The Times

I give my title the capitals not because I refer to the respected British publication, but because I believe the Times we are in are important. There is some mood for change.
Some mood for governmental change, domestically.
Some mood for taking climate change seriously, although I fear too little is being done, far too late.
There is some mood for change in Burma. And it is being done in a dignified manner by the most dignified of men from the world's most dignified religion.

But to continue to existentialist mood of the post below I want to point out I am excited very much by these moods for change because I think in each instance they are good for mankind. But ultimately, even if nothing comes of any of it, and it turns out that cool wind of change I feel is actually just the air conditioner, it won't matter.
Here's why:

If the temperatures increase by a few degrees because of human activity... if to thirds of all plant and animal species are wiped-out... if all the ice melts and the sea levels rise and the ocean temperatures change and if the ocean currents change... if all of this makes the miserable human civilisation unsustainable and unable to cling to life on this beautiful gift we inherited, then cest la vie.
It is for the best. This planet will recover.

I watched a reasonably ordinary documentary - The White Planet - at the cinema on the weekend. It told me nothing new and said nothing interesting, even on the question of climate change, but the narrator did say one thing which resonated with me greatly: It is we for whom time is running out, for Mother Nature has all the time in the world.

And she does. Life evolves and teems from one iceage to the next. When I was a kid and I learned the sun was a star and stars are alive and things that live must die, I was terrified I would live to see the sun die. Even then we were being told by teachers we were killing our planet. We're not. We're killing ourselves and taking a hell of a lot of species with us as collateral damage. But the Earth and the Sun will keep spinning... long after we have returned to atoms.

I think I've just discovered my Nihilist side.