Insane in the brain

The temperature in London this morning is 8 degrees Celsius. Imagine that the moment you set foot outside the door, it suddenly shot up to 46C. Imagine the tarmac melting under your feet, people dropping unconscious in the streets. Wouldn't you be a little worried?

Over the weekend, scientists in AntarcticaThe most southerly continent, surrounding the South Pole. Its area is estimated at 5.5 million square miles, most of it covered in ice. reported that this is exactly what happened to them on 18 March 2022.¹ A heatwave brought temperatures on the vast, icy continent up to 38.5C above the seasonal average.

Antarctica plays a vital role in regulating the climate of the whole world. Losing the ice would be a global catastrophe.²

So we might expect this to be front page news. Instead, the Times goes with a picture of a man calling himself the "Hardest Geezer", who has run the length of Africa.³

Now, in terms of end-of-the-world news, this is the big one. So why does humanity seem so unbothered about the catastrophe we are creating?

Many philosophers have tried to answer this question. Friedrich NietzscheIn 1869, the German philosopher became the youngest person ever to hold the University of Basel's Chair of Classical Philology. He was 24.   accused humanity of having killed God.⁴

He thought we had failed to put anything in God's place. That meant we were blindly drifting into a spiritual crisis where we would no longer be able to tell right from wrong.

Many philosophers have written about waking up to find their whole society looks mad in their eyes. Chinese thinker Lu XunA leading figure of modern Chinese literature, born in 1881. wrote a short story about a man who realises that everyone in his village is a cannibalA person who eats the flesh of other human beings..⁵

The story was an allegoryA story or poem that has a hidden moral or political meaning.  for traditional ways of thinking that caused people to harm and exploit each other without even realising it.

Some modern thinkers argue we can make ourselves think more clearly with the philosophy of utilitarianismA theory of morality invented by English thinker Jeremy Bentham, who also devised a special kind of prison known as a panopticon.. They call themselves "longtermists" and they believe the highest good is ensuring the survival of humanity as a species.

Is humanity mad?

Yes: There is no other word for a species that swans around without a care in the world while that same world collapses around them. People just do not seem to know we are heading for disaster.

No: States around the world are working every day to reduce our reliance on fossil fuelsFuels made from decomposing plants and animals, including coal, natural gas and oil. These fuels release carbon dioxide, causing global warming.. We are changing course, however slowly. Fixating on bad news every single day would not help things go faster.

Or... The climate crisis does not affect us all equally. Many people in rich countries think it will be no more than an inconvenience for them. That is why people in Britain and the USA believe they can afford not to care.