Despite all that, as you know, we still use the term “climate change”, as if it described slight drizzle at a seaside resort, which might ruin a pleasant stroll before a hearty supper… We’re still talking about “the limit of one and a half, maybe two degrees of warming”, visualizing — pale inhabitants of northern latitudes — bright, sunny, and carefree days…

“Nonchalance” is probably the mildest of descriptions, with which… But still, still, are we to blame…?

We would probably be surprised, had we known that we are only 120 generations away from Thales, who had some vision at Latmic Bay and was the first man to recognize the possibility of existence of arché — the origin, first principle that guides the world, that is the source of everything, that permeates everything, and everything is necessarily submissive to it. Thales declared that water is arché, he was unable to see beyond it, but still! as Diogenes Laërtius states in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, it is believed he discovered the seasons, divided the year into 365 days, discovered the movement of the sun between the tropics, and was the first one to “be involved with astronomy and prediction of solar eclipses and solstices.”

He predicted eclipses. He said: “in this many days, the Sun will vanish and there will be darkness in the middle of the day” — and the day did come, when darkness fell upon a sunny day. Can people of today even imagine the fear and amazement our ancestors felt when the Sun followed the prophecy? When, in the thick of darkness, it became clear that there are words everything must submit to? At that moment, the eternal desire of the mind — to stretch the limits of knowledge about the future as much as possible — was promised an efficient method that was to replace divination by steaming entrails, fire, ash, smoke, and dreams. At that moment, logos emerged from the murky waters of the bay — from the depths, from an endless sea, from the ocean, from myth. And lo, there was reason — a thoughtful, comprehensible rule that governs everything and according to which everything transpires. Law emerged — and he who learns it, knows what will happen before it happens.