So, what of those people who are still pretty good at seeing the Big Picture, but don’t really care about anything but themselves and their own status and/or comfort? Bizarro-doomers maybe. Assholes and opportunists, if you ask me. Anyway, these are the people who accept that we are thoroughly fucked but think there is nothing we can do about it, so we might as well not even try. In other words, they just want to continue the status quo – unmitigated oil extraction and consumption and unbridled and unrelenting capitalism, a system built on the assumption that environmental costs of “doing business” are external costs that can be shunted off until… well, we’re all paying those costs now, aren’t we? Some more than others of course, but ain’t that the point? I’m not sure why this needs to be said, but being doomed is bad. It is not something you throw your hands up over and then don’t do anything about if you have any other options. Certainly not until you’ve at least tried one measly option (which at least in the United States we have not. At all. Even once. Not even close. Like, at all.).

           Point of clarification: when I say that I am a “doomer” it is not a point of pride or even something I am remotely okay with. I am writing this because I am desperately trying to figure out a way to get right with the apocalypse, not because I already am. I am not a doomer because I don’t think we have the ability to deal with climate change or any of the other (many, many) major problems contributing  to our apocalypse – it’s that we won’t do anything. This is a matter of choice, not capability – hence the deep and profound sadness, frustration, and rage.

           Anyway, these false doomers aren’t doomers at all, they are in fact death cultists who apparently aren’t content with anything less than full planet death (gaiacide). Don’t ask me why – there is no amount of analysis or looking at something from someone else’s point-of-view that will cough up an acceptable reason to be in favor of gaiacide, let alone cheerlead for it. Honestly, thinking about these people makes me feel a little blessed that the way the apocalypse broke my brain is with an indelible hopelessness and its accompanying sadness beyond sadness. Not gonna lie, being in any death cult sounds awful as shit, but being in the gaiacide death cult makes having boundless melancholy seem like winning the lottery.

           Here you might be saying, “Now, Nat, it seems kind of obvious that the majority of the US population – at least as reflected by the policy positions of every governmental agency and institution from local and state all the way to federal – have gone full death cultist. Is everyone there a bizarro-doomer then?” No, of course not. The nature of the way propaganda spreads almost organically means that all you need is a few well placed mouthpieces and message-amplifiers to spread enough poo-brained talking points around any issue at lightening speed so as to make any sort of useful public conversation impossible.