I'm typing this as I teach a history of technology class at the City University of New York (don't worry, my students are working on essays about technology and terrorism). Perhaps my study of technology is peppering my emotions on this muggy day but I'm not that scared. I think that if they are right and I wrong, it will happen regardless of my worrying about it. I'm resigned to the possibility, a strong one, that sometime in my lifetime the "world," at least with humans in it, will "end." Perhaps with a bang and perhaps with a whimper.
The bang part is something all of us live with--nuclear weapons. I have never had a moment of consciousness that has not been underlined by the thought that a nuke could blow me, and everyone I love, away. The world is filled with nukes, state-sponsored and a few otherwise, and the likelihood that one of them goes off deliberately or accidentally is high.
The whimper part is also of our own making. We live in a world where, regardless of if naysayers like it, the climate is changing. It's warmer in places and colder in places, but its changing. There is a high degree of moisture in the air and meteorologists are losing sleep posting and revising weather charts that don't seem to be getting it right. What will that mean for us in the long haul? Rising tides, crops that are frozen or blown away by no rain. The careful balance that keeps us alive--water, temperature, the earth beneath our feet--is slowly degrading and we will pay the price.
So regardless of it's at 6 pm local, or 2030, or later on, it most likely will happen. And unless we do something about it I'm not sure how this will end. I don't think it will be today. But unless we do something about the bang and/or the whimper, I think it will be sooner as opposed to later.
The photo is courtesy of New York artist Farrish Carter. You can see his blog here.
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