As I expected, The Collapse of Western Civilization, is a very depressing book. It seems like the authors think that everything is going to turn bad, as a result of us aweful humans. I do agree that we are messing with the environment, which has a lot of detrimental outcomes, but I don't agree that they will be as extreme as the book describes them to be. Also, I find it weird how it was predicted how each specific country would act during these hard times. I believe that as a people we need to come together in order to make progress in repairing our world, not tearing it apart. Hopefully the book is wrong.

I think ahead of a positive future and I do believe it is possible. But this book is a reminder to myself that sometimes, things may not go the way you hoped. The book reminds me that our environment is deteriorating. And it is, and always has been, humanity's fault. Our selfish actions have caused the destruction of the natural world and species. Although this book is fiction, it feels all too real. Such as when it discusses the migration of populations from melting ice caps, the destruction of our ozone layer, and those who believe that global warming isn't real. I sometimes wish that humanity can come together to save our home but that is very hard to believe. Humanity is on a roller coaster that cannot be stopped.

I was reading the book while watching the election; the first reaction was, well, very precise recount on history, but missed an important event: when the US citizens (very likely to be the ones who denied the existence of climate change) elected Trump as their 45th president, Trump withdrawed US from the 1992 Climage Convention, ignored the Carbon cap for US and thereby fastened the climate change. These from the perspective of now have not happened yet, but are very likely to happen, seeing how ignorant Trump's policies in general are. 

Bryn Mawr is dark and quiet on a cold, November Wednesday. The eyes of people I know, usually smiling and full of promise, have gone dull as I walk to the Campus Center to begin reading "Collapse of Western Civilization." This is when it hits me. Here we are, mourning Western civilization as we know it because of the outcome of yesterday's election, not realizing that we aren't that far gone. I will admit I have been feeling as though the world is ending since last night, and couldn't sleep thinking about the murky gray fog that is our country's future, but reading this essay made me think about today a bit differently. Things look shitty right now, but we have time to join together and decide our own fate, as a county and as a human family.

It seems a human nature that people tend to care more about short-term profits rather than the long-term benefit. Reducing the emisson of carbon is hard because it will damages the economy interest. Up to me, we are clearly aware of the serious consequence of all the harm we are bringing to the environment now, but we can't stop outselves because the short-term profits are so tempting and irresistable.

The only thing I could think of as I read this book was how real it actually is. America just elected a president who believes climate change isn't real, and who won't do anything to make sure that the world we live in now will be preserved for future generations. When will we wake up and realize the enormity of this decision? 

Climate change is a huge issue, and this book really emphasizes that. It was rather insightful and interesting to read, but it also scared me. The fact that Trump is now president means that it will be almost impossible to put our nation on the right track for preventing even more horrific climate change events. 

Something that resonated with me from Coate's book was his trip to France. His cab driver said, "we are all united under Africa." Est-ce que tu es d'Afrique? As a foreigner I didn't want to be known as American. We don't have the best reputation overseas. Some thought I would be offended to be assumed to be African. Well, I don't think it's a bad thing to be African. And I know enough French history to know that there are indeed plenty of Africans in France. D'où es tu? I was proud to be assumed to be African, but I also used the question as an opportunity to claim a heritage I truly cared about. My mother's homeland, Trinidad.

I'm flipping through my copy of Between the World and Me and I'm looking for something I can write about but I can't bring myself to turn away from the horrible unreality of the election. I'm shaken and I'm fearful of what tomorrow might look like. I'm speechless but I'm somehow not surprised...yes, America is proving herself to be just as fundamentally, cruelly racist as she always was. The sharpness of the moment hits me as I'm scrolling through multiple feeds on different media platforms, through posts about election coverage and the DAPL and BLM and SJP. The pain of the fact that social movements like BLM and protests against the DAPL can happen alongside the rise of D*nald T*ump is very real.

On page 7 of Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

"Americans believe in the reality of 'race' as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism--the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them--inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or the Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men."