Apocalyptical Two Stepping

Are things getting better or worse?

Many generations have faced their mortality with apocalyptic thinking.  My own world is coming to an end, so therefore the whole world must be coming to an end.  Every generation has its prophets of doom, predicting the demise of the world, or the world as we know it.

The turn of the millennium was fraught with this kind of thinking.  I'm talking, of course, of 1000 A.D. Many at that time predicted the destruction of Revelations and the second coming.  Didn't really pan out.

More recently, the 1830s had an inexplicable rise in apocalyptic thinking, with groups like the Seventh Day Adventists.  It was also at this time that the doctrine of the rapture developed, the idea that a subset of people (Jehovah Witnesses had advocated that it would be 144,000, but that may not be true now - hey, people change!) would be taken straight to heaven while the rest face the horrors of  Satan's reign.

In our times, there are still cults that predict our imminent end, including going off to bunkers to commit suicide.  Every few years, someone is brave enough or crazy enough to set a date.  And then when that date passes to busily recalculate to see where they went wrong.

Y2K, the Mayan calender, red heifers - all these warnings and dates pass us by.  Meanwhile, as always, life improves in some ways and slips back in others.

But something special is happening now.  We're no longer dependent on biblical prophecy or mortality fears to drive us towards concerns of Armageddon.  We are now more than capable of really taking ourselves out, without the involvement of a wrathful deity, nor a stray meteorite. We now have the nuclear capacity to blow up the world many times over, and we live with that threat, either on purpose or by accident, every single day.

And, although it may not end all life, our world is being completely changed by climate change.  All the plagues inflicted on Egypt during Exodus are going to seem like child's play compared to what we are inflicting on ourselves.

If anyone has been paying attention it seems like the rhetoric regarding climate change has gone from 1) we've got to stop this while we can, to 2) it's not too late to at least mitigate the damage from this, to finally 3) hang on, everybody! It's going to be a bumpy ride!

This jeopardizes all the considerable progress the world has made in human rights, in lifting people out of poverty, of creating a more spiritual, caring world. The coming resource wars are going to make previous wars look like toddler fits.

But maybe we'll be lucky and bright.  Maybe it's not too late for the mitigation route. I'm trying hard not to play the Apocalyptic Two-Step.

One thing, even if we check what's happening, is pretty clear.

Be prepared for the possibility of visiting your grandchildren on Baffin Island.  Bring sunscreen.