One of those days when the future looms large for some reason. And it's not a pretty future either. Henry Pollack has just published a book called "A World Without Ice", and documents in very graphic terms what will, read that again, WILL be happening in the next decades centuries and mellenia when, read that WHEN most or all of the ice on the planet will be gone. No room left for platitudes or prayers. Disaster is around the corner and moving inexorably towards us. The world will be facing massive population displacement as the seas unstoppably encroach on the land. Famine, disease, war. Not a pretty picture. And we are the cause. Too many of us using too much of the earth to sustain us. With the population still growing the possibility of turning around the juggernaut diminishes with each birth. What are we to do? Well, that's the question isn't it? If the dynamics for the melting of the ice are already operating and can't be reversed, what indeed. I think the answer is "nothing". We can do nothing meaningful at this point to do more than slow things down a little. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try though. Just around the corner with the beast may be the cure as well. I wouldn't bet on it. No harm in hoping. I am certain that the world that will emerge from the chaos to come will be a well balanced and hospitable one. Probably eventually semi-stone age if there are any of us left. And we will be spared the future disaster of global population overgrowth because there won't be enough fossil fuel left to fuel another industrial revolution. So the next time we cycle we may actually be in a better place. In balance with nature, not destroying it. Now that is hopeful is it not?
Book cover from: www.worldwithoutice.com/
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