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James Lovelock, the old bloke who wrote Gaia, thinks we're doomed. Global warming? There's no way of stopping it now. And, besides, most of the CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere comes from human beings just breathing. There are far too many of us and what with natural disasters and the wars that will follow in the scrabble for scarce natural resources billions are going to die untimely deaths by the end of the present century.

But, he concludes- on a hopeful note- even if our civilisation destroys itself, there'll be another along shortly.

You know what?  I think he could be right.

I gathered this from an article in Saga- the magazine for old folks- which I picked up and skimmed in the doctor's waiting room.

Out of the mouths of greys and fogies...

Jesus! What did I just do there? I'm writing about future genocide and I crack a joke. What is it about  human nature that makes us so greedy for the apocalypse? But it's true, isn't it? We love that stuff.  Look at the popularity of the Book of Revelation and all the cults it has inspired- from early Christianity to... er...present day Christianity. Look at the Hollywood disaster movie. When I was a very small boy some millennarian sect prophesied that the world was going to be destroyed by a huge tidal wave and I remember how I was planning to grab hold of my best friend and we'd bob up to the surface and swim to a desert island and live together like Crusoe and Friday- the sole survivors of the human race- and what fun it was going to be....

Date: 2007-07-24 01:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com
Here he is himself:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece

But I wonder if he takes into account the new research that suggests the sun is going to go into a serious cooling cycle in the next ten or fifteen years. Don't ask me for the citation right now -- I don't have it at my fingertips.

I look at a lot of the natural disasters of the past few years in the U.S. and I note that many of them are the consequences of humans building where they have no business to build. Case in point: New Orleans. Second case in point: Florida. And I assume everyone notices that as Tewkesbury is devastated the Abbey is still pretty much okay.

Date: 2007-07-24 02:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com
Thanks for the link.

There's been much talk over the past few weeks about the folly of building on flood plains. Unfortunately, says the latest Government report, we will have to continue doing it because there's just not enough high ground.
From: (Anonymous)
My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions! The Secret Rapture soon, by my hand!
My Site = http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman


Date: 2007-07-24 05:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com
I am trying to determine from the news what has happened to the Abbey. I understand some floodwaters have entered, but from the aerial pictures I gather that it was minor. Of course, there's the small matter of Clarence's bones in the crypt... I can't imagine the floodwaters are as congenial to his temperament as malmsey.

Date: 2007-07-24 06:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com
Oh dear. I don't think I can help. The TV news hasn't mentioned Tewkesbury at all. The town that has been worst affected is Gloucester

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