battlestar galactica

Ok, ok, I know. You'd expect better from me for a title. But I've been bemoaning the fact that I seem to have absolutely no time these days to read fiction, despite the fact that both the Giller and the Booker shortlists have just come out and I usually plow my way through at least one of the lists. So, to satisfy my appetite for makebelieve, I purchased season 1 of Battlestar Galactica. Many of our friends seem to love it and have tried to push pirated copies on us from time to time (why is it that the loveliest people think nothing of pirating film and music? Why do I feel some kind of holier-than-thou guilt when I tell them that we like to pay for what we watch and listen to. Am I missing something here?).

I 've watched about the first 3 hours of the series now, partially goaded on by my stunning and brilliant wife, who seems to like the series even more than I do. I'm quite taken by the conflict between the politician who wants to concede that the war is lost (it certainly seems to be) and the military commander who wants to keep fighting. It's an interesting conundrum. When do we give up a fight and find a way to live with a new normal? So now you can see where this is all going.

Stephen Hawking has already given up, apparently. He thinks we should really be packing up our bags and trying to find some way off this solar system that we've fucked up. I've said before that I think a better course might be to try to unfuck our planet. But what if it is too late?

I've noticed more and more media attention is being paid to adapting to climate change rather than reversing it. We can't stop this force we've unleashed, so we'd better figure out how to better heat and cool interior spaces, how to build structures that can withstand huge mega-storms, how to shore up our coasts as water levels rise, how to adapt agriculture to climate changes. When I first noticed this sea change, I was even a little bit happy about it. It seemed that at least there was evidence that we were getting over our denial phase, even if the result of that was a concession that the war was over and the only course left was to find a way to live with defeat. I'm less happy about it now because I worry that every second we spend trying to figure out how to adapt to changing climate will be one second less spent on finding a way to reverse it. In other words, it seems as though we're just putting off the inevitable.

But maybe that's inevitable in itself. I think it was E.O. Wilson who said that a part of the problem is that we can't come to mental grips with a problem that will kill our great-grandchildren but we can grapple with a problem that will kill our grandchildren. If we can change the slope of the curve that connects today with environmental armageddon, then perhaps we're pushing the job off of our shoulders and onto those of the next generation. My two year old, who was just happily bobbing around in my office screaming "Bob the Builder" songs will somehow have to grow into a superhuman being who can face down an even bigger set of problems than the ones we've got now. I look at his big whorl of chestnut hair, untouched by flame, and the perfect white skin of his neck, unblemished by the sweat and strain of engagement with problems bigger than our planet and I just don't see it. How can I decide for this little boy that it will be the fight of his life to clean up my mess?

Rona Ambrose, our environment minister, stood before a committee today and told them that "Canadians don't care about global warming as much as they care about cleaner air." Hm.. I'm not sure that's true or, if true, relevant. We can't exactly beat Mother Nature using opinion polls anymore than we can beat her with anything else. This is the same dear Rona who argues that the spotted owl is not endangered because, after all, there are 17 of them left. The same Rona who put a gag order on a meteorologist who worked for the government because he had published a novel about global warming. She seems as though she should be an intelligent woman. She's got good credentials. So how can she say such idiotic things? Can it be because of the things that she can't say? Is it because she, too, thinks we're too late to stop what we've started and so should put our time and energy into trying to adapt? It's too late to save the spotted owl, so let's move on. It's going to get hot, so let's take that as a given and see if we can figure out some way to breath. Maybe we're starting to turn our backs on a battle we think we've lost so that we can engage in a new fight. Human beings find it much easier to start things than to stop things. Don't tell me to stop killing the planet. Tell me to start planning the bubble I'm going to live in when the planet is gone.