One of George Carlin’s great lines said with apropos satirical condemnation was “Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.” And what Carlin was speaking to was the ills of socioeconomic power, but when it comes to drastically dismantling the majority of the planetary ecology in under forty years his line is an even more salient observation of the mental state of the masses. This statement gives rise to a question that seems more pertinent than ever to ask the people of America, and the world over for that matter, the same basic question Marvin Gaye had – What’s going on? And why don’t people notice, why don’t they care?
And yes, some movements out there seem to care and notice like Extinction Rebellion, but even given their efforts when I mention nature is in a critical state to the common person I’m still looked as a kook. I ponder, how much devastation is needed to the living planet before the general populace can show some appropriate panic, not that panic is the right response, it’s just what people in this society routinely do at any little disturbance when they realize something is actually wrong, but evidently the whole of the natural world hanging on by thread is no reason for these courageous folk to become distressed. They seem fine with it, happy to dismiss it as Chicken Little-ism, or the blathering bloviations of what they deem to be tree hugging reactionaries. The modern mind of the average consumer of information appears to be filled with 98% propaganda, 1.5% of entertaining inconsequential fluff that happens to be completely true, and .5% cognitive dissonance wondering if 98% of what they have in their heads is utter bullshit. But the modern human mind is too smart to be fooled, or more accurately and less sarcastically, they have too much supposed smarts not to be fools.
The mind of the modern human animal has been almost entirely heisted by the ego drive of pursuing power and aggrandizement of the self. Ego makes people blind and stupid, filled with agenda that causes severe myopia where all they observe is the agenda of the promotion of self and all else becomes of secondary concern. The people are lost in the delusions of hucksters promising fortune and glory, it’s like they never saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and learned the valuable lessons of our beloved fedora wearing protagonist. They never learned that fortune and glory are a fool’s quest. It’s better just to give the sacred rocks back to the people and stop trying to think about what’s in it for me and considerately serve the needs of others when you can.
Perhaps the malaise goes deeper than an Indiana Jones’ film, if that’s possible, maybe it’s a sign of how much people are staying indoors and detached from the natural world as they live in a state of being consistently entertained, fearful, and over rushed, and largely that stress and need for escapism comes from issues that humanity should have solved by now if the powers that be were actually interested in doing benevolent things. Like homelessness shouldn’t be a thing, but it is, purely because of socioeconomic reasons and having nothing to do with housing scarcity.
Anecdotally I’ll tell you what I now see in the natural world here in central Florida. As I continue to take walks out in Florida parks, something I’ve routinely done over the last 25 years, I try to appreciate what’s here now because it might not be soon, but I can’t help to feel the occasional pangs of resentment for what humanity has done and pine for what used to be. The beauty they have slaughtered with a hubris fit for an emperor without clothes hits my indignant mind of non-acceptance. I don’t want to believe, maybe others don’t either, but what I’m seeing in the once robust tropical Florida landscape that seemed so indomitable just a short time ago is now a shadow of itself, and starting to look like it needs to be put on life support.
The frogs are almost gone entirely locally, which are canaries in the coal mine of their environment. Frogs have relatively permeable skin and are among the first to die from toxicity, and when their numbers go down it’s often a sign the entire ecosystem around them has become filled with toxic things. Frogs used to bellow their songs out into the humid nights of Florida with a roar, and while there is a night or two in the summer where you can still hear their dulcet croaks, mostly what is heard is silence and the knowledge more than a few have croaked in a way that isn’t so melodic.
It’s not just the frogs though, it’s everything. Locally, in less than a year I watched raccoons go from commonly seen, to almost completely gone. Over several years I’ve watched bat populations go from swarms in the hundreds seen nightly during the summer months, to rarely ever seeing a bat. I’ve observed insects in Florida fall in massive amounts and there is now a year to year reduction noticeable to the naked eye of already decimated populations. Ants and cockroaches showing up in your house used to be an inevitable part of living in Florida, not anymore. No exterminator needed, they did such a good job there’s rarely anything crawling around these days. In fact I can keep the back door open most of the year and not have to worry about an infestation growing inside the house. Most of everything is dead. Dead dead dead.
