But It’s Late
Based on fossils and archeological artifacts from around the world, modern humans have existed for about 200,000 years; but the roots of civilization only go back 20,000 years, to when we first began planting grain and building walls. These dates slide back and forth on history’s timeline depending on the viewpoint, but practically all sources agree that up until about sixty years ago, humanity’s footprint on the sands of time was for the most part biodegradable. —Connie Koehler, Austin, Texas
Last night we had a spirited discussion about the future of humanity. Our springboard was a dozen submissions to Philosophy Now magazine by various readers on the same topic. A common thread in almost every submission was human caused climate change.
Informed, thoughtful individuals around the world know that it is late. How late is it, the point at which climate change is irreversible, becoming a self reinforcing, one-direction phenomenon? Even under the best of scenarios, the slim chance that we will overcome our competitive inclination and cooperate to save the earth and ourselves with it, —we are in for a rough time.
Hard fact is there are too many humans for the carrying capacity of the earth to support, –our endless greed, the out of control growth. So it has been with other civilizations that are memories.
ON TRAVELING TO BEAUTIFUL PLACES
Every day I am still looking for God
and I’m still finding him everywhere,
in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
Certainly in the oceans,
in the islands that lay in the distance
continents of ice, countries of sand
each with its own set of creatures
and God, by whatever name.
How perfect to be aboard a ship with
maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it’s late, for all of us,
and in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.
by Mary Oliver
from A Thousand Mornings Poems
