We're all in it together…but we don't want to be

Imagine an alternate universe without Katie Price. Bliss.

Today marked the beginning of a two-week conference in the Danish capital of Copenhagen in which delegates from 192 countries are taking part in talks regarding climate change and, more importantly, THE END OF THE WORLD.

For some of those 192 countries, it truly could be the beginning of the end. If the science is to be believed, several low-lying nations across the planet could completely disappear by 2100 due to rising sea levels. If you, like me, always wanted to take a short holiday on the islands of Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati or Vanuatu, you may not have much time left. Even areas in the likes of London and New York could resemble Venice if they don’t sort out their flood defence systems.

Still, the main problem at the moment isn’t just debate on what should be done and what should be believed – it’s who should take responsibility. Some of the richest governments in the world (the US, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia, collectively known as the G8) agree to aim for a target of keeping the global average temperature rise since pre-industrial times to 2C.  However, smaller nations (mainly islands) have been arguing for a lower target of 1.5C because 2C would still not help them keep their heads, ahem, above water.

In the meantime, the 52 states in The African Union have threatened to walk out if the developed countries refuse to support the smaller nations financially; the 43 countries in AOSIS (Association of Small Island States) will not sign a crappy version of a deal if its not good enough for them; and the G77 (a loose coalition of nations that actually has 130 members, not 77) is probably going to side with the little countries and make things even more difficult for the big guns.

Everything is going swimmingly, then.

The problem I’m having with it all is that, well, civilisation is going to end anyway. It’s a pretty likely scenario – depending on who you talk to, the universe could continue to expand until everything freezes over, or contract inwards and collapse into itself in a Big Crunch. There are several other alternatives that I’m more excited about – the possibility of man being able to negotiate through space and settle down in some far-off galaxy, or even travel through a black hole and end up in an alternate dimension where L. Ron Hubbard is God and The Sun doesn’t have Katie Price on the front page, ever. Considering man hasn’t been beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, I don’t see much hope for anything like this. If we land a man on Mars in our lifetime I’ll be surprised.

My favourite prediction however is from crazy nut-job Ray Kurzweil, who thinks that we’ll all be able to upload our minds onto computer by the 2030’s, all our organs will be replaced by cybernetic implants by the 2040’s, and all distinction between man and machine will no longer exist after the 2050’s. Computers will pass a point in which they will have to be made bigger instead of smaller if they want to be more powerful, so that by 2099 there will be PLANET-SIZED COMPUTERS which will mean we are all at one with the entire universe.

Sounds pretty cool huh? Of course those theories all hinge on countries being able to work together and spend enough money to make it happen before we kill ourselves in a nuclear war or global warming disaster. And that’s the thing – we as a civilisation cannot ever all agree on something; and we are all bloody useless with finances. Lets face it – the human race is full of shit-heads only looking out for themselves. Since the beginning of human history we’ve been fucking things up. I don’t think we have enough class, or brains, to take responsibility for the whole climate change thing.

Yes, maybe it was partly our fault, but who says we have to deal with it? Who made the rules? Where is the King of the World to tell us the right and wrong way to deal with something? Who made us humans the species in charge anyway? Who the hell was in charge before we showed up? So many questions, so little time. And hey, isn’t that Jesus fella meant to come past one day and give us the score?

I think until that happens, we should just sit back and let squirrels, donkeys, kookaburras and dung beetles sort it out. Dung beetles are better at handling shit than we are anyway.