ca·tas·tro·phe / kəˈtastrəfē/
noun:
an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering; a disaster.
“a national economic catastrophe”
synonyms: calamity, cataclysm, havoc, ruin, ruination, tragedy;
More
adversity, trouble, trial, tribulation
“the flood of ’82 was the worst catastrophe in the town’s history”
the denouement of a drama, especially a classical tragedy
Catastrophia (Greek) = a sudden reversal in fortune
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anthropocene / interface between human technologies & nature
planetary technicity –
the collision between Western Industrial Civilization (also now with the rise of the East) & the Biosphere results in turbulent flows introduced into the metabolic or homeostatic currents
result = asymmetric effects
There are no longer any “natural” catastrophes since we can no longer point to a space on the earth where we can say this is ‘nature’ and this is ‘civilization’ – we have now put nature inside civilization.
Therefore it is impossible now to know how much nature is ‘doing its own thing’ and how much of this is a result of human technologies
geologic cataclysm /
earthquakes are on the rise increasing in frequency
geologic time = catastrophism writ large on the surface of the planet
oscillating through ice ages for the past few hundred thousand years
climate inertia / environment / ‘sixth mass extinction’
occurring in frequency and doubling in severity
states of emergency
domestic terrorism & the police state
geopolitical consequences
social unrest / economic collapse / population increase / resource competition
displaced populations /
the disintegration of the nation state
nation states that are no longer on the map because no longer inhabitable
refugees
“German barbarians pouring over the gates of Rome”
urban war zones
every major city in America is in degeneration
CIA drug trafficking / NAFTA CAFTA GATT & WTO
the “War on Drugs” & war against domestic populations
global catastrophe = ontological consequences that are global
cities always had walls around them but the walls came down with the invention of gun powder (first by the Chinese, then the Turks, then the Westerners)
the contemporary Cities are ‘unprotected’
lacking boundary around them
now shifting into an environmental totality (saturation of public space)
911 marks the advent of siege engines aimed at the ‘walls’ of the City
1st world & 3rd world collide
result = there is no such thing as a safe place on the planet anymore
catastrophic existentiality
struggle / adversity / illness / death
(Buddha & Christ: life is suffering)
