renewal

i just read an article about Dorothy Stang, the campaigner against the destruction of the brasilian rainforest. she's dead, shot by a local ranch owner, who presumably wanted her out of the way so he could carry on logging.
the brasilian rainforest represents 40 percent of the world's tropical rainforest. rainforest soaks up co2 and generates one fifth of the oxygen we need to survive. it's critical to us all, but seemingly not so critical as our SUVs and burgers.

anyway, this article sent me into a daydream of depression about the end of the world. these words may have no human left to read them in a hundred years, depending on how bad global warming gets.

some people think that advanced, intelligent life has been here before on earth and died out. that even if we destroy ourselves with runaway positive-feedback global warming, eventually time passes and the environmental equilibria settle down and life begins again. a couple of million years of evolution later and with a fair wind, hey presto another advanced race ready to kill itself through its own greed all over again.

what if i wanted to send a message to this next generation? paper is no good and blogger might just have gone down the pan too.

how about cave drawings. sheltered from the weather, indelible inks on rock of ages. that's certainly one of the places i would go for. with limestone around to remove the water vapour and preserve the images.

do we ever look at these drawings for what they may be: a letter addressed to us. not by cavemen at all - but by us from last time around. saying "don't fuck up like we did".

if so we didn't get the message.