Blazing a New Trail, Literally

Is this year different, or is this the new trajectory we're on to the very end?

The Climate Brink collected a series of unnerving graphs showing what an outlier this year is. 

Some pollyanna types are hoping just this year will be different, and then we'll somehow get back within our typical ranges despite doing fuck all to change anything, but I can't imagine how that could be the case. Tipping points have been tipped. We're on the last leg of our journey together.

In a review of Adam Welz's new book, The End of Eden, it's explained, 

"In its entire multibillion-year history, the Earth was never more diverse than at the end of the last ice age--just as we started our wild career some 11,700 years ago-- and we are living in the anarchy we have created. We have wasted a perfection that evolution bequeathed to us." 

All the million little changes to ecosystems that were - and are being - caused by burning fossil fuels for 150 years are taking their toll on plants and animals everywhere, just like we knew they would. Plane trips, car rides, clothes dryers, air conditioning -- anything that heat, cools, or propels, all add up. But also in there is the expectation for oranges in winter, lumber for a new deck, steak for dinner, massive amounts of plastic within and around all the things, and everything else that fossil fuel generated infrastructure supports. 

We are currently "a world in the mad condition of withdrawing sustenance from itself." And it won't be pretty.

"I now better understand those climate researchers who feel separated from society because they cannot comprehend why so many people don't see their findings as heralding an emergency. It's profoundly alienating to carry and communicate important knowledge that the people around you won't act on."

Absolutely. 

Smartest species, my ass!

Mark Trewick wrote some three a.m. thoughts on it all that definitely hit a nerve:

"How does everyone else get on with their day after they open their eyes and recall they're part of a parasitic infestation of monkeymen gone mad in a made up infantile world cult, severed from the natural world in a dystopic nightmare beyond imagining? I now logically just assume everyone senses things are way adrift from normal but choose teh same pill every first without thinking. I can't do that, and I don't know why that is. I suspect its my neurodivergence. I lack the apparatus to deceive myself or minimise perceived threat? . . . I like to go to my local beaches. When I look out to sea, unless there's a boat, it's nearly okay. But then I imagine glaciers melting, and I'm beaten! . . . 

A drastic shift in perspective is unavoidable whether it's forced on us or not. The sooner we start being honest with ourselves, we can do all kinds of things. But we need to wake up."

Chris Higgins added: 

"Hopium is a powerful drug, and we've drastically underestimated how many people actually live day to day in complete denial about their personal traits, let alone the trajectory of their civilization. To them, I imagine it's less painful. Denial is a warm blanket of false hope. Having been an acctivist for 20 years, I used to be so angry at them, trying to reach as many as we could. Now that we're basically in hospice as a planet, I can't judge their choices, especially because for many it's not a conscious choice. 

In some ways, I'm kind of jealous..."

So jealous.