Tyree's Tuppence
by Tyree Campbell
Inimmediacy
[Warning: This Tuppence is rated R for Rant]
Ah, New Zealand. Site of the filming of The Lord Of The Rings and Xena. Producer of the finest leg o'lamb on the planet. Home of tanned blondes [Hey, Vicky! You still live in Upper Hutt North? Drop me an e-]. Exquisite lakes. A place called the Bay of Islands, where one could live forever . . .
. . . maybe not forever. You know the cliche about feeling as if someone had just walked over your grave? New Zealanders might be forgiven for having that feeling. You see, an iceberg was sighted recently near New Zealand, the first one in living memory. Ah, but the islands are unsinkable, you say? Well, not necessarily . . .
It's likely, though not yet certain, that the iceberg and several others in that vicinity originated in Antarctica. The 'berg is just one more indication--if one was needed--that the polar icecaps are melting. But that's not the worst of it. Even if right now we stopped all pollution and harmful emissions, even stopped exhaling carbon dioxide, the icecaps would continue to melt. The glaciers are not going to be reconstituted--at least, not for the next million years or so.
And all that water has to go somewhere. Isaac Asimov estimated that if both polar icecaps and the glaciers on Greenland were to melt entirely, the level of the ocean would rise approximately 120 feet--or to about the tenth floor of the Empire State Building. A poem titled "Cartographer's Nightmare," by Lee Clark Zumpe, published in Ecotastrophe [ http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#ecotastrophe ] describes the problem more than adequately. Suffice it to say that your beach cottage in the Bay of Islands might not be your best bet for a retirement home. A couple centuries from now, quite a bit of New Zealand will be under water.
The problem for many people in grasping this is timing. The iceberg appears, yes, but the Bay of Islands, and Florida, the Bahamas, the central valley in California, and Hong Kong are still there. We know about the threat of global warming, and we know about the various events and circumstances that lead to the conclusion of global warming, but the actual geophysical consequences of it as they pertain directly to us remain somehow on the other side of our horizons. Sure, the icecaps are melting. But they will not melt in our lifetimes. Probably they will not finish melting until . . . oh, say, 2663. We have other, more pressing problems.
Frex . . .
This morning you hit the snooze alarm one too many times. You rushed through your morning toiletries, skipping the deodorant. You gave the child some coins for lunch because it was too late to make sandwiches. The schoolbus was excruciatingly slow [come on, come on, come on!][Ooo, Mommy, you're not s'posta say that]. You got stuck behind a Lexus going five mph under the speed limit because the driver was on the cell phone talking about whether red wine or white wine goes with licorice]. The light changed about four seconds too soon for you to justify gunning the car through the intersection. In the oncoming lane, cars lined up in the left-turn lane, which meant the turn light would signal before the full green light signaled, which meant you had to wait at the light another thirty seconds. Late to the lot, you had to park another eighty feet away from the front door. Finally, gasping and frustrated, you got to your desk and switched on the phone and computer, and your supervisor came by to point out, not indelicately, that you were seventeen whole seconds late for work.
Does any of that sound familiar?
That sequence of events is representative of the things that are immediately important in our lives.
But wait! There's more!
We have expectations. Frex, we want dinner when we get home, and we don't want to have to wait for it, which means we don't prepare food, we simply peel the foil back from the potatoes. Four minutes in the microwave and hey, presto! There's dinner. We don't have time to peel the potatoes, cut them up into chunks, boil them for maybe half an hour, drain the water, employ the potato masher [do we even have one?], add the butter and the milk, and come up with real honest to goodness actual delicious mashed potatoes. We want something, anything, now, and we don't have time to wait for it.
We no longer even ask why we don't have time.
Do you have a cell phone? Doh!...of course you have a cell phone. Like hundreds of millions of Terrans, you are advertising victims. You have accepted the subliminal message that if you are not connected immediately to the latest news, weather, sports, music, global positioning system, and dating services, you are unworthy, you are worthless, you are a mollusc. Am I wrong? Fine, here's a simple test. Turn off the power to your cell phone, put it somewhere out of the way, and go for a couple days without it. You really don't need to talk to anyone, you know. You don't need to call home from the grocery store to find out what flavor of jello to buy. You can decide on your own, without having to ask someone . . . can't you?
Or do you have to have connection and conversation now? Are you caught up in now? Did you pass the test?
This isn't a criticism, merely an observation. Sure, I have a microwave . . . it makes heating a can of chili easier. And yes, I have a cell phone. It has its uses, especially when I'm on trips to sell our publications. I'm not opposed to instant gratification [given there's sufficient foreplay]. But I can, and usually do, make most meals from scratch, or at least from relative scratch. I find it relaxing.
But a human being who constantly and continuously focuses on this very present moment restricts his/her range of awareness. A human being totally concerned about the immediate moment can grasp global warming only in the abstract.
Earth is heating? That's nice. Did you get PlayStation3 yet?
There's an iceberg floating past North Island, New Zealand? Bitchin'! Wanna watch Leper Colony Survivor? Cast your vote as to which body part falls off next?
The ocean level will rise to flood Louisiana and Mississippi and Texas in 400 years? Eh, ththbbb! I'll let my grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's great-grandchildren worry about it. It's NIMLT [Not In My Lifetime].
No . . . I know you're science fiction readers, because you're here, reading this. I know you are aware. You need no rant from me. You can see all the way to the year 2663. I know you can. I know you do.
But the people who formulate plans and make decisions and manage our future as a species can only see to 2008.
That's the scary bit.
Past Tuppence:
Read more from Tyree Campbell in any of the following:
September 2006
June 2006
March 2006
December 2005
September 2005
June 2005
March 2005
December 2004
September 2004
June 2004
March 2004
December 2003
September 2003
June 2003
March 2003
December 2002
October 2002
August 2002
June 2002
April 2002
February 2002
December 2001
October 2001
August 2001
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