Dear civilization, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do

For a while there you were magnificent. The pyramids (built with or without slaves, maybe farmers made those eternal structures on their off time), the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Taj, the cathedrals, Machu Picchu, the Bible, Lalibela, Petra, Dante, Beethoven, Shakespeare. All those good things. You made so many things possible for humanity to safeguard itself from famine, from adverse weather. You held so much promise with the help of great philosophers and inventors and artists. You recently made electricity run through our homes and gave us surplus goods and machines that made us fly through the air and the modern economic system. You were impressive. But of late I noticed you have started to lose faith in your abilities, your prowess, your promise to the next generation. Drought seems to be on the increase everywhere from California to India and Australia. Everywhere the ice that you were so afraid of tens of thousands of years ago is waning. You thought you had all the answers with the Industrial Revolution, that you thought you had understood Nature, or at least much of her. Or had at least built an order free from the constraints of the soil, genes and biology as a whole. Or did you? 

You thought these computers that have come to run the show could solve all the problems from diminishing crop yields through the Green Revolution to increasing population everywhere. But while you grew and deemed yourself a pro, somewhere, something began to give. The land. I think you became too arrogant. I think it’s called overshoot. You became top-heavy. One of your most illustrious men, prophets really, because he really got you, HD Thoreau said it best when he said, “All things invite the earth’s inhabitants To rear their lives to an un heard of height And see the expectation of the land.” He was truly one of your best critics. And he cherished the land and he knew that being part of the land was to be cultivated and civilized. And that was over 150 years ago. So what happened? You seemed to have lost the thread. Profit, speed, the war machine, poisons, industry, slavery seemed to have taken over. You seemed to have had a nervous breakdown. What happened?

Dear Civilization. I thought I knew you. A grave sickness seems to have taken over the land. From little creatures you call viruses, some say were cultivated on purpose. Why in heaven for? Didn’t your children know any better? The rats and bats will always win out over the machinations of men. I know you have probably let this venture unfurl to see if men could survive. But what if they can’t. Even the grown-ups seem to act like unsophisticated children. Vying for power. Working for mere profits. Many of your richest citizens don’t even pay taxes to support you. What a scandal. You must be really embarrassed by those guys. A little out of touch. And they get away with it. Many seem unhappy and overworked. Having little to no time to cherish the moon, the tides, the flowers, the bees. These men are even killing off Nature’s children, the animals for fun. Some say they are programmed to. Others say it is murder. Can you wonder what the animals are saying? Remember to remind the men, that without the others, people are not going to make it. Let this decade decide what kind of future they are going to bestow on their kids. I mean it, civil, you’re living on borrowed time. You’ve gone amok. Shame on you!

Civil, if I may call you that, you seemed to be much more civil, even 150 years ago. Darwin, one of your best, understood the struggle, origin, the best and fastest and wisest. We got that. But now it seems everyone is at each others’ throats. Or soon will be. Mass shootings, refugees everywhere. You seem to be in crisis mode. Heat is flaring up all over the Earth. Your greatest trees the sequoias have lost so many trees recently due to those crazy fires not so long ago. You lose them and you’re really in trouble. Some of those guys were there when you began. I mean you’re almost the same age. And up the street people in California are still worried, fixated really about their microchips, their stock portfolios. They seem to have lost touch with the ground, what that Thoreau guy was talking about. Civil, you seem to have a fever. It seems worse than a fever. You were so good at extracting resources there for a few millennia that your children now seem to be starting to bicker, even start wars over those things you deem so valuable. Like coal, cobalt, aluminum, lithium to make those little vehicles go and of course oil. Things have been going overboard of late.

It seems water is going to be a major flash point. Literally. Lakes are subsiding in the southwest of the U.S. The Aral Sea. Lake Chad. The oceans are going to have more plastic than fish. Is there anything not subsiding? That great state of California seemed to have lost the thread when it comes to water levels of late. Too centralized I would say. Not so great. Start teaching people to go local. I mean imagine if one third of California’s fruits and two thirds of its veggies went poof. No more dinner. They call it drought. They’ve been here before during the time of the Anasazi, 1,000 years ago. But this is getting to be special. Big, you know. With hundreds of millions of people affected. No, possibly the whole planet. Let’s call it the Anasazi Syndrome. Look what happened to them. It’s back with a vengeance. 