It does seem as though if the majority of people went out even briefly into the wilderness with any regularity whatsoever they’d feel some mild agitation at the losses they are seeing, which are clearly evident in most places, because what is happening here isn’t normal, it hasn’t happened in any prior generation, and it’s caused by us. Rachel Carson’s silent spring is closer than ever, but it’s not silent yet, however definitely muffled with capitalists and patriots holding a pillow over the face of Mother Nature hoping to snuff out the old lady so they can plunder what’s left and make more baubles and gadgetry; stuff sure to amuse people as they sit around the watching apocalypse slowly unfold in surreal bemusement on a high def screen. Of course most will prefer to watch a dramatized version of the end of everything in a likely a soon to be made Disney produced trilogy starring Will Smith, and he’ll have some great iconic line like “Oh hell no! Ain’t no mutha fuckin mutha nature dyin’ on my watch!” or something equally as compelling I’d imagine. Due to be released just before the end of everything. A viewing of which would be even more fitting with a last channel sign-off that hearkens back to over the air TV of yesteryear, a sentimental display of a proudly waving American flag with the national anthem humming along just before the all consuming static permanently takes hold.
The wildlife, insect, and plant die off has been panic worthy. Almost as panic worthy as losing Kobe Bryant to a helicopter crash, which saddened and shocked people. I wonder what the reception would be to the masses if they accepted the truth of the natural world we depend on to live suddenly dying out? And if minds were in the right headspace they shouldn’t have to be told they get something out of nature to care about it, as one would think that helping other living things would be something we would selflessly just do as a society. But that’s not the case.
However they clearly do care about Kobe Bryant and noticed his loss; he was a guy the majority of the people never met and someone who lived his life as an ego laden rich person who dribbled a basketball better than most. And while sure, the premature of death of anyone strikes people as sad, but premature death happens all over the place, happens right next door, and most people don’t give one shit about their neighbor dying, but Kobe Bryant? Time to weep. Did you hear he dribbled a basketball? What a tragedy. He was about to save the world with his super powers, but alas, it is not to be.
And I’ll bet, to the modern mind, they’ll find themselves more outraged that I just blasphemed and callously made light of Kobe Bryant’s life and death than outraged at the whole of the natural environment being obliterated for no good reason. People feel an overly emotional loss for Kobe Bryant for the very reasons they can’t see the more pressing losses of nature around them. Ego blindness. They don’t want to be out connected to nature, but they want to be superstar Kobe Bryant. They want to be rich, good at sports, attractive, be fawned over, be envied, basically they want to be the most popular kid in their high school as fully grown adults. So of course his loss is tragic, what a waste of a life that represented all the egotistical things this culture so desperately wants to be.
I would give you the numbers about how bad the decimation to nature all is, but I already know if you’re reading this then I’m probably singing to the choir and you’ve already heard them echoed repeatedly. So you probably know the world wildlife fund estimated a decline of 60% of wildlife over the past forty years. Or that a German study estimated a decline of over 80% of insects over thirty years. And it’s important to note that all things that caused these numbers to occur are happening at a faster rate now. So what is to be left in another 40 years while recklessly careening down the same trajectory? Let me run some quick math on my handy-dandy ecological calculator, oh yes, I see, it seems to have come out to “There won’t be fucking much left!” and I didn’t even know my calculator knew any other words than 80085.
The apocalypse has already been scheduled by capitalists and nation-states and it’s coming to a town near you if you care to see it. If capitalists and governments of the world do everything they already have scheduled over the next decade then the 2020s will be the last decade before the fall. Like for instance the largest mining project ever is being dreamed up so that people can wear more pretty rocks on their fingers and around their necks. Or the spread of radioactive brine that is being openly dumped across the country for equally idiotic reasons. Or if the military continues to expand, which is already the world’s largest polluter, and if it continues unchecked should ensure there’s nothing to notice and nothing to care for by the end of the century, that is to give a rather generous timeline. To make matters worse they’ve already done enough ecological damage to make the idea of the world supporting the projected 10 billion people by 2050 a rather farcical idea. So what happens as our population expands and the ability of the world to support life decreases, my guess, nothing good.
Yet almost no one views this course we’re on with the attention it deserves. We should be talking into the nights with one another. Finding out what is true while there is still time to find out. We should be healing the inner ego dominator that has been culturally installed within us all. Then perhaps each of us can come to the enlightening conclusion that this society must be let go of if we are to survive past what is to come. If enough of us learn to painfully let go of our ego driven passions just maybe we will then notice and naturally come to a state of caring for what we should have been noticing and caring for all along.
