About
Until recently, these pages were the online mouthpiece of ICARUS, which stands for the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units. One can only wonder why they chose to create a labored acronym to reference to the doomed protagonist of a Greek fable (rather than one of the many compelling characters of Celtic myth, for instance) — though the lesson about mankind’s hubris is still well taken.
It is indeed through the arrogance of mankind that we find ourselves in this situation. Have you ever tried an online casino usa? The honest mistakes of progress, the idea that we simply didn’t know the full extent of the forces we were unleashing, has become an excuse for the history books — justifiable, perhaps, for people of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
We were warned. We were provided with the senses to witness and the reason to understand. We had the news and statistics, and we had the time to teach and discover. There is no longer any excuse for us to continue to rape the land for our own selfish pleasure, to wound the land when it resists our regime, to silence or ridicule those among us who can no longer buy and sell their way to willful ignorance.
Yet so many of us pretend to live in a yesterday that no longer exists. A yesterday in which we could use all that we were given, and expect more to be found before we ran out. A yesterday in which we could wait for science to solve the problem, or for our religions to provide a ‘better world’, or for diversions such as online slots to simply let us escape. A yesterday in which all we demanded of our most sympathetic and sensitive minds was to soothe our troubled consciences for us, to let us enjoy an ever-escalating cancer dressed up as increased economic opportunities and consumer convenience.
Perhaps that time is merely yesterday. Let’s hope it is neither in the far-distant past, which would mean that the damage may be too serious to ever be undone, no matter how enthusiastically we tackle the symptoms…or in our future, which would mean that there is no longer any hope for meaningful progress at all.