An Assignment on the Climate

People are a mess, is what they are. You’d think that with a little bit of effort things might’ve gone slightly to the left, a bit better than this, but nothing actually changed, didn’t it?

That is what I learned when I spent my Sunday evening lodged between a chair and a desk, hunched over a paper filled with notes that looked more like illegible scribbles.

Humans never change. They’re quite predictable, actually. If you took the time to piece every rise and fall in government, leadership, or power in the world, you would find that their ultimate collapse was very, very predictable. And that’s because although language, culture and technology change over time, humans do not. We still cause the same chaos we always did, relying more so on a small punitive amygdala lodged near our brainstems rather than the frontal lobes that were evolved ever so specifically handle life’s greatest strategic hurdles. Just thinking about it fills me with the same feeling you get when you sit down to watch a movie, only to find you can predict every supposed nuanced plot point because you have seen the same garbage sold to you every time in a new pretty package.

But that wouldn’t help me with my assignment, now would it? Realizing that humanity is an unchanging constant because of the agonizingly slow process of evolution isn’t going to help me write this, or so I’ve realized while looking over notes that may be one of the greatest misusages of blue and black ink known to man.

So, I begin to rewrite my notes, starting with the most recent chapter of my readings.

Section Title: The Impact of Climate Change on Organisms and Ecosystems

Bullet #1: Climate-related natural disasters increased because of human-induced climate change.

I glance over photo glaring out on the screen from the right—a uranium-orange sky, covering an ashen filled landscape, trees barely visible among the particles of smoke and ash. I don’t find it alien. I remember the first time I remember seeing such a sky—I was 4 years old, and it was the middle of august. My brother was supposed to go to school that day, but it was canceled because of the fires. I remember staring outside at the sky, wondering what it would look like if I would ever see the dull, blue sky again while watching the mountains disappear underneath the thick smog and ash that coated the atmosphere. I had seen many such fires since. Now I’m left wondering what it would like to find a radiant orange sky alarming, and what it would be like to take a dull blue sky for granted.

I scrolled down the page, looking at the caption under the photo. California Wildfires, 2022.

The text continues: “However, some wildfires weren’t always accidental. In the case of the Amazon Rainforest, wildfires were started on purpose in order to clear land for the creation of pastures”.

What bullshit.

I wonder who thought that trading the foreign for the normal was worth it. Who would sell the world’s lungs and leave it gasping for air? For what price?

For the price of every coastal population relocating further inland and losing their homes to torrential hurricanes? Or having so many cities based in dry climates fend off wildfires that devolved into torrential fire whirls? Pick your element, it’s the same battle—a losing one.

The body count was estimated to be in the tens of millions, or so I’ve been told, but in actuality it was probably vastly different. Statistics are always underestimated or overestimated depending on who it benefits, so who knows how many people actually died, right?

But I already knew that, so there is no reason to write that down.

So I scrolled down through the photos of the worst category 5 hurricanes and plagues that had originated in the Antarctic. I ended up skipping to the next section of the readings:

Section 2: Humanity’s Growth in Reaction to Climate Change

Bullet #2: Technology advanced to compensate for climate change.

I didn’t have to look very far for that one. Any sidewalk near the coast is faced with gorgeous architecture designed to tuck the ocean out of sight, keeping us away from floods as beautifully as possible—if you’re lucky. If you’re not then you end up stuck with a 5-foot concrete wall around the perimeter of your city, serving much the same purposes as a big ugly fence. Let’s see how long it lasts, shall we?

We can thank our good friends at mega-co. for that. With their benevolent donations towards the world’s cause, we can see just how hard they’re working to kill 3 birds with one stone: better their view in the public eye, expand their markets into growing fields involved with sustainability and city architecture, and shift the focus from who caused it in the first place. What a wonderful plan they’ve so delicately created.

This assignment’s boring.

You know what? Looking over the mess on my desk, I should probably clean it up. At least the papers. Maybe the books. There is dust all over my shelves anyway, it needs to be cleaned. The copy of The Metamorphosis for class I never touched is just covered in it. You know what they say, right? You must keep a clean workspace before you can even begin to work on anything.

But I don’t bother. I sit back down, pick up the damn pen again and continue writing, cramped between a desk and a chair. It is due tomorrow, of course.

Maybe the emotion isn’t boredom at all. Maybe I’m just lying to myself. I’m angry.

There is this sort of existentialism that comes with watching the world rot around you. So many generations before us were left with the shocking growth of humanity’s progression, but we are left with the shock of its decay. Stress causes the same reaction in the brain, good bad or ugly. The shock is still the same. As I said, humans are predictable.

But after that we’re all left with a bit of hope to repair everything, so we go on and work to fix society like it’s a computer we can turn on and off again. Hoping that none of this would happen again. Hoping to go back to normal. Hoping. A couple generations down the line we remember we still have problems and that hope doesn’t keep us fed or safe, so the uproar and demand for justice continues. Play a movie and you’ll see that you’ve watched it before. After you watch it enough times you just get frustrated.

You know, sometimes I dream of a calming state of decay. The sort of decay you might be able to stand, a physical representation of exhaustion. Wildflowers growing around old broken cities, humanity living in villages and having less power over their own wellbeing. I guess that makes me an anarchist, doesn’t it?.

Again, that still doesn’t help me with my assignment.

I hate this assignment.

I can’t believe I’m still writing assignments on a subject that served to be one of the greatest threats for humanity, complete with almost every worst-case natural disaster known to man. I’m writing about it, with blue and black ink, trying to make sure my handwriting has just few enough hieroglyphs that I can turn it in for credit.

The world collapsed, and here I am, sitting in the dust, worrying about getting credit for an assignment on its demise.

Best to finish it though, it is due tomorrow.