Like Toto in The Wizard of Oz, at their 1985 summit in Geneva President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pulled back the curtain to reveal the truth behind the terrifying spectre of nuclear war, which their countries were spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prepare for. “A nuclear war cannot be won,” they jointly stated, and “must never be fought.” They omitted the inescapable corollary of those first six words: a nuclear arms race also cannot be won.
At least the nuke will be quick.
Hopefully.
The earth will recover eventually.
As long as humanity doesn’t.
The earth is already recovering from our extinction, before we have even gone extinct, for we have condemned ourselves to be an event done unto a community rather a member of said community.
Just look around at the way nature is evolving, as immense as the extinction event we are creating is, the ferocity and impulse with which the natural world is responding is stunning and we are fools to think we are winning.
We have already lost and we are at the funeral for our species, let us enjoy it respectfully and joyously for the remaining time we have.
Just because we won’t continue doesn’t mean our love won’t.