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Jack Rutherford

The world is burning, but we don't care

Three images and text representing resource exploitation, technological advances, the pandemic and the unsustainable impact of a species threatening their own existence.

On light and glass we watch as an acre is reaped every second. Massacring our ability to breathe, we harvest the earth’s lungs faster than we can even inhale the miasma. With a desire to consume this spectacle in a greater density of pixels, David narrates the destruction and we sit on our sofas in horror, passively contributing to the torching of the earth. Deaf to howls of those living in Gaea’s green temples.

A pathogenic disruption arrived and grounded our planes, silenced the tarmac, laid waste to the nine to five migration. For over a year we’ve retreated inside our metal caves in fear, and in hope, salvation in a vial. Tragic times. Although, the sky heals, seas breathe and the world draws a desperate gasp. Will we see a return to smoke and fire as we wrap veins of iron and leech oil to suffocate the earth anew? 

We never know when to stop. The war of mutually assured destruction, playing with atoms that we couldn't contain, thousands banished from their homes. Nature reclaimed these spaces in a flash. Fauna now breathes freely where we cannot, free of footfall. We still stockpile annihilation. 

Earth’s day is long. Yet we, seventeen seconds, are ignorant to the wealth of time. Novel custodians, naive to our short lived existence. The bell hangs, anxious and thirsty as the midnight hour approaches.

Ph.D. Candidate

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