Canaries in the Climate Despair Coal Mine

I came across this must-read piece on Guy McPherson's new radio show, "Nature Bats Last" on PRN.fm:

http://prn.fm/nature-bats-last-081914/

https://medium.com/@davepaiz/canaries-in-the-climate-despair-coalmine-202a57f6b3f9

While we debate what tragic mix of nature and nurture ultimately killed Robin Williams, largely missing from the conversation is any mention of the dark tide of scary shit that’s sweeping the globe as a possible motivating factor.

Why is it that when someone chooses to end their own life, in nearly every case the debate is always about what a poor, tortured soul they were, and how terrible and sad it was that they couldn’t find the help they needed, and NEVER about how maybe, just maybe, they opted out because the world we live in is going down the shitter at maximum warp and it’s getting harder and harder for many among us to come up with good reasons to stick around and watch this horror show unfold.

How can we continue to separate discussion of suicide from a discussion of context?

Why does it always become a debate about access to mental health services? Or about having the courage to reach out and admit that you’ve fallen into shadow and are pondering the pro’s and con’s of not being here anymore?

How can we continue to live in such a state of denial about what’s going on all around us and the impact that these things are having on our state of mind?

By all means, let’s talk about suicide.

Let’s talk about what’s worth living for in modern-day America.

Let’s talk about what we accept as normal, right, good and true.

Let’s talk about traffic jams, migraines, school shootings, full-spectrum state surveillance, Black Friday shopping stampedes, Xanax, Reality TV, perpetual debt treadmills, genetically modified food, chronic exhaustion, sleep deprivation, overmedication, constant distraction, infantile techno-fetishization, hyper-stimulation and the other touchstones of the insane hall of mirrors we’ve created for ourselves.

Let’s talk about what hope means on a planet that’s warming far more rapidly than scientists predicted just a few short years ago.

Let’s talk about arctic amplification, methane clathrate destabilization, ocean acidification and abrupt climate change.

Let’s talk about everything we do every day that only makes things worse.

Let’s talk about the chasm that separates the unfolding horrors manifesting in the natural world from the ongoing parade of grim meathook absurdities that defines our political world.

Let’s talk about how everything is falling apart at warp speed while our so-called leaders do nothing.

Let’s talk about how, as the planet spins out of control, we are being urged to continue putting our faith in the same toxic, dead-end cultural narratives that have delivered us and the rest of the planet into the loving arms of the Sixth Great Extinction.

Let’s talk about how the planet is screaming FIRE!!!! while our corrupt, ineffectual leaders keep telling us to remain calm, cast our votes, shut the fuck up and keep bleeding ourselves dry to feed this sad, broken, world-eating Machine.

Let’s talk about how everything will work out fine, because we’re Americans, after all, and we have the gods of progress and technology on our side, and plenty of time to figure out how to un-fuck all the things we’ve managed to fuck up in our brief time on the planet.

Let’s talk about what brought Robin Williams to such a terrible end, and while we consider what personal demons he was fighting, let’s also have the courage and maturity to confront the reality of our times with open eyes, not to justify suicide, but to stop kidding ourselves about the rapidly deteriorating state of the world, and the effect this is having on the human psyche.

See also: 

http://philosophersbunker.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-irreconcilable-acceptance-of-near.html

http://guymcpherson.com/