2022: Nature as the Number 1 Enemy

Half of the South is gone. Many are calling Hal Crowther some sort of prophet because of his futuristic insight in his piece Beyond the Horizon. Just as he wrote years ago, numerous hurricanes have devastated the South’s coast causing millions of dollars in damage and thousands of lost lives. He himself says that this outcome was inevitable and anyone could have predicted it. Still, some are holding on to a belief in a greater fate instead of accepting that humans may be at the root of such catastrophe. Category 5 Hurricane Pablo wreaked havoc on South Carolina’s coast last year and even damaged much of the upstate. While Old Main and Milliken suffered only some exterior damage, our Styrofoam Olin building didn’t make it out of the storm as well. Some thought the building would just float in the floods caused by the storm if it were detached from its base. There is talk of building a new Olin building in a couple years but no one is sure of where the finances will come from. First, the college must repair the building that made it through the storm. Also, funds have been tight since the increase in food cost and rebellion against the $60,000 dollar a year tuition. The college has also been limiting the amount of areas on campus that could be air conditioned because of soaring energy prices. South Carolina’s economy has also plummeted without any tourism to the beach and the massive damage that was caused throughout the state. 

Through the decade we have seen temperatures sore and storms become more sporadic and distructive as ever. To the future 2062 graduates, I wanted to insert an excerpt from Thomas Berry's The Great Work that might help to reveal some of the historical background to the cause of our climate change.

 New achievements in science, technology, industry, commerce, and finance had indeed brought the human community into a new age. Yet those who brought this new historical period into being saw only the bright side of these achievements. They had little comprehension of the devastation that finally led to an impasse in our relations with the natural world. Our commercial-industrial obsessions have disturbed the biosystems of this continent in a depth never known previously in the historical course of humans affairs.

I would like to apologize to you, future graduates, on behalf of my generation and all those before me, for our lack of care for the environment and our obsession with material objects. The race to be first in technology or any modern advancement meant that nature had to come in last. I hope that there are still sacred places left for you to enjoy. I hope that from seeing the devastation of recent natural disasters my generation has lead the way for a new kind of living. I hope that we will find a new "cultural coding" and sustainable way of living before your graduation. I hope that the "good guys" will outweigh the bad in the years to come.