Forget global warming and the inevitable ice age destined to follow it. Don't waste time worrying about a nuclear apocalypse or 2012. The end of human life on earth will be caused by something very different. When archaeologists in the distant future unearth the ruins of the last few dilapidated, abandoned bookstores and college presses left standing before the apocalypse, from amongst the rubble of forgotten strip-clubs, movie theaters and mega-churches, the answer to the demise of the previous supreme beings will become clear: They stopped reading.

Such premonitions are nothing new: In 2007 The Washington Post reported that one in four adults had not read one book that year, and in 2003 the Jenkins Group, an independent publishing firm, reported that 70 percent of adults had not entered a bookstore for five years. What should really be unnerving is the following: On Aug. 19, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Rice University will close its campus press in September, consequently dismantling an essential medium for community and communication amongst the student body. Its closure obstructs a vital, time-honored bridge of correspondence between student and institution.

The discontinuation of Rice's press represents a lack of interest in independent publishing, even by schools' higher-ups. What's worse is it alludes to the shift in our country's interests from furthering and expanding our intelligence about the world to appeasing and fostering our growing infatuation for material waste and the hollow, entertain-me-now mindset our generation has been raised to embrace.

Unfortunately, evidence of declining interest in academic presses - and the written word in general - on college campuses has been apparent for some time. Rice's press was first shut down in 1996 before being revived in 2006 as an all-digital operation. Southern Methodist University closed its press last spring. And,according to an assessment of reading proficiency conducted amongst college graduates nation-wide in 2005, only 31 percent of graduates were deemed proficient readers - a 10 percent drop from the 1992.

As the number of people reading books and periodicals on and off college campuses continues to sink, so will the influence of logic and reason. As more people decide to watch re-runs of Jersey Shore rather than read and support academic publications, including fiction by ASU professors outsourced from other University presses, the less people will care about the matters threatening our existence. For now, our last hope seems to depend on MTV producing a reality show about university presses.