Threat

At the turn of the century the world should have ended. Planes should have fallen from the sky, bombs should have self-detonated and the ensuing nuclear holocaust should have driven those lucky few into the underground bunkers they had the foresight to build. But the world didn’t end. Computers soldiered on into the new millennium with the precocity of a young bespectacled Bill Gates - bleating and beeping on January 1st. Crates of strawberry jam and freeze-dried meat were unpleasant reminders of the non-disaster and its debasing anticipation. But why did we prepare? Perhaps it was the immediacy of the threat – counting down in our disseminated computers – that lead us to action.

It would seem that the raw need for self-preservation is an abstract motive for survival. Global warming threatens the planet but exactly who will be affected and when seems unclear or at least partly undefined. There is no ticking bomb, no fear and thus, no action.