Help In These Times Survive the Recession and Reach Its 33rd Year! Please Donate Today.

In These Times

PrintDiscuss
Features » October 29, 2004 » Web Only

The End is Near

By Kurt Vonnegut

I am writing this before the election, so I cannot know whether George W. Bush or John F. Kerry will be our President, God willing, for the next four years. These two Nordic, aristocratic multi-millionaires are virtually twins, and as unlike most of the rest of us as a couple of cross-eyed albinos. But this much I find timely: Both candidates were and still are members of the exclusive secret society at Yale, called “Skull and Bones.” That means that, no matter which one wins, we will have a Skull and Bones President at a time when entire vertebrate species, because of how we have poisoned the topsoil, the waters and the atmosphere, are becoming, hey presto, nothing but skulls and bones.

Poetry!

What was the beginning of this end? Some might say Adam and Eve and the apple of knowledge. I say it was Prometheus, a Titan, a son of gods, who in Greek myth stole fire from his parents and gave it to human beings. The gods were so mad they chained him naked to a rock with his back exposed, and had eagles eat his liver.

And it is now plain that the gods were right to do that. Our close cousins the gorillas and orangutans and chimps and gibbons have gotten along just fine all this time while eating raw vegetable matter, whereas we not only prepare hot meals, but have now all but destroyed this once salubrious planet as a life-support system in fewer than 200 years, mainly by making thermodynamic whoopee with fossil fuels.

The Englishman Michael Faraday built the first dynamo, capable of turning mechanical energy into electricity, only 173 years ago. The first oil well in the United States, now a dry hole, was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin L. Drake only 145 years ago. The German Karl Benz built the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine only 119 years ago.

The American Wright brothers, of course, built and flew the first airplane only 101 years ago. It was powered by gasoline. You want to talk about irresistible whoopee?

A booby trap.

Fossil fuels, so easily set alight! Yes, and as Bush and Kerry are out campaigning, we are presently touching off nearly the very last whiffs and drops and chunks of them. All lights are about to go out. No more electricity. All forms of transportation are about to stop, and the planet Earth will soon have a crust of skulls and bones and dead machinery.

And nobody can do a thing about it. It’s too late in the game. Don’t spoil the party, but here’s the truth: We have squandered our planet’s resources, including air and water, as though there were no tomorrow, so now there isn’t going to be one.

So there goes the Junior Prom, but that’s not the half of it.

Kurt Vonnegut is a legendary author, WWII veteran, humanist, artist, smoker and In These Times senior editor. His classic works include Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, among many others. His most recent book, A Man Without a Country, collects many of the articles written for this magazine.

More information about Kurt Vonnegut

  • subscribe to print magazine

  • Reader Comments

    I am very sorry to see you carry the advertisement on your site, not on the front page, but inside each article, claiming to offer a “Free Laptop”. Please look at the ad—It is, like many spam messages, a fake. It requires you to complete 6 sponsor promotions, like get a new cell phone or a new credit card. So the free laptop is not free at all. I am sad to see this type of ad in “In These Times”. May I please ask your reason for continuing to run these deceptive ads?

    Posted by Dimitri Devyatkin on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:58 AM

    No one is really going to like this, Kurt, but the truth is often a bitter pill, in this case a cyanide capsule.

    Hydrocarbon humankind is about to get swift kick in the drawers.  This will create the beginning of wars and land grabs (e.g. NOW) as the haves go up against the have-nots and in the end, as is always the case of the end, there will be barbarians at the gates.

    What’s next?  This ain’t going to kill all of us.  Just most.

    Posted by Michael Schwartz on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:05 PM

    Alas,this experiment in inteligent life is about to fail.I hope its successful in some other part of the universe

    Posted by mike on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:11 PM

    i agree with you kurt, in fact i probably have much more facts conceding this FACT (about the fate of the human on this planet)as i’m in the industry to know about this, i am a fisheries biologist. but there are positive things going on despite what george does. there are many independent groups and agencies out there trying to make a difference. i’m asking you, kurt, what you do to make a difference, you write this pessimistic article about us just having to give up, as it’s already too late. perhaps you want to energize people. but how much of your millions do you drop to environmental groups. The nature conservancy? union of concerned scientists? nature resource defense council? wilderness society? you probably give a lot, i don’t know. but your article pushes me to think futility and apathy should be embraced.
    email me, darling.

    Posted by edward kooi on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:32 PM

    What do you mean by intelligent life?  We’ve plucked out all our feathers and dove out of the nest.  Flap, Flap thud.

    Posted by GreyArea on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:38 PM

  • extended discussion >>>Continued...

    Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 161 posts.

Also by Kurt Vonnegut
IN THESE TIMES COMMUNITY MEMBERS

Popularity

In These Times is published in Chicago. We’ve been around since 1976, fighting for workers’ rights, corporate accountability and progressive government. In other words, a better world. more

Copyright © 2009 In These Times