The Clever Monkeys: Over-Fished, Over-Grazed, Over-Mined, Over-Polluted. That's the Story. Climate Apocalypse.

Are Human Beings really so selfish, stupid, short-sighted, lazy, and blind that they would let the environment, the ecosystem that supports their lives as well as the lives of all the pretty creatures that surround us, all the fish, birds, mammals, all the plants, the flora and the fauna go up in smoke?

Yes. Most likely.

We can watch it now, in real time. The Amazon Rainforest is aflame, and the world basically responds with a collective yawn and shrug. More bad environmental news. Oh well.

Why? I agree with Kevin Drum: Why Climate Change is So Hard.

"What makes climate change different from other environmental calamities isn’t that it’s bigger or farther away or difficult to see. Those things all contribute to our inaction, but the key difference is that halting climate change requires us to dramatically alter our way of life. All of us. For a very long time.

Human beings aren’t wired to do this. You aren’t doing it. I’m not doing it. Europeans aren’t doing it. No one is doing it. We’re willing to make modest changes here and there, but dramatic changes? The kind that seriously bite into our incomes and our way of life? Nope.

When I mention this to people, a common reaction is disbelief. You really think people will let the planet burn before they’ll give up their cars? That’s exactly what I think, because it’s happened many times before. Over and over, human civilizations have destroyed their environments because no one was willing to give up their piece of it. They knew exactly what they were doing but still couldn’t stop. They have overfished, overgrazed, overhunted, overmined, and overpolluted. They have literally destroyed their own lifeblood rather than make even modest changes to their lifestyles."

Scary. Sad. We will all watch our planet burn to a crisp. The world we are leaving for our children is one of climate catastrophe. Things will get worse. Every damn day. And we will do nothing. We will cling to our meat, our cars, our oil, our fistful of $. We really are the Clever Monkeys who have out-clevered ourselves.

Next stop: a planet-wide toxic landscape. A certain oblivion for species of all varieties. Still, the Human Beings will be clinging to their assault-rifles, their fast food burgers, their gas-guzzling vehicles. Will we all end up living in some antiseptic, Mall on America, air-filtered, air-conditioned, walled against our own pollution?

Life as we know it... it's disappearing before our very eyes. Welcome to Meltdown Monday!