Week 25: Oblivion Works

Dear all,

Oblivion. Works. At least for some time. “I don’t want to be aware of what is going on.” The statement came in the midst of a conversation at a local restaurant. The responsible, accountable, creative, middle-class parents, sipping on perfectly chilled white wine in a late, too-warm European afternoon.

I was listening, as I usually do nowadays, without entering the discussion or, God forbid, engaging in polemics. People, I’ve been told, are sensitive about the topic.

There is a moment in the conversation when things get uncomfortable. Words turn into a silent cloud, stiff and chunky, hard to shape into sentences.

The children are no longer playing. Five of them sit hunched over their parents’ or their own mobile phones, playing games, floating through virtual realities as if to save their parents from the uncomfortable task of being parents.

Oblivion has so many deeply comfortable dimensions. “What can I do as an individual? It’s the politicians who need to do something,” uttered one member of the Oblivion Fellowship.

I was listening, watching the ice cubes melt quickly in my water glass, in this late, too-warm European afternoon. Small faces still deeply buried in the oblivion of mobile phones.

We are edging ever closer to the point of no return. According to a team of scientists from around the world, if we continue on our current path, the planet’s so-called “carbon budget” could be used up in just three years. That budget is the final line we are not supposed to cross if we want even a coin-toss chance of limiting global warming to one and a half degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That was the hope, the promise of the Paris Agreement back in 2015. Today, it reads more like a fading aspiration than a reachable goal.