We Are All Going to Die Soon

In the seventies they sounded the alarm,

waving charts and pointing at the sky.

"The ozone hole is growing!"

they cried from every stage and newsroom.

We are all going to die soon.

People worried.

People listened.

People paid.

Then came nuclear fear.

Smoke drifted from Chernobyl,

and every reactor became a monster

in the public imagination.

We are all going to die soon.

Committees met.

Experts debated.

New taxes appeared.

New regulations arrived.

Years passed.

The islands were next.

The oceans would rise,

the maps would change,

the beaches would disappear,

and entire nations would sink beneath the waves.

We are all going to die soon.

More conferences.

More reports.

More emergency meetings

at expensive hotels.

Then it was the sun.

Then our food.

Then our cars.

Then our cows.

Then our heating systems.

Then the air itself.

Every decade brought a new disaster,

carefully wrapped in headlines

and delivered to our breakfast tables.

We are all going to die soon.

The phrase became familiar,

almost comforting,

like an old song played too often

on a broken radio.

Meanwhile, the warning industry flourished.

Consultants consulted.

Bureaucrats expanded.

Corporations rebranded.

Politicians campaigned.

Fear became a currency,

and currency became power.

We are all going to die soon.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

But perhaps right after

the next report is published,

the next tax is collected,

the next crisis is announced,

and the next solution is sold.

The printers keep printing,

the speeches keep coming,

and the people keep paying.

Yet somehow,

through every promised catastrophe,

humanity wakes up,

goes to work,

raises children,

plants gardens,

and keeps moving forward.

Perhaps that is the greatest irony:

The warnings never stop.

And neither do we.