About 20 years ago I won second prize in a short story competition. Won a fiver. Was hardly the Booker. My story was called ‘The last God’ and it was a ‘Noir’ type detective story, all Mickey Spillane and smouldering babes in pencil skirts and chain-smoking PIs who cross the line between legal and dubious on a regular basis. But what the story was really about was God. In essence, that the Romans had hundreds of Gods. And the Greeks. And the Egyptians. And everyone else in between. Because you needed explanations for the inexplicable. Things like wind. Rain. Sunshine. Good crops. Bad crops. The stars. Death. Any manifestation of the natural world was unknown back then, so you need a god to explain it. To pray to. To beg forgiveness. I’ll sacrifice my children before this alter if you just let me harvest my wheat. Fair exchange.

There were no weather girls back then, or the problem would have been different. There was no meteorological society. There was lightening, there were avalanches, volcanoes erupted and, in the absence of any better ideas, god dunnit. What? We don’t have a god for sinking boats at sea??? Then invent one. How hard could it be?

Then along came various forms of enlightenment, of understanding, of unraveling the natural world. Astronomy, physics, chemistry, medicine signalled the death of most of the gods. Who needs to make gifts to Tytronicus!! when a little pill will probably do the job much better? And the gods gave way to scientific explanation. One by one having no place in the world as the ‘mysterious’ became understood. And thus leaving just The Last God. Everything else has long gone into the realms of post-technological understanding, except…

Where it all began. Why it all began. Why the fuck are we here??? The BIG question. Hence, the Last God.

And I mention this because I think that we, collectively, the caretakers of planet Earth, have just invented a new God. After all these years…

I heard that as of very recently, 80% of Australians, as godless, pagan, satanic, demonic bunch as e’er walked the planet, claimed they now believe in ‘climate change’ and even their prime minister (the one who’s previous god was a lump of coal; his nation’s biggest export) is joining the cry. WE BELIEVE!!! they holler. Previously oblivious to the problem, even though it pretty much started right there with Ozone issues, they suddenly, as their country burns tragically all around them, are having a collective ‘my plane’s crashing; I’m an atheist but: HELP ME GOD!!!!’ moment.

The new God. Climate Change. The only sacrifice required is that we all drive a Prius.

Happy Monday

A xxxx