Looking over the Edge

I was struck by the coincidence of seeing two articles in very different places that warned of the same impending doom. The first was the report by an international team of scientists who have predicted the collapse of the world's seafood population by the year 2048. The second was a report from Bob Taylor in Wood and Steel (a quarterly for owners of Taylor guitars) that we are only a few short years away from seeing the end of guitar-sized trees.

Of course, looming in the background are a steady stream of updates on the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the continued rise in global temperatures. I guess my point is that there are so many signs of the coming catastrophe that it's hard to know where to make a start. And any thoughtful person has probably concluded that it's already too late to make a start on any of these matters. All we can do is learn how to manage the coming chaos.

When I was very young, probably no more than five or six, my parents took me to see When Worlds Collide, a classic science fiction film about the end of the world brought on by a collision with another planet. I had nightmares for weeks. It all seemed so final. And while there was some hope that a few might get away on a hastily constructed space ship, I was more affected by the millions who would die. For some reason I always assumed I would be one of those left behind.

I'm often reminded of those childhood fears of the end of the world when I read these reports. The optimists say that science will find a way for us the escape disaster. But somehow I think that's about as likely to happen as that rather improbable space ship in When Worlds Collide. My own prediction is that science will help those who survive find a way to cope with a much less hospitable world. Scientists and historians tell us that we've had similar times of disaster in the past. And while we may find it hard to believe, the world has been on the brink before: climate change, mass extinctions, periods of rapid decline followed by slow and laborious recovery.

And while I can hardly believe that I will actually live to see any sort of total collapse, I do wonder what the source of my optimism could be. The signs are everywhere, not so much of Armageddon or Apocalypse, but of a breakdown of order that eventually lets everything grind to a halt, a sort of systemic breakdown or entropy that we just can't reverse. You know, the sort of thing that scientists tell us must follow the loss of the oceans and the forests. If I was any younger I'd be depressed.