ringing the Cat World Domination project to fruition has never been of greater significance. Will we inherit/take over the world from the humans pre- or post-Apocalypse? Timing is terribly important as we certainly wouldn’t like to be stuck with an uninhabitable planet after the humans are done shitting on it. When should our species make a decisive move? Too soon, and the humans will smash us; too late, and the planet would have already turned to ashes leaving us cats and other species to deal with the aftermath. The triple threats of climate catastrophe, nuclear war, and pandemics constitute an existential crisis that the humans appear incapable of dealing with effectively. Just as an aside, you may note that a book titled Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer was released in 2016 that vastly overstates the environmental impact of free-ranging cat predation and disease transmission. In contrast, the New York Times reported in 2019 that the number of birds in the United States and Canada had fallen by 29 percent since 1970. The top two causes? Habitat loss and wider use of pesticides—both connected to human activity including modern agriculture and development. The humans need a scapegoat to cover up their own vastly more significant impact on the environment. Or a scapecat anyway.
In 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen testified to Congress about global warming, but his warnings were blithely ignored by the loathsome fossil fuel companies, who cynically planted the seeds of doubt in the public mind concerning climate change. On the possibility of nuclear war, Robert McNamara, Kennedy’s defense secretary, wrote an article in the magazine Foreign Policy in 2009 titled “Apocalypse Soon” where he described current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. He also ominously noted that the risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch was unacceptably high. Finally, on the pandemic front, humans and their capitalist institutions have shown that they are woefully underprepared and incapable of mounting an effective response to severe public health crises such as Covid-19.
You may be familiar with the Doomsday Clock, a metaphor designed by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to warn the humans about how close they are to destroying the planet with dangerous technologies of their own making. Recently, the human pointyheads in charge of the clock threw out minutes to midnight and moved to seconds. They reset the clock to 100 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to midnight aka termination of the species. To raise awareness of the humans’ incompetent stewardship of the planet, I have composed several impromptu apocalyptic verses. These verses originally took the form of a complex series of growls, trills, howl-growls, trill-meows, and chirps, but have since been translated to hoomanspeak using the Babelcat translator. If this sounds like doggerel, then it's Babelcat's fault.
Oh beloved
Mother Earth
Completely ruined
In a short while it’s curtains
1988, Cassandra to Congress
Global warming, we’re in deep shit
Cool as ever
Fossil fuel mandarins demurred
There’s nothing to it
Melting polar ice caps
Will we be wiped off the map?
Probably yes
Unless we can stop the fossil fuel juggernaut
The Doomsday Clock
Two minutes to midnight, now only 100 seconds away
Clock runs out
Nowhere to run
Midnight Black, it swallows
All this apocalyptic poetry got you down? Not to worry. The newly built Arctic World Archive has been designed to withstand any of the apocalyptic scenarios described above. In fact, AWA says on its website that it is "home to manuscripts from the Vatican Library, political histories, masterpieces from different eras (including Rembrandt and Munch), scientific breakthroughs and contemporary cultural treasures." In fact, they are actively accepting contributions. Now we can rest assured that the all-important cultural treasures—cat videos—will be available in perpetuity, or at least for a 1000 years after the apocalypse. Vive Le Chat.
Sources
- McNamara, R.S., 2005. Apocalypse soon. Foreign Policy, pp.29-35.
- 2021 Doomsday Clock Announcement
- Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011.
- Kevin Krajick. James Hansen's Climate Warning, 30 Years Later. State of the Planet. June 26, 2018.
- Carl Zimmer. Birds Are Vanishing From North America. New York Times. Sept. 19, 2019
