The vortex is a hungry and dangerous beast. And whenever the basic act of maintaining balance starts requiring greater and greater effort we have to wonder: has one of these beasts begun the spin that will consume us?
The deteriorating global climate situation (and technology's relationship to it) has this feel. Since most of us live in cities close to the ocean now there is cause for worry. As sea level rises, our only practical, local option will be to build walls against the water. Significant triage will be necessary; entire continents cannot be walled off against the sea.
In America it will mostly be big cities that get the walls. These are some of the likely candidates:
As things fall apart, waterwalls will be erected quickly using enormous resources and a good deal of technology. These represent the first serious battle of the Nature Wars, where construction and innovation are directed urgently and aggressively not to advance civilization but to patch holes and reclaim basic equilibrium against a deteriorating ecological foundation.We don't win this one. Innocence is lost and the hour of inundation comes at last. Treating the symptoms will not make us whole. And listen: do you hear that hissing sound? We are already inside the tightening gyre. The future we have committed ourselves to is wet and dizzying.
