This is the way the world ends

The Australian

OPINION

Phillip Adams
October 07, 2006
1940. The war and I are one year old. And the sky is on fire. It is a thunderstorm and the memory, my first, remains as bright as lightning. Sixty-six years have passed in a flash. A life beginning with a glimpse of the apocalypse. For millions of children in Europe, the skies are truly burning.

1945. The skies burn in Japan. My nickname in grade two is apocalyptic: Adam-bomb. And the A-bombs that evaporate Hiroshima and Nagasaki fill the imagination with dread for the next 44 years. Do not ask for whom the nuclear clock is ticking. It ticks for everyone.

1985. A scientist tells me about rising levels of CO2 and something called the greenhouse effect. He warns that it represents a far greater threat than any military conflict, and persuades me to make it the primary focus of the new Commission For The Future. We organise international gatherings of scientists, hold public meetings across the nation, publish warnings. In political terms, next to nothing happens.

1989. Phew, that was close! The Cold War is cancelled, the nuclear apocalypse put on hold. Yet the sky is burning again. The hot war of climate change is upon us, but too few are fighting it.

1997. The Kyoto Treaty is negotiated. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. Cold War enemies become allies as, one by one, the nations sign it. Two refuse: the United States and us.

2001. More flames in the sky. Boeings hit buildings and the four horsemen are back in the saddle, galloping through our nightmares. It’s a new world war for the new century, one without uniforms or national boundaries. A war of blurred definitions that can be loudly declared but never won. A war that distracts us from the greatest danger in history.

2002. George and John continue to dismiss Kyoto. Not even Tony is willing to remain in that coalition.

2004. Don’t ask for whom the CO2 clock is ticking. It ticks for everyone – and for every species. Here is an apocalypse that happens by inches, though some of its increments are spectacular. But for all our concerns about demented weather patterns, we remain strangely passive about climate change’s progress.

T.S. Eliot tossed a coin for how the world would end. Bang or whimper? Now we know.

2005. Katrina wrecks New Orleans.

2006. Only 837 days to the end of the Bush presidency.

2007. The term “greenhouse effect” has been out of date for a decade. An antique term for a phenomenon first identified in the late 19th century, it gave way long ago to “global warming”, which in turn became “climate change”. Politicians elected for short terms – around four years for Australian governments and US presidents – are more interested in polls than thermometers, and so continue to dissemble and prevaricate. As long as they win the next election, let their successors deal with it. The recklessness is insane, the cynicism shameful. In the War Against CO2 we now have war crimes, war criminals.

2008. Bush era ends. The planet heaves a sigh of relief. President Al Gore signs Kyoto. Coal and oil corporations have him shot by a “lone madman”.

20?? Finally, there’s panic. Finally, the deniers of our climatic holocaust are utterly discredited and totally shamed. The oceans rise as promised, the droughts deepen, the crops fail, millions starve, species die and refugees in their millions are on the march. Governments and economies collapse in a domino effect that dwarfs the worst fears of the Cold War as the Hot War is lost. What a pity. What a shame. We had a good thing going on our planet. Now it’s stuffed. And it had a terrible effect on the value of Sydney’s waterfront real estate.

5000. The Gaia Hypothesis turns out to be true. The thermostat slowly lowers and the planet once again achieves equilibrium. Seems James Lovelock, the scientist who came up with the hypothesis way back in the 20th century, was right. Billions of humans and innocent animals were killed by climate change in the 21st century. As Lovelock predicted, “a few breeding pairs” of humans survived in a “defrosted Arctic” but became extinct by 3000AD. Easy come, easy go.

2006. Second chance. Last chance. Get angry. Get going. Protest. Pray to God or write to your MP, though neither activity will be much use. But do something! Join something! At the very least see Al’s movie.