Extinction Looms

Don't you fucking get it???
If everything else dies, we die, too. There's no future for us if we continue believing we can do anything we want without consequences.

And who the fuck are these ignorant fucks in office? And how did we vote them there? Do we really think that paying fewer taxes now is going to save our lives? Is having that fancy new TV what this is all about? Stay plugged in, with a really clear picture, and you can just ignore our impending self-destruction. Fuck you.

Bush pulls out of the Kyoto talks and we just blink. No lights on.

Actually, I wish there were no lights on. I make a general practice of using as little electricity as possible, but I walk down the street in Cambridge MA - one of the most highly educated, wealthy, liberal demographics in the country (and let's not forget totally self-important) - and I see Halloween themed lights on ALL NIGHT! Those huge blowup pumpkins with little blowup ghosts floating around inside. An utter waste, and an emblematic reflection of our self-inflicted ignorance.

I talk to PhD students at MIT, and brilliant though they are, none of them are even trying to save the world from itself! What else is there???

Enough ranting, now read this:

All the fish in the sea are dying. Being fished out of existence.

Have you ever walked through New York's Chinatown at 3:00 am? Do you know how many of those fish rot? How much fish do you eat? Ever caught one yourself? Watched it fight for breath, for its own life?

Ever get the idea that's what you'll look like, feel like, when your food supply is gone and your air supply is toxic?

I watched the movie Quintet last night (or at least the part up until the disc error ended it). If you haven't seen it, get it now and make yourself watch it. It is a horrifyingly prophetic vision of the end of our species. Congratulations to Robert Altman and crew for living through the making of that one. I would have been too haunted, but I am so reassured of the general consciousness of our species by its existence.

It gave me weird dreams. I was engaged in a game that involved running around stairs and walkways that descended into a black hole, and I had to carry another person the whole way.

This is not a metaphor.

So what do we do about it?

Here's a suggestion:

End commercial fishing globally. Allow only individual, privately owned boats into the water with limited crews. License the boats and each fisherman. Allow only line fishing for the most endangered species, and limit the size of nets for all others. Restrict the fishing boundaries to local and regionally-focused fishermen so that each boat has a protected local area to fish in, and becomes a specialist in a certain type or types of fish, thereby raising the value of each fish caught so that the fishermen can stay alive, keep their boats maintained, and have the incentive to support the continued growth and survival of their aquatic biosphere.
In addition, each government creates a centralized body that will check the licenses of the boats and fishermen before they leave the dock each day and on their return. Their catch will be checked for species types and quantity to ensure cooperation. The other principle activity of this fishing authority will be to create a centralized system of storage and transportation so that the fish can be brought to markets in larger communities and urban areas, even provide a mechanism for international export.

This doesn't solve all the problems, and it creates others, certainly. Continuing as we are is unacceptable. Something must be done. If you can think of something better, I encourage you to broadcast your ideas as well.

I know so many talented people who don't care about the future. If you think that making money, art or power is important, you are a dinosaur, munching leaves until the comet comes to save you from yourself.