Let me invite you to watch the video above. It's just 6.16 minutes long and features Guy McPherson. Clicking on the link I have just provided to McPherson's name will take you to a Wikipedia article. That article states, among other things, that McPherson is "known for inventing and promoting doomer fringe theories such as Near-Term Human Extinction (NTHE), which predicts human extinction by 2026."
In the video I have linked above, McPherson objects to the "doomer" designation. He is presenting himself as just a "truth teller," and McPherson cites to an article by climate scientist Bill McGuire to bolster McPherson's credibility. McPherson makes clear that he is no "climate scientist," but claims that McGuire, who is a "climate scientist," generally backs up what McPherson has claimed.
What is my position?
Well, I am no "doomer," and I am not predicting that all humans will be extinct by 2026. That might happen, of course, but I am not "predicting" it. In fact, I don't care much about "predictions." Maybe I'll discuss that in some future blog post.
My position is that we, as human beings, have failed to appreciate our radical dependence on the natural environment, also called "Planet Earth," and described by those who feel comfortable in the precincts of religion as "The World That God Made."
I think it is helpful to employ what I call the "Two World Hypothesis" as we consider our human situation, and I also appeal to us to reject the idea that we best understand things by making "comparisons," and then picking one of the two things being compared.
We live, simultaneously, in (1) a world that we create - the "Human World" - and (2) in the "World of Nature," or "The World That God Made," for those who don't break out in hives when they contemplate the possibility that we are "created," as well as "creating."
The benefits of listening to McPherson will come from understanding that we need to be ready to conform the world that we create, sometimes called, "human civilization," to the inevitable realities and requirements of the World of Nature, which takes precedence.
My pitch is not "doom." It's understanding that we have pushed our human civilization beyond the limits that the World of Nature can sustain. So, change will come. McPherson ends his video with exactly that assertion ("It Ain't All Waiting On You," he says).
McPherson is right about that. But here's what I am pretty sure that I am right about. We can transform our civilization, as we need to, and survive. And even prosper.
But that means a reconfiguration of the realities of our "Human World," realities that we so often erroneously believe are inevitabilities. The structure of the world that we have created (human civilization, in all its complexities) can be changed. Clearly, that is "theoretically" true, and what I am urging is that we need to find ways to make it true in fact.
Furthermore, and this is the pitch from "climate scientist" Bill McGuire, it's time to get on it! The World of Nature ain't "waiting on us!"
https://youtu.be/jQWFTsI7Iwc?si=E-3te5dbUfAPsuj7
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