Daily Archives: 06/05/2003

Damnation and Ruin

Fifteen years ago I read a book about the coming environmental troubles. Prominent among these catastrophes was the collapse of the oceanic ecosystems due to over-fishing. Looks like we are rapidly approaching that dark day. Two recent publications indicate the dire straits of the world’s oceans due to pollution and over-fishing. In a letter published in the journal Nature, Ransom Myers & Boris Worm detailed how large predatory fish stocks have been depleted to a tenth of their previous levels. The consequences could be severe for the ocean’s ecosystem.

In a related publication, the Pew Oceans Commission details the increasing pressure on the world’s oceans due to development, pollution, and overfishing. It looks grim, mostly because the damage done to the ocean is mostly invisible to humanity. All that salt water covering the devastation and prompting certain optimists to believe there is not problem at all with the oceans.

It just increases my sense of desperation. We are all damned. We were given an earthly paradise, a lonesome blue dot in the harsh and unforgiving universe, and we’ve fucked it up. Totally. We tore a hole in the sky, pillaged the forests, stripped the mountains, poisoned the sea.

We broke the fucking sky. So many people on this planet, living in luxury or poverty, and we all think we are destined for a heavenly paradise after we die. Don’t kid yourself. We are all damned. If a heavenly paradise exists, you can be certain not a single human being resides there.