Vonneguts and Glory

Kurt Vonnegut recently said this to Rolling Stone magazine, the whorish tabloid of commercial radio:

"I'm Jeremiah, and I'm not talking about God being mad at us," novelist Kurt Vonnegut says with a straight face, gazing out the parlor windows of his Manhattan brownstone. "I'm talking about us killing the planet as a life-support system with gasoline. What's going to happen is, very soon, we're going to run out of petroleum, and everything depends on petroleum. And there go the school buses. There go the fire engines. The food trucks will come to a halt. This is the end of the world. We've become far too dependent on hydrocarbons, and it's going to suddenly dry up. You talk about the gluttonous Roaring Twenties. That was nothing. We're crazy, going crazy, about petroleum. It's a drug like crack cocaine. Of course, the lunatic fringe of Christianity is welcoming the end of the world as the rapture. So I'm Jeremiah. It's going to have to stop. I'm sorry." -Kurt Vonnegut 2006

Of course, Vonnegut is correct: the human race faces the last few moments of possible change in our world, before the window of opportunity closes and the damage inflicted on the Earth ruins it irreparably. Most scientists agree that the rising temperatures, melting glaciers, and disturbed and increasingly violent weather patterns spring from the destruction of the environment.

And remember, a butterfly's wings flapping in St. Louis, Missouri creates tsunamis in Asia. So everyone is to blame for this.

Which brings me to Vonnegut himself. He has amassed great wealth due to his status as one of the great thinkers/writers of the 20th century. Did he share it? Vonnegut has smoked Pall Mall cigarettes since he was a teenager, adding up to seventy years of smoking. Where are all of those butts, and what about the effect of his smoke on others or the environment? Let's not even think about the reams of rainforests used to publish his books and articles over the years. And what about the SIX children Vonnegut brought into a world increasingly faced with population and starvation problems? Did this cross his mind when he blew a wad in his wife?

I have no problem with a man of Vonnegut's intelligence stating ominous warnings of impending doom on future generations. I wish the psychotic monkey in the White House could even UNDERSTAND some of what Vonnegut is preaching here.

But I DO have a problem with a person sounding a warning of a destruction that THEY HELPED CREATE. Don't wag your finger at others, shaming them for their inaction while you yourself used and/or destroyed more than your fair share of resources.

If I want an author to guide my thinking on such a matter, let it be Thoreau, not Vonnegut.

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone." - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau didn't just bitch about the consumption of the Earth's resources by thoughtless peoples and their selfish governments. He lived a life of simplicity in response to that, treading softly and harmoniously with the Earth around him. He led by EXAMPLE, not just words. Vonnegut should think about that as he coughs and wheezes his way out of this world, leaving behind his own dirty fingerprints.

As for me, I am going outside to kill some of those motherfucking butterflies.