"Die shall I in order to live." it says in Mahler's second symphony. Goes to show how deeply the theme of resurrection is embedded in our culture. Everything on this planet is mortal, especially our civilizations. This particular one too will perish over the course of many decades and centuries due to a confluence of problems, of which climate change is one.

There are three 'channels' of climate change: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. I'd place a heavy bet on the latter two. Everything that can be burned will be burned because it is just so convenient. The only 'hopes' are (1) there isn't that much left that is practical to burn (which brings its own problems and is unlikely) and (2) that changes will be slow and non-catastrophic enough for civilization to successfully adapt.

As to a new consciousness evolving before disaster strikes: don't count on it. Humans only learn through pain and lessons are easily forgotten. Grabbing short-term opportunities and inertia are hard-wired in our brains. Remaking human brains [consciously] seems to be a difficult prospect.

This diary's mention of the nexus of natural disaster and violence brought me back to an interview from a few years ago. The subject is Dr. Thomas Müller, a prominent forensic psychologist, who had talked to scores of serial killers. (Watch the interview here in German) After holding forth on mass murderers and the mental mechanics of crime, he is asked the following:

Q: If you look at our blue planet, macroscopically, where are today's, the 21st century's biggest sources of crime?

A: In the destruction of nature. But humans don't think long-term. Usually, they think very very short-term, in fact, extremely short-term. And let me conclude this with a single sentence: Even the longest human life is only a blink of an eye of nature, but don't forget how much a single human can wreak during the course of his life.

Don't worry about nature and 'the planet' though. They will survive and adapt. And mankind will survive too. Just how many of us?

_{Schengen is toast!}