Some specialized people called scientists say a mega drought is looming. And not just in California but all over the world. No more Hanging Gardens of Babylon, maybe no more Amazon. Is that possible? The ice caps melting into the abyss. How could you have let this happen? You were so proud once. Maybe 3,000 years before that prophet called Christ. He seemed to have said one simple thing and no one seems to have listened. Do not do to others… What is so difficult about that? Civil. What happened?  You have got to do something about this. Mr. Gates’ ideas to jettison aerosols into space as a shield isn’t going to cut it. You have got to get people to change the way they act, and behave and breed or not. Fast. Quick! Civil. There is no time. I mean catastrophe laps at our shores. Frankly. I’m very scared. Help us, will you?

Some of your cities seem to be falling apart. Especially in the youngest of countries called the U.S. Why don’t you fix them? Don’t its citizens see how those on the other side of the Atlantic are doing. They build better cities. Robust. Romantic. Resilient. Bike paths. Cities as if people mattered. Longer vacations. Even highly strange things called the Green Party seem to work better. And yet so many divisions persist. Dictatorships here. Supposed democracies there. You seem highly schizoid. It’s as if you no longer know where to stay here on Earth or go elsewhere. You have sent some to explore the moon and other planets but you can’t hold the ship here on Earth. What on Earth is the matter with you? You have a young Swedish girl telling you to grow up but you don’t listen to her warnings. That your people are not happy. That you have little time. That you are creating mayhem. It’s as if you found her childish. The children know better and listen to her. Why don’t you? You flay forests and pollute oceans and find this thing called money fascinating. The measure of all things. Are you crazy? Why it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on if you can’t breathe the air. People are keeling over from heat exhaustion. Almost 1.5 billion of your people don’t have access to water and you think you’re sophisticated.

Dear civilization, but I think you’ve become an embarrassment. Look at yourself. You let radioactive poisons leak into the sea from this young island of whale eaters called Japan. I heard whales screaming cries of abject perfidy into the waters of the oceans. How could you let this be? And somewhere in a place called the Amazon you raised these legumes called soy beans, destroying the greatest rainforest on Earth, for cows. Have you lost your mind? You’ve lost touch with reality. You have got to come to your senses. Some say, the experts do, that you only have got this decade to turn things around. Those gases you have emitted into the atmosphere have gotten way out of hand. You’re going to fry your people. They’re going to have to eat crickets and cicadas and it’s going to become a wild west show everywhere fast. Russia and America, this Hatfield and McCoy stuff has got to stop. You know with everyone pretending they’re at the OK corral. Its already begun in that young upstart country called the U.S. Some people there really have no manners. Something is really wrong in the soul there. People are exhausted. With everyone trying to get over this pandemic that nature let loose. But the people started it. They have no respect. Civil, it’s time for people to get truly civil.

Some seem to want to ignore your greatest minds, the scientists, the teachers, the plain simple truth, that society is going overboard. Really it’s your fault. Entirely. You’ve let some have all the fun, almost all the resources, all the green paper stuff that seems to make people crazy and some have nothing. Really Civil, that’s not how nature works. Lions don’t eat all the antelopes so that there’s nothing for those other cats out there or the laughing hyenas. I mean if you let people continue on the greedy train, there’s going to be some kind of nervous breakdown across all of human civilization. Chaos everywhere. Breaking water pipes. No internet. No postal delivery. We can’t have that, can we. Or can we. I mean it was over 120 degrees in Phoenix today and people are still quibbling over America’s last election. 

Civil, your air conditioning systems are going to overheat. And then you’ve some Russians trying to stop energy or computers from working in the U.S. or Europe or whatnot. That’s no way to behave. Not when the heat of the world keeps rising. You’re going to have to show people how to get along and fast, before the famines start. People are going to have to put their differences aside. I mean look, even the French are going vegetarian and many of them are giving up tongue and foie gras (yuck) and horse. So really, anything is possible.

Look Civil, can you actually act civil, for once in your life? This time I mean it. You have put 8 billion people on this little planet and you are barely slowing down. They say men are having issues with their fertility. That’s a switch. But if you don’t mend your ways fast. I mean in the next years, we are all going back to the cave. Now you don’t want that do you. So grow up! 

Look, this is the last time I ask. Kids are going to college and it’s costing them a fortune. What are they going to look forward to, another pandemic? Imagine, if they can’t ask for croissants in Paris. Or see clown fish in the Bahamas. What if they’re told polar bears have now become grolars. That won’t sound good will it? At some point some are going to say, “Why am I going to school in the first place? You never told me it was going to come to this. I mean what career can I possibly have when the sidewalks are melting and all the grizzly bears and wolves have been shot by hyperactive muzzle loading freaks.” I mean why have kids at all on a planet that will feel like a frying pan just out of the oven? Will there still be bees and flowers? I mean are we all going to have to learn to live underground? I mean really. Can we please stop the train? I think we need a new civilization and fast. Yes that means you!

---

changing america copyright.