I was watching George Carlin last night. Yes, I know he’s dead. A real shame, too, as he seems to be one of the few that can bring tremendous clarity to any subject while tickling your ribs at the same time.
Such was the case with this particular concert he did for HBO. If you want to find it out there on Netflix, Amazon Prime or the Internet, this appearance was titled, “Jammin’ in New York.” This was 1992, mind you, and some of the stuff he said is still so true today, such as the attempts by the upper class to create division in the middle and lower class so the rich can steal all the money while we’re fighting among ourselves.
In one particular bit, George touched on the world’s attempts to save endangered species. It was pretty funny, but also quite poignant. He noted that over the last few billion years, some 90% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. While mankind has perhaps sped this extinction process up with the Industrial Revolution, a lot of extinction would happen naturally. And he made the point that interfering with it was not only irresponsible, but downright dangerous.
Now, I’m not going to weigh in on the whole global warming issue or the fact that we have indeed contributed to the extinction of specific species, either by clearcutting their delicate habitat, overfishing, overhunting and polluting this great land of ours.
But what stuck with me more than anything was his statement that the earth could really care less that we (i.e. humans) are here. While we think we’re pretty special, we also have the balls to think that we and we alone will decide the fate of the planet.
The earth has been around a long time. Billions of years. It will be here long after we are gone, too. The earth has a funny way of cleansing itself of the parasites that live on it. The dinosaurs went extinct, even in a time when they were the masters of the planet.
The point is, we shouldn’t be worried about the planet’s future, but our own. The whole global warming issue isn’t going to wipe out the planet, it will wipe us out as a species. We aren’t very resilient creatures. I mean, the dinosaurs somehow went extinct, and they didn’t have all the creature comforts we have like smartphones and forks.
It’s somewhat poetic that we actually benefited from their extinction, since oil comes from their rotting bodies. Someday, we will be the rotting bodies too, because the earth will get rid of us one way or another so it can return to its natural state.
We’re already seeing this happen. Historic hurricanes and tornadoes. Hell, a hurricane even hit Ireland. Earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires… the list goes on. We cower in fear as Mother Nature reminds us who’s really in charge. One thing’s for sure, it’s not us, we pitiful little humans. It’s the earth and come hell or high water, and often both at the same time, the planet is going to protect itself against the parasites.
Yes, I’m talking about us. In Carlin’s monologue, he touched on the single reason he could think of as to why we’re still here at all – plastic. According to him, the earth has let us survive and even thrive so that we could give it plastic. From here on out, future creatures will refer to the Pre-Plasticene Era and the Post-Plasticene Era of the earth.
Wow. Even though we are at the top of the food chain, we are still disposable. No creature is indispensable. We see that in the extinction of once thriving species. They failed to adapt to change. Even our own ancestors fell by the wayside, though I would argue that there are still plenty of Neanderthals around because I’ve seen them at some Walmarts in Florida.
And there lies the danger. Dinosaurs perished and they didn’t even need a Walmart. We probably couldn’t last two weeks without Walmart, Target or two-day delivery from Amazon. We are terribly dependent creatures, prisoners on our own reliance on “civilization” at the expense of staying connected to nature, as our forefathers had done. We’re fat and lazy, largely because we think we are Masters of the Universe when indeed, we are just lowly parasites sucking on the host.
Eventually, the host is going to tire of this relationship and it will self-correct. We will become the next extinct species while the land returns to its natural beauty. If you’ve ever watched one of those cool shows about what a city would look like 20 years from now if we were gone, you know that Mother Nature has a good plan for all this. Hell, I can barely keep the grass from growing through the cracks in my asphalt. Imagine if I weren’t here at all. Everything would be ashes to ashes and dust to dust in a couple of decades.
Next time you want to argue about global warming with a denier, skip the science lesson. Skip ahead to the part where the earth will be just fine without us. Ignore all the nonsense about going into and coming out of ice ages for tens of thousands of years. Ignore the fact that the overall temperature has risen a few degrees.
Instead, go right to the heart of it all and talk about how the earth is going to fanny whack us for being bad guests. That Mother Nature is going to fix the earth by getting rid of us one at a time. That as natural resources dry up, we’ll inevitably return to our primitive, warring ways and lob bombs at one another. Eventually, we will be the next oil boom for a future generation as we march on to oblivion, just like the dinosaurs.
Fear not earthlings, the earth will be just fine without us. It was fine before we were here and it will be just fine after we are wiped from its face.
At least future inhabitants will know we were here. And archeologists will have a big laugh about all the stupid things we left behind, our strange remnants of this so-called civilization.
In the Emerald City, wondering what, if anything, it all means,
- Robb