<h2 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper"><strong>Insane in the brain</strong></h2>

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, birds falling from the trees, 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 is home to some of the world's most delicate ecosystemsComplex networks of living things that rely on each other to survive., and they are being ravaged by global heating. It is thought that if the world heats by 2C then up to three-quarters of Antarctic penguins could die out.²

But it also plays a vital role in regulating the climate of the whole world. Its ice sheets cool the wind and the seas as they travel around the world, bringing milder weather to hot places. The ocean around it absorbs carbon dioxide. Losing the ice would be a global catastrophe.³

So we might expect this disaster 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.⁴

Meanwhile the Washington Post, which drives the agenda in the US capital, opts to focus on the national basketball championship.

Now, in terms of end-of-the-world news, this is the big one. It is as if an intergalactic invasion fleet had just materialised in the atmosphere above New York, or if an asteroid had made its final turn around the Moon before homing in on Paris, or if Godzilla were plotting a course for Tokyo, and the world's newspapers were still covered with pictures of Taylor Swift and Kanye West.

So why does humanity seem so unbothered about the catastrophe we are creating? Where does this lemming instinctThe myth that lemmings instinctively wipe themselves out en masse whenever their population is too big. come from?

Many philosophers have tried to answer this question. Friedrich NietzscheA German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture (1844 - 1900), who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. accused humanity of having killed God.⁵

His argument was not that this was a bad thing in itself. But he thought we had failed to put anything in God's place. That meant there was no longer any grounding for morality, and so 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 cannibal.⁶

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. He thought Chinese society needed to be brought to its senses with new ideas.

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.

But others are suspicious of this idea. They say it allows us to sacrifice the vast majority of existing humans to ensure that humanity itself survives.

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 fuels. 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.

Antarctica - The most southerly continent, surrounding the South Pole. Its area is estimated at 5.5 million square miles, most of it covered in ice.

Ecosystems - Complex networks of living things that rely on each other to survive.

Lemming instinct - The myth that lemmings instinctively wipe themselves out en masse whenever their population is too big.

Friedrich Nietzsche - A German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture (1844 - 1900), who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers.

Lu Xun - A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, born in 1881.

Allegory - A story or poem that has a hidden moral or political meaning. 

Utilitarianism - A theory of morality invented by English thinker Jeremy Bentham, who also devised a special kind of prison known as a panopticon.