Ok, time to stop for a minute and think. Not too long, mind you, a minute is a hell of a long time when it comes to the Doomsday Clock.

We now sit at 23:55, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in a time of relative global stability (despite what the arms manufacturers would have us believe), but at a point when we surely have to seriously start considering what life will be like beyond the climatic precipice. Pretty hot, by all accounts, and dangerous – climate change will begat competition for resources, and war, inevitably. This is not just about the threat to the natural ecosystem – the creatures and plants of the Earth that most people in the West seem to think are expendable – but about the harsh times that come with it.

The deserts will encroach upon rich croplands, salination will be rife as evaporation increases, soils will wash away with intense flooding. The sea will rise : cities will drown. People will fight each other, and if you have a patch of fertile land, you will have to defend it. The rules change after Doomsday.

Remember when you were a child and first saw a clock with hands – did you move the hour hand, hoping that the minute hand would move very quickly? It doesn’t work, does it?

The only way to alter the time is by moving the minute hand. It’s a boring job, and takes a long time for the effort to reap rewards. But we have to turn that minute hand back as quickly as we can, because time is getting on, and once we hear the chimes of midnight it’s all over.

No more.

Goodbye.

Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org
www.greenseniors.org
www.reduce3.com
And proud member of The Sietch