things are going to get a bit sticky in their lifetimes, what with rising sea levels and the need to avoid certain areas of the world that will become increasingly unlivable.

But what the hell, we’re white, privileged and among the more financially prosperous of the world’s inhabitants, so it’s not like our favorite restaurant will close. But maybe, perhaps even that. Nah. We’ve got a hundred years for sure.

But the second hundred are going to be more complicated.

Although world population will have fallen by at least a third, mass migrations will be the norm, as food, water and heat make certain home-countries unlivable. Bangladesh is an example. That most fertile of nations is basically a delta and thus very close to sea level. Its 80 million people are not going to stand there and drown as the seas rise. They’re going to head for India or China and it will take machine-guns at the borders to stop them.

That first fifty-year period of the mid next century is going to be an increasingly unpleasant introduction to hell on earth, while the final fifty years of humanity’s time on earth will most closely resemble Blade Runner.

Even so, arguments persist about whether we can still save the human species.

And of course we would like to think so. Technology is the common buzz-word, but why then do we argue over electric cars, rooftop solar, wind and thermal power? Why have world governments continued to subsidize oil and coal to the tune of $5.9 trillion dollars in 2020 alone?  Renewables garnered only $634 billion, so I guess we’re only 10% sure, even now, that oil and coal will prove our undoing.

But Joe asks why we do a show-trial for a single Russian soldier and let the fossil-fuel culprits off the hook.

Good question with no good answer. Talk about your crimes against humanity. A glance at the lobby and PAC money that Ted Cruz took in between 2017 and 2022 is enlightening. No partisan politics here, Cruz is but an example of our paid-off legislators on both sides of the aisle.

Ted makes $175,000 a year as his senatorial salary, about what a mid-level corporate executive earns. But unlike that honest taxpayer, he grabbed another $63 million in contributions during that five-year period. That’s $34,520 every single day, seven days a week, pouring in from political action committees and lobbyists, including Big Oil ($2,843,998 in 2016 alone). So, if it costs $8 or $10 million to be elected to the Senate, the return is worth it all—and that doesn’t include ‘expenses.’

And then there’s Rex Tillerson

Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon from 2006 until 2017, before he became the 69th U.S. Secretary of State. According to a Guardian article, fossil fuels killed 8.7 million people globally in 2018. Now all of those certainly weren’t attributable to Rex, but the total among all oil companies over his eleven years as Exxon CEO was about 300,000 each year in America alone. And Exxon was and is the largest oil company in the world, so they’re responsible for a few more deaths than a rogue Russian soldier.

Joe wonders why Exxon and other fossil fuel companies aren’t among those accused of crimes against humanity.

I wonder as well. Possibly Senator Ted Cruz could give us an opinion on that. We Americans prefer our glaciers frozen, our cities above sea level, and our polar bears alive and well.

Sorry ‘bout that. Apparently, we humans are determined to knowingly gravitate toward extinction. First time ever, but someone has to lead the parade.