Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

To The Stars, For The Fire

Let us take this burning observatory as a symbol both of human entanglement with nature and our current fascination with worlds beyond our own. Let us ask, why do we reach into space? Two thoughts come to mind for me: first, we seek life beyond our planet and, second, we seek new homes. The life we seek is, implicitly, life like us. “Intelligent,” we say, as if the life we already know isn’t really all that bright. So, we look to the brightness above to find something akin to ourselves while ignoring similarities with the fire consuming our observatories; its swift ravenous consumption may mirror our own but, clearly, its mindlessness does not. Fire engulfs, driving forward our search for other worlds for we may have grown in quantity and hunger but so too have the swift and ravenous fires. Yet, our burning observatories expose our other-worldly-want for what it truly is: a running from the maw of our extinction—and it is our extinction. As we were burning our coal, we burning our observatories. Ah, look, there it is, the smoke which called forth the smoke.

Toby Francis (z5342546)

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