Twenty one years ago, on this day, October 30th, 2004, the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut is, well Kurt Vonnegut
The End is Near – In These Times
What was the beginning of this end? Some might say Adam and Eve and the apple of knowledge. I say it was Prometheus, a Titan, a son of gods, who in Greek myth stole fire from his parents and gave it to human beings. The gods were so mad they chained him naked to a rock with his back exposed, and had eagles eat his liver.
And it is now plain that the gods were right to do that. Our close cousins the gorillas and orangutans and chimps and gibbons have gotten along just fine all this time while eating raw vegetable matter, whereas we not only prepare hot meals, but have now all but destroyed this once salubrious planet as a life-support system in fewer than 200 years, mainly by making thermodynamic whoopee with fossil fuels.
The Englishman Michael Faraday built the first dynamo, capable of turning mechanical energy into electricity, only 173 years ago. The first oil well in the United States, now a dry hole, was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin L. Drake only 145 years ago. The German Karl Benz built the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine only 119 years ago.
The American Wright brothers, of course, built and flew the first airplane only 101 years ago. It was powered by gasoline. You want to talk about irresistible whoopee?
A booby trap.
Fossil fuels, so easily set alight!
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 377ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was Vonnegut had been an American POW in Dresden when it got the absolute living shit bombed out of it very near the end of the war (see Slaughterhouse Five).
He also wrote Cat’s Cradle, about Ice-9, which is an absolute MUST READ. All about an ecological catastrophe set off by man’s technological hubris
The specific context was it was 2004 – the Bush Administration remained resolute in its opposition ot all action that might slow the accelerating fucked-ness of the planet.
What I think we can learn from this. Vonnegut is worth your time.
What happened next Vonnegut died in 2007. Much missed.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day: