Complex Numbers

The Inevitable

Yes, I'm in Vegas. Yes, I'm done indulging my vices for the day. Consequently... blog post. Warning: I've been drinking, so I may say shit I shouldn't.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbwpdb/the-climate-change-paper-so-depressing...

The Climate Change Paper So Depressing It's Sending People to Therapy
On average, three people read an academic paper. At least 100,000 have read this—and a lot of them haven't taken it very well.

Well, I'm one of those who haven't read it, so let's see what the article has to say about it.

What if I told you there was a paper on climate change that was so uniquely catastrophic, so perspective-altering, and so absolutely depressing that it's sent people to support groups and encouraged them to quit their jobs and move to the countryside?

Well, I don't have a real job to quit, but I can't get fast fiber internet in the countryside, so... hard pass.

"We're fucked," he told me. "Climate change is going to fuck us over. I remember thinking, Should I just accept the deep adaptation paper and move to the Scottish countryside and wait out the apocalypse?"

On the other hand, the Scottish countryside has one thing to recommend it. Well, two things, but mostly: scotch.

But most of all, there's the stark conclusions that it draws about the future. Chiefly, that it's too late to stop climate change from devastating our world—and that "climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term."

I knew that without reading academic papers. Well, okay. I didn't "know" that. I suspected that. It's one of the reasons I chose not to have kids.

Look, the time to do anything about climate change was 30 years ago. Maybe even 20. Now? I just don't give a shit anymore.

Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway.

Yeah... knowing Fox News, they reported it with a smirk and went on to extol the virtues of tax cuts for the wealthy.

He minces his words even less in his paper: "When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you won't have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death."

This is my shocked face:

Climate gloom and doom is nothing new—doomsday preppers have been stockpiling their freeze-dried food rations for decades now.

Fuck that. I wanna be among the first to go. Easier that way. In short:



As an aside, nothing makes me laugh harder than people who hoard gold against the possible collapse of civilization, no matter what the imagined cause. Come the inevitable, gold won't be worth the paper it's printed on; its value depends entirely on how shiny we think it is. "But, Waltz, gold has actual uses! It's a great conductor!" Yeah... that'll be helpful when nothing's generating electricity. No, if you're going to prep, the thing to hoard is coffee. It's not a domestic product in the US, and people are fucking addicted to that shit. Have a stockpile of freeze-dried, tinned, preserved coffee beans or grounds, and you'll be the King, Queen, Grand Nagus, whatever, of the Apocalypse. Possess gold, and people will just laugh. Other options include cigarettes and chocolate. Just be sure you can defend your hoard.

So, like I said, I don't care anymore. I used to. But decades of fighting denial, deflection and outright rejection have taken their toll on me. At this point, I'm just going to ride this sucker down with the hot wind in my hair and a grin on my face.

This is still the most fun slide to oblivion of any civilization, anywhere, and I've decided I'm going to enjoy the whirlwind.