The pyramid is a monument I created.
Shape of angry wind or hungry rain
Can’t be destroyed, even countless ranks
Years marching through the centuries.
I won’t die completely:
Part of me will fool the goddess of death.
Thus, in 23 BC, the proud and self-conscious Horace wrote without reason: So far, he’s been right. Ancient monuments have collapsed or disappeared completely, but his poetry still survives. But you may ask – how much longer? Latin, at least as a spoken language, is already dead, and its connoisseurs are dwindling. Pessimists may contradict Horace’s optimism with a passage from Thomas à Kempis from 1418: O quam cito transit gloria mundiHow quickly the glory of the world fades away. In fact, more and more people, especially young people, are becoming less interested in writing, especially long text forms such as novels or newspaper editorials, and prefer messages and slogans that are easy to understand and preferably short. No more than half a page.
How can we warn future generations of the deadly dangers buried beneath the Earth’s surface? Thousands of years from now, our descendants will probably have no understanding of the writing systems currently in use. And can we now adequately predict what geological catastrophes may lie ahead? Nuclear waste burrows deep into raw rock, but can it really be guaranteed that cracks will not form and nuclear waste will not flow into groundwater resources? Considering how little we could have predicted about the impacts of climate change just a few years ago, it makes us wonder about our planet’s secure future and the short-sighted damage we are inflicting on it.
In 2008 Svalbard Global Seed Repository It was founded on the island of Spitzbergen, Norway. It is intended to be a secure back-up facility for the world’s crop diversity. In an abandoned coal mine tunnel more than 100 meters underground, seed storage We currently preserve 1,280,677 records representing more than 13,000 years of agricultural history. The opening of this unique seed bank will ensure that flash-frozen plant material will be safe from temperature changes and water damage as if it were beneath Arctic permafrost. However, an unusually large amount of water has already seeped into the sea in 2016. of the vault Entrance tunnel, 100m underground. Although the water flow was stopped just before it reached the precious plant material, the event showed that frozen permafrost could no longer ensure natural protection. vault – Temperatures in the Arctic are currently rising four times faster than the rest of the world, causing permafrost to thaw at an unexpected rate. Improvements vault Built to prevent water intrusion, the tunnel walls were made “watertight”, and now above ground, a drainage ditch surrounds the entrance. vault.
Full of pride, hope, and anticipation, Horace wrote that his poetry would survive for thousands of years. Nonetheless, he could not have predicted how humans are currently destroying our shared environment. Authors have been warning us about what is happening for over 100 years. First, it was primarily science fiction writers who created terrifying dystopias about what could happen to Earth if we continued to abuse our natural resources, deplete organic life, and destroy the beauty that preserves life. This literary trend remains alive, especially after the nuclear bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and the meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor. One disturbing and well-written example of such a dystopia is the novel by Russian writer Tatyana Tolstaya. slings Since 2000.
After some kind of nuclear disaster, a disfigured people survives in what was once Moscow. They depend on rats for food and clothing and know almost nothing about their past. Most of them cannot read or write, but the few who live in this nightmarish reality remember what life was like before the war. explosionThis was before civilization collapsed and culture collapsed with it. Although these people occasionally quote poetry and dream of bringing about a cultural renaissance, the reader understands that they are a dying species, with little to revive them. The books still exist, but anyone in possession of one of them is tracked down and severely punished, while also having their books confiscated in the name of putting a stop to “free thinking.”
Gosch’s novel brings us back to Spitzbergen. close to Svalbard Global Seed Repository Another abandoned coal mine is much deeper than the mine containing the seed silos. At a depth of 300 meters we find a vault. Arctic World Archives (AWA) is a place where governments, associations and individuals can deposit what they consider World Heritage Sites for a fee. Deep below, beneath the permafrost (so far), there are copies and microfilms of various items that the AWA guarantees protection for at least 2000 years. Here the Vatican sent an unfathomable amount of manuscripts and microfilm. Linga Eterna While preserving recordings of 500 endangered languages, the Polish government has deposited literary works and copies of Chopin’s manuscripts. Here we can find blueprints of architectural, industrial and automotive designs from the world’s largest companies and others, as well as a diverse collection of film and rock music.
Thoughtful speculators and depositors are attracted to advertising material and films that remind AWA of threats to cultural heritage such as war and terrorism, such as the destruction of the giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan and videos showing how ISIS destroyed priceless cultural assets in Palmyra and Mosul. You get treated well. Disasters triggered by climate change, of course, will cause most of Florida, Bangladesh and the Maldives to be underwater and Venice to be completely submerged and destroyed by 2050 if nothing is done to stop it.
Spitzbergen is not the only place with cultural heritage. At the Hallstatt salt mine in Austria memory of humanity Specially designed “indestructible” ceramic containers, storing enormous amounts of microfilm, precious artwork and manuscript copies. Libraries and archives around the world also shelter underground labyrinths filled with books, magazines and documents.
But the problem remains. How long will these vast reserves be able to withstand the rapid changes that threaten our planet, and will future generations find these reserves of human effort if they survive the environment that now threatens us all? Are you interested in them or even understand them? Perhaps our descendants will benefit from all that is preserved in this secluded place? Or will the miserable creatures of Tolstoya’s gloomy wasteland despise it all or consider it dangerous? Let us take a moment, at least, to appreciate the written treasures that poets like Horace have left us, and to teach our children to appreciate, learn from, and cherish what our ancestors left behind, and to enjoy what is written today.
main source: Oh my, Amitabh (2016) Havoc: Climate change and the unthinkable. University of Chicago Press. Ghosh, Amitabh (2019) gun island. London: John Murray. Horace Flaccus, Quintus (1967) Odes of Horace translated by James Michie. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics. Stagliano, Riccardo (2024) “Futura Memoria”; Il Venerdi di Repubblica, 25 years old. Tolsteya, Tatyana (2016) slings. New York Review of Books.
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