The Boiling Planet. The Pandemic. The Dying Planet. The Collapse. The Fascism. None of This is Remotely Normal.
Why do I say that? I think most of us grossly, grossly, underestimate — even now — just how incredibly, staggeringly abnormal this age already is. That’s not surprising, because, well, the media has failed us badly, never really informing us well of basic facts, let alone their implications. Our politicians exploit all the chaos for power, instead of leading us through the deadly rapids.
How many times has life on planet earth been annihilated? Not as in “come to a complete end,” but as in “suffered a cataclysmic mass extinction that wiped much of it out”? Science has an answer to that question. Six times. Including now. We’re in deep history’s sixth great mass extinction. But the first five were hundreds of millions of year ago. We’re the first humans to live through a mass extinction, ever, period.
Here’s another measure of how abnormal this age is. The last time was this hot, consistently, was about three million years ago. In between now and then, we had periods of fluctuating temperatures that reached “this hot,” but it also got very, very cold. These were the little Ice Ages — and their melts. But this hot — sustained over time? You have to go back three million years.In other words, you have to cross a geo-biological boundary. You enter another geological age — the Pliocene. But human beings did not exist then. When did human beings arrive on the scene? Just about 300,000 years ago.
Let me give you one final example. How many people are already dead from extreme temperatures and Covid — in the last year or so alone? Go ahead and guess, though if you’re a regular reader, you already know. If you don’t already, I mean it, guess. Now double your guess. You’re still probably off — way off.The answer is ten million people. And that’s certainly an undercount, as even scientists and statisticians across fields will agree. The true number is probably easily double that. Still, just think about it. Ten million are already dead from Covid and extreme temperatures: four million from the pandemic, and about six from overheating.Ten million people in one year.How abnormal is that? It’s approaching the scale of a World War. Ten million people don’t drop dead just like that in a normal year, from what economists call “exogenous shock” — meaning external factor. Those are excess deaths — just the tip of the iceberg, really, because they don’t count the excess fully yet, which is why scientists and statisticians will readily admit they’re underestimates.
You’ve been inured to it, how utterly, profoundly, explosively abnormal this age is, because our media is idiotic, our politicians are venal fools. Because our economy is designed to profit off your ignorance, indifference, and hate. Keeping you a “consumer” instead of a thinking, sane, enlightened person is priority number one, which is why nobody much tells you simple facts and asks you to think hard thoughts. You’re surrounded with moronic distractions — reality TV, Kardashians, fake friends, the pornification of everything, including yourself, reduction to object, desire, greed — so you don’t ever think. Feel. Know. Grow.