Guy R. McPherson, who is pictured above, is nothing if not glum. You can click the link to McPherson's name to see what Wikipedia has to say about him. Among other things, Wikipedia informs us that McPherson is predicting human extinction by the year 2026.
The picture I am using at the top of this blog posting has been clipped from a recent video, posted online by McPherson. Click right here to watch the video. In that video, McPherson tells us that "our fate is sealed." Like I say in my headline: "Glum."
In an earlier reference to McPherson (click the link if you'd like to revisit it), I used different words to make the same point I am making here. In that earlier reference, I said that McPherson's message is "not exactly uplifting." That phrase, let me be clear, was intended to convey the fact that McPherson's message is "Glum."
Well, "Glum" is not necessarily bad, if that adjective is associated with a message that provides us with important information that might allow us to counteract the gloom foretold. Unfortunately, though, that isn't really what McPherson is all about.
McPherson's idea of the role of an intellectual is to perform what I will call the "acrobatics of extrapolation." Here is how you do that. First, you properly note what is happening. Second, you analyze what the consequences would be if what is now happening were to continue on in its most predictable course. As a final step, you state the conclusion to which you come, having jumped through those first two hoops, and you say, with a flourish, "our fate is sealed," using those exact words or others with more or less the same meaning. "Inevitable" is a word that is often utilized in the acrobatic efforts I am talking about.
McPherson, having performed this acrobatic exercise, focused on "Climate Change," has appeared in the recent video I have linked, and he doubles down on his prediction that we are "doomed" and that "our fate is sealed."
Please let me quote my past review of McPherson's "not exactly uplifting" acrobatic efforts. Here's the message I presented then, and that I repeat today:
We are not "doomed" until we decide we are.Observers look at the past, and the present, and extrapolate to the future.Actors change the future.
McPherson's recitation of the facts is correct (or largely correct). McPherson's statement of what the consequences will be if things continue on in their current direction is also correct (or largely correct). McPherson, though, continues to act as though the extrapolation of the present is a way to know what the future will be. He has left out of the equation any acknowledgement of human freedom, and of my favorite category, "possibility."
Is is "possible" for us to change what is happening? Yes!
Some would say, "Yes, theoretically." People who say that don't believe that people are going to change what they do, and so conclude (as McPherson does) that we are "doomed," and that "our fate is sealed."
Let's be honest, McPherson's diagnosis is pretty accurate. Our responses, so far, have not been encouraging. For instance, alluding to that consequential election coming up soon (actually now underway), one of the candidates who is running for president wants to pump more fossil fuel, and combust it immediately. "Drill, baby, drill" is Trump's Energy and Climate Action Policy.
Well, we are going to have very hard times in the future, no matter what happens, because we have ignored human-caused global warming for way, way too long.
But, predictions based on past actions are never certain guides to the future. We are are not "doomed," and our fate is not "sealed," because we can change. We can, in fact, make mammoth changes to what we're doing.
Longtime readers of this blog might remember my past reference to a book I like (click the link below to read another past blog posting, and to refresh your recollection of Lyndsey Stonebridge):
Image Credit:
https://youtu.be/oHojO2nR_Rw?si=9D2ljkCuqt-Q5ueR
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