The end of the world in an era of eco-pocolypse

I have a confession: I am hyper-excited for 2012 to come out. I was cued-into the movie’s trailer this last November and have been hooked like a floundering steelhead ever since. However, in many ways I doubt the actual film could ever match the cinematic mastery in the preview. [a la Brick, this short is a wonder of mood, color, and text] I mean, you know that there’s going to be some narrative arc with a hero rising-up in the gaping, doom-void to lead the remaining world into a new realm of ecological understanding, racial harmony, social re-structuring, blah blah blah. Even worse, this could all be some conspiracy by the telecommunication super-powers or ALIENS, where there would be an actual bad-guy to fight. Forget that, I can’t be bothered by this crap. I want to see the world end.



I want to see oceans swallowing Tokyo, a meteor-shower decimating London, a chasm swallowing the pyramids, and an electrical storm torching the world's oil field. I want this, because in more ways than one I want a good laugh. You’ve all heard about the Litany right? A never-ending list of enviro-disasters and pending eco-crises that are each sure to be the point-of-no-return, the feedback trigger-er, the collapse of carrying capacity that will throw us all down a slimy path of ecological/economical/social devastation and increased suffering. I’ve been swallowing, dreaming, and brewing with this list for too long. I’ve harped on my peers, I’ve lost social functionality, and it can be hard to sleep at night. I’m no saint or prophet mind you, just concerned and seeing no real promise in the proposed adaptive or “sustainable” solutions being offered. No stimulus package, no green-design, nor any UN Program is going to make serious change. None of them is going to redistribute goods and opportunities on a global scale. None is going to stop the pain and destruction that are implied in any industrial/capital system that relies on a constant flow of resources from the marginal peripheries to civilized centers. The worst part is that these crises will not be realized as such, without an appropriately significant response to reanalyze priorities. Rather it will all gradually worsen, with the people lowest down receiving the worse treatment, and we’ll talk comfortably about adaptation.

So how does one deal with a loss of hope? I’d recommend some dark coffee and filter-less luckies, and to start thrashing to crust punk. The best remedy I can imagine is to stare doom right in the face. Thus 2012 is so exciting (as well as Sony’s viral advert: the Institute of Human Continuity), along with terror-inducing, black-hole-causing Large Hadron Colliders. How can you not laugh at the potential destruction of life and Earth, when it would so neatly dodge the real issues plaguing our psyches?

Lurv, Evan

P.S. Images care of
www.hermes-press.com/societal_apocalypse.htm;
Ed Burtynsky "Shipbreaking"