Oryx and Crake: Insights to the Apocalypse - Essay Example

To top it off, days after the earthquake and tsunami incidence in Japan, citizens had to face a nuclear scare as the Fukushima plant registered abnormally high levels of radiation. In preparation for a possible nuclear explosion, people who live within 10 kilometers o the plant were evacuated (CNN Wire Staff, 2011). Tremors were also experienced in Chile and Sumatra but these have received only minimal media attention. Meanwhile, other Asian countries such as Thailand and the Philippines experienced excessive floods lasting weeks and in the case of Bangkok, months.

Of course, the United States had its own share of calamities. Earlier in the year, a “snowcalypse” pounded the Midwest and dumped loads of snow, sleet and ice. It affected around 100 million people (CBC News, 2011). Meanwhile in August, Hurricane Irene, a category 1 storm hit the U.S. and was considered as a major threat to the country’s security (Anderson, 2011). In fact, many residents were encouraged to prepare for evacuation. In its aftermath the storm left around some $27 to $80 billion properties damaged and is regarded as one of the costliest storms to hit the country (along with Katrina, Andrew and Jeanne).

As early as 2007, an article published by the Time Magazine said, For years, global warming was discussed in the hypothetical--a threat in the distant future. Now it is increasingly regarded as a clear, observable fact… all of us must start thinking about the many ways global warming will affect us, our loved ones, our property and our economic prospects. We must think-- and then adapt accordingly. (Herstgaard, 2007) What have we done to cause this apocalypse? Well the answer is pretty simple – we have let the industrial revolution rule our lives.

Emissions of CO2, methane and nitrogen has increased over the years, thanks to the growing use of machines. The science is undeniable – human activities has overloaded the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, hence the solar heat is unable to radiate away. Moreover, mechanized agriculture has led to increased methane and nitrogen emissions has exacerbated the problem. Humanity, considered as the “smartest of all the animals, endowed with exponentially greater powers of insight and abstraction” (Kluger, 2007) has proven that we are still animals.

“[W]e can be we can also be shortsighted and brutish, hungry for food, resources, land--and heedless of the mess we leave behind trying to get them” (Kluger, 2007). We have made a mess of nature. This is not the first time that extinction has happened on earth, but this is the first time that extinction is not part of natural process. The reason for climate change is anthropogenic, and perhaps, it is up to man to correct the problem. But then Crake thinks that there is no hope for mankind, and has created a better species.

Everything we ever complained about humanity today was addressed by Crake – his creations Cwere masters of science, and the new society had no taboos. For Crake, many aspects of society does not make sense, but he figured, if they existed, then they probably had a biological function. In this book, man’s technological and scientific capacity has reached its peak that he can now act as God. Anything unexplained by science was disregarded. Crakes arguments were always materialistic in nature – if a phenomenon cannot be observed then it does not