Next for Planet Earth: Palliative Care

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Palliative care, as I understand it, is given to a patient when doctors have given up on finding a cure, or even reversing the progression of the patient’s disease. The purpose of palliative care is to keep the patient as comfortable as possible, by treating the symptoms, while he is circling the drain. No doctor will ever explain it this way, but that is how I understand it.

Several decades ago, Mother Earth’s doctors advised her strongly that if she wished to live long and prosper, she had to cut down on her binge-like consumption of several highly toxic things: fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizer, plastic, toxic “forever chemicals” and the like. She and her caretakers — all volunteers who make their living from fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizer, plastic, etc. — ignored the advice and continued the binging. 

Soon, Mother Earth developed a fever that is steadily getting worse, and began to experience other, more painful symptoms: raging wildfires, supercharged storms, droughts, hot flashes, circulation problems in the oceans and the atmosphere. But she could not stop binging, and her consumption of all the harmful stuff increased. The sicker she got, the richer her caretakers became. 

To this day, her doctors continue to talk about some miraculous cure that could be just around the corner, some unknown treatment that could save her — preferably something simple, like a pill. But they know it’s too late now, and it’s time for palliative care.  

[Can we just step out of this metaphor for a moment to stipulate that we are not talking here about the death of the planet — the planet will be fine, eventually — but the end of the conditions that support the present, overlarge, industrial-based population of humans.]

Palliative care can be quite pleasant, and might last quite a while. It is made tolerable by self-administered drugs (alcohol, marijuana, sleep aids, energy pills, mood enhancers, etc., etc.) and multiple diversions provided by celebrities behaving badly, movies based on comic books, and politicians (a.k.a. the caretakers of the planet) bloviating about other peoples’ sexual preferences and reading habits.

There are some things that would be worth doing to make this period of palliative care more palatable (such as the use of more alliteration). Medicare for all would substantially ease the misery of a sickening population. Demilitarization, and repurposing the assets and personnel of the military-industrial complex to things such as international disaster relief would be a great blessing, not that it could ever happen. 

In the meantime, however, in their chemical fog, preoccupied by pointless arguments, bewildered by blizzards of alternative facts, we the microbes of Mother Earth remain largely oblivious to the fact that she is desperately ill. And will soon be eligible for hospice care (which is basically palliative care with an end date).