User:Riviera/Apocalypse (Wordhole)

‘The end is nigh’

- Cliché paranoiacs

It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

- R.E.M.

On the one hand, crazed paranoiacs sometimes roam the streets with signs proclaiming the imminent fall of civilisation. On the other hand, the lead singer of R.E.M., Michael Stipe, expresses calmness in the face of a global catastrophe. Insofar that ‘[a]rguably, climate change is the most important global environmental problem of our times’ (Aichele and Felbermay, 2013, p.731), neither of these responses seems satisfactory. If Stipe is being honest, his nonchalance communicates a numbness of or disconnect between the reality of the situation and his psyche. By contrast warning passers-by of the nearness of judgement day is thoroughly unconvincing (repent!) in contemporary street scenes. In a way, the latter half of Stipe’s sentiment summarises how I feel when I am confronted with a prophet of doom. I’m either too polite, or too cautious, to express this to people in the street.