The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are figures in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Bible. It is hard to find a more bizarre and byzantine piece of literature than Revelations, either written now or 2000 years ago. Religious zealots use Revelations to concoct an endless source of predictions concerning when the end of the world will occur. Nothing like promising “Fire and Brimstone” to convince people to buy into your religion. The traditional four horsemen are Thanatos: Death, Limos: Famine, Ares: War, and Zelus: Pestilence.
Many Christians believe that the “Four Horsemen” will ride the earth during the “End Time” and through their power set the stage for retribution and final judgement. The “End Time” is when Jesus will return to judge humanity. Dead Christians who are believers in Christ will be resurrected and join with still living Christians to meet Jesus and ascend into heaven. Non-believers and evil doers will receive judgement and descend into hell. A variety of “Dooms Day” events will precede the final judgement. The process of retribution and judgement is referred to as the Apocalypse.
I say that the Apocalypse is happening now. It is not a religious apocalypse. It is an environmental apocalypse. The “Four Horsemen” are not war, famine, pestilence, and death. The “Four Horseman” are floods, Drought, Earthquakes and Fire/heat. A powerful sentience, or some type of greater being is wreaking havoc on humanity as retribution for the spoilage that humans have inflicted on the planet. Maybe the earth is alive. Maybe there is truly a sentient Mother Earth, Gaea or Magna Mater and she has decided to clean the earth from a parasite that is destroying it.
The “Judgement” has been made and humans have been found guilty. We have destroyed thousands of species. We have wantonly killed millions of each other over land, water, and money. We have polluted the air with ozone, methane, and other chemicals. We have desecrated the soil with pesticides, fertilizers, runoff oil and parking lots made of concrete. We have defiled our oceans with plastics, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and industrial discharge. It says in the Bible Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
Consider Climate Change as Terra’s retribution and cleansing agent. Her use of the Four Horsemen is nothing short of brilliant. Let me propose a sort of Straw Dog. The term “straw dog” refers to an inchoate idea that may or may not be fully developed. It can also refer to something to try out even if it is not clearly defined. My Straw Dog goes like this.
Historically, most weather patterns tend to be random. They occur randomly throughout the globe. Sometimes one place gets a hurricane while another has an earthquake. There is good weather sometimes in some countries and bad weather sometimes in other countries. No one country gets all the disasters all of the time. There are even some countries each year that manage to escape disastrous weather patterns.
However, this does not seem to be the case we are confronted with today. With climate change, it appears that the entire planet is under attack. It is almost like an invisible hand is guiding an earth-wide devastation. Today, we are witnessing a pattern of catastrophic weather events that leave no country unscathed.
There you have my Straw Dog. My hypothesis is that humanity is under attack by some unknown but omnipotent force.
One Horseman visits California, India, New York, Libya, Greece, and Spain with floods. A second Horseman visits Canada, Bolivia, and Brazil with wildfires. A third Horseman scorches Arizona, Somalia, Namibia, and Zimbabwe with devasting droughts. A fourth Horseman unleashes earthquakes in Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Japan, and Afghanistan. There is no place where we can run to. There is no place to hide. There is no place on earth that is safe today from environmental upheavals. Atlantic magazine said that Vermont was the safest state to live in. Less than three months after they reported this “fact” one of the Four Horsemen rode through Vermont unleashing unprecedented flooding. The Atlantic wrote an apology a few months later.
Maybe it is time we establish a colony on the moon or Mars. It looks like Pachamama does not want us here anymore. Prithvi says leave or die. Kokyangwuti wants us off this planet. Find someplace else to live says Bhumi. No matter what language Mother Earth is translated to, she is a concept that exists on every continent and in every culture in the world. Mother Earth has decided to get rid of her children. We have forgotten that Terra is not only our mother, but she is the mother to every other species on this globe.
Mother Earth will win and we will lose. I say lets pack up now and get ready to evacuate. Some of us could go live on the moon and the rest would easily fit on Mars. I would choose Mars to live on. I would call my colony “New John” and only allow people who thought like me to live there. True Believers would live on my side of Mars and False Prophets would live on the other side. I would build a BIG WALL to separate us.
If we get there first, we can plant flags and stake out as much moon dust or Martian canals as possible. In no time at all, we could be starting wars to ensure that no one takes our territory.
“Oh, Yes,” you say, “but what about the indigenous little Martians who already live there?” Don’t worry about them. We’ll conquer them, colonize them, convert them, Christianize them, or kill them. Its in our genes. No one stands in our way. We own the universe.
Who wants to go with me?
Daffy and Marvin Martian arrive on Mars at the same time and battle it out over who can claim it first.
“I never really thought much about it”, I replied. “I do think I care about the environment, and I do my best to support environmental efforts at conservation and sustainability. Of course, I suppose if you were judging me, you would say that I usually put my own self-interests first.”
I did not know what to say. I was speechless. I felt selfish and self-centered. I had neglected my responsivities to the planet and all of the other species who inhabited it. The earth was never more than a convenient piece of landscape that might or might not be useful to me. Air, water, and land were mere things, mere objects that I could use and dispose of to help make my life better. I might fear hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornados but I relied on science to protect me from these “natural” disasters.
Aging Capriciously 