Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One Songtext
It is worse, much worse that you think
The slowness of global warming is a fairy tale
Perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all
And it comes to us bundled with several others in an anthology of comforting delusions:
That all this warming is an Arctic saga unfolding remotely
That it is strictly a matter of sea level and coastline
Not an enveloping crisis sparing no place and leaving no life undeformed
That it is a crisis of the "natural" world
Not the human one
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
That those two are distinct
Natural and human
That we live today somehow outside or beyond or at least defended against nature
Not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it
Not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
That wealth can be a shield against the ravages
That the burning of fossil fuel is the price of continued economic growth
That growth and the technology it produces will inevitably engineer a way out of disaster
A way out of disaster
That there is any analogue
To the scale and the scope
Of this threat in the long span of human history
That might give us confidence in staring it down
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
The slowness of global warming is a fairy tale
Perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all
And it comes to us bundled with several others in an anthology of comforting delusions:
That all this warming is an Arctic saga unfolding remotely
That it is strictly a matter of sea level and coastline
Not an enveloping crisis sparing no place and leaving no life undeformed
That it is a crisis of the "natural" world
Not the human one
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
That those two are distinct
Natural and human
That we live today somehow outside or beyond or at least defended against nature
Not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it
Not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
That wealth can be a shield against the ravages
That the burning of fossil fuel is the price of continued economic growth
That growth and the technology it produces will inevitably engineer a way out of disaster
A way out of disaster
That there is any analogue
To the scale and the scope
Of this threat in the long span of human history
That might give us confidence in staring it down
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
None of this is true
