The Bright Side of the End of the World

The Time magazine, on 5th July 2008, has a funny little article about Rob Kutner’s new book that takes a humours look at the end of the world. It says,

Environmental reporting will give you an apocalyptic mindset. There's the melting Arctic ice and rising sea levels; torched rainforests and polluted Chinese megalopolises. Animals going extinct — gone forever, a mini-apocalypse — up to 10,000 times faster than the rate believed over the past 60 million years. When we talk about climate change, we're not just talking about rising temperatures or altered landscapes. We're talking about the end of human civilization as we know it.

While most creative works about Armageddon (The Day After Tomorrow, Omega Man, The Road) tend to be bummers, heavier on cannibalism than comedy, Kutner's book is a lighthearted romp that looks on the bright side of the end of the world.

If nuclear annihilation was the apocalyptic mainstay through the decades of the Cold War, the eco-apocalypse has clearly taken its place. In some ways, the "Al Gore Scare Machine," as Kutner puts it, is more of the same. Like nuclear war — or like the more fantastical possibilities that Kutner imagines, such as a robot uprising or an unleashed super-plague — global warming will be an apocalypse of our own making.

Global warming is very scary because once it truly gets started, we may in the end be helpless to stop it. But fear has never been a very good motivator, especially not for the decades-long societal changes we'll need to make to slow climate change.

Rob Kutner is the host of the TV program “The Daily Show” and is the author of the book “Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times”.