Death and Taxes and Planetary Suicide

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It seems pretty clear that the planet is getting warmer.

My question is, why don't Americans care?

You might think they're just stupid, to insist there's no proof. There's no 'proof' that gravity is real either, but that doesn't make me want to jump off the Arrigoni Bridge. You'll get no argument from me that Americans are stupid, but this has little to do with native intelligence or the lack thereof. They simply don't want to face the fact that they may need to sacrifice any of their luxuries for the sake of something--anything--else.

There are other reasons too, of course. Americans are aggressively stupid. And they are proud of it. We know about Ph.D.s, right? "Piled higher and deeper." American anti-intellectualism runs deep. We prefer to be stupid. We don't need anyone with book smarts telling us that if we don't start behaving differently, our great-grandchildren won't have water to drink, and will have to wear gas masks for a trip to Cumberland Farms.

And then there's war. War allows us to be Patriotic. Patriotism is an easy, feel-good emotion. Who can resist that lovely rush when our troops gather for the last time before they board that plane to the desert? Anything that feels that good just has to be right. And it's downright treason if you question why we're sending young people off to their deaths.

We force our politicians to be shortsighted or risk being out of a job. Little Johnny goes off to college next year! How dare you raise my taxes! He'll need a good job to afford drinkable water and the latest fashion in gas masks. And when his expensive home on the Greenwich shore is flooded, it'll cost a mint to move inland. Those people who raise taxes--those (sputter, sputter) liberals--get those guys out of office!!

I have a theory about why Americans don't want to sacrifice to save the only planet we have. It may sound farfetched, but I think the fear of death is at the root of it all. Ram Dass, who turned out not to be such a silly fellow after all, said, "Death is not an outrage". And yet we are outraged, as if the universe owes us something different from the fate that befalls all the 'inferior' creatures like plants and animals. After all, God made us "a little lower than the angels", and crowned us with glory and honor. He gave us dominion over all those creatures. We're demigods, really, and we ought to be able to live forever.

We are angry. We deserve more, don't we? The children will deal with the problems we leave, just as we dealt with what our parents and grandparents left us. With the amazing technological advances that are sure to come, they'll probably be living in paradise.

So we grab, and grab, and grab. I'm guilty too. I probably have only a few years left to live, and I sure as hell don't want to spend it without the means to enjoy life. And yet...

I feel responsible. Damn, damn, damn. No likely reward, either, if my suspicions about an afterlife are true. But I feel a part of a spirit of life, that has flowed through our DNA and our breath and blood and bones since the first protein bubble formed in the primordial soup. I can only be who I am, giving of myself to that flow. To stop would be hell. It's not about me, it's about life. It's about my beloved Mother Earth.

Consciousness isn't all it's cracked up to be. Damn, damn, damn.
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