City Of God 12

We could be on the brink of what could turn out to be one of the greatest global disasters since the last ice age. I am talking here about climate change from global warming. Two days ago, Thanksgiving Day (in Canada) the UN report came out that, at the very best, we have another eleven years to change our fuel consumption habits and significantly reduce our carbon footprint, or that's it. Schnitzel for you, Tootsie. The climate will have warmed by at least a full four degrees and we will have such killer storms, floods, droughts rising sea levels and crop failure and devastation of arable land that we had might as well all join in a global chorus of Nearer My God to Thee, because our species is about to go the way of the Titanic. (Atheists don't have to sing nearer my God, they can substitute it with closer to the eternal abyss of existential despair, if they choose). Worst case. Yes, it isn't a pretty thought. But we have to think this and face it. This doesn't mean that it actually is going to be that bad. I could even turn out worse. Or better. Science never has all the answers and we could be thrown yet a few unexpected curve balls to either accelerate or mitigate the cause for panic. So, now the mindfulness industry is going to go at full throttle. Between people's addictions to their smart phones, increasing globalized pressures to perform and compete well in the workplace, and that Sword of Damocles called climate change hanging over our heads by an ever thinning thread, a lot of folks are going to grab at any placebo or panacea that will help calm them down, be they tranquilizers, prayer meetings or mindfulness meditation and yoga sessions. We are being faced, as never before, by the reality of our mortality. And most of us, it seems, still can't get our heads out of the sand, or out of a particular orifice that everyone of us has on our bodies. To worsen the odds, there is in the Paranoid States of America a huge lobby of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, with huge political clout (they love el Presidente Dump), and they are insisting either that there is no danger of climate change and that it's all a plot from pantheists and anti-Christian tree=huggers, or that this means that the Apocalypse is nigh, Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled and the Second Coming of Christ is imminent, so let's hasten the devastation because Jesus will be coming back all the sooner and we can't wait. Well, I am a theologically orthodox Christian and this kind of crap really hurts my head and leaves me rolling my eyes. We have no way of knowing for sure how things are going to turn out, but all the scientific models are in and our prognosis is not pretty. If we don't have more people on board with this, if we don't have a sizable lobby of concerned and responsible citizens who will give up completely the use of fossil fuels (in other words, give up your cars!), and to quit eating meat and significantly reduce the way we waste energy, then we'd might as well just sit where we already are, put our heads between our knees and kiss our sweet ass goodbye. The City of God is not some fabled New Jerusalem that will magically appear to house the already redeemed once we have made rubble out of our mother earth. This is the City of God., It is here, in our very midst, and only our failure to adequately love God, one another and our precious planet earth is going to slam shut the gates in our faces. I am optimistic. I believe we will get through this. However, we had better prepare now to get our ass royally kicked over the next several decades, and we had better start caring more. This massive collective tsunami of greed, selfishness and competitiveness that has been ushered in by global capitalism is going to be one of the greatest setbacks to our moving forward on climate change, and the time is now to start challenging this pernicious myth of economic prosperity. Our survival as a species hangs on the necessity of our willingness to become better human beings, less selfish, more caring, more responsible and...more loving. Kumbaya, anyone?