So, there’s a new Pope. If I were so inclined, I’d kick some dust back up about the lying rapists (because let’s not mince words) in the Catholic Church and how the new Pope is a homophobe and unlikely to offer any change to old immoral policies.

But, try as I might, I feel compelled to subvert the expectation for that rant and remind everyone that we’re needlessly burning down our home.

This is an imperfect metaphor, however, because just burning down our home would imply that there was literally anywhere else for us to go after the house burnt down. 

New research concerning global climate change reminds us that our planet is being destroyed. Not that we didn’t already know, just that we had underestimated how quickly that destruction was happening.

Frankly, I won’t waste a breath on those who decry the findings of this study. Their opposition only serves to empower my — perhaps just as misguided — misanthropic hatred of every manifestation of human greed, political and economic, that’s led us here.

I feel compelled to conclude that this problem obviously will not be solved and we’ve chosen, as a species, to accept the consequences.

Either through ignorance of the problem or ignorance of its implications, the imminent destruction of our planet does not register quite enough on our radars to compel our action.

On balance, of course. Many take as much action as necessary to feel as if they are excused from the moral responsibility of this crime. Less bleakly, plenty take significant steps to lessen climate change’s impending effects.

Ultimately, I struggle to understand what can possibly be done. People are stupid and they want to be stupid-happy, contrasted with, perhaps, unhappy-informed. This seems inevitable, and we all seem to silently push away larger truths such as these.

Of course, I hope I’m dead wrong, but it seems very unlikely. If I am wrong, and we do prevent the full extent of the damaging effects climate change will exact, at least I’ll be able to look back at these sentiments with embarrassed joy.

Until that happens, I’ll be left confused and saddened about our role in this completely preventable and eminently observable self-destruction.