Casinos on Mars

We had everything. Well, maybe not casinos on Mars. We had a world that was healthier, safer, with access to more information and personal power than ever before in history. It was maintained with a catch – the widespread use of fossil fuels. We had access to other sources of energy, they were more expensive, less reliable and still had technical problems but they existed even when I was young.

We continued on with the easy path, the lazy path. Now you are suffering. I can’t know who you are or what your life is like as you will read this (if humans still read) long after I am gone. But know that we did indeed have it all, wealth beyond the dreams of any of the billions in the past. So much so that the number of people who had too much food equaled the number of those who didn’t have enough. Yet even this level of prosperity was unsatisfying for too many.

Nations that could enforce change refused, worried that their economies would suffer. Nations more accountable to their people barely tried, knowing that a politician that asks for sacrifice in the face of anything short of annihilation loses their job (Historical reference: Jimmy Carter). The CO2 levels rose. I lived long enough to see the methane clathrates frozen in the ocean floors start to melt. As methane is a much stronger (72 times stronger over a twenty year timeframe) greenhouse gas than CO2, the thermometer now had nowhere to go but up.

You should know this: there were many who saw the danger and changed things as hard as they could. It wasn’t enough and you know now the time for intervention passed long ago. If our species does create Civilization 2.0, please build some statues for them as a dream goes on forever and they need to be remembered, even in the face of failure, so it doesn’t happen again. Put one of those statues in a Martian casino, if you make it there.