Science Snippets: Acknowledging the Good Within the Bad

I no longer think we’ll save the remaining shards of the living planet beyond another few years, as I have mentioned several times in this space. We will destroy every—or nearly every—species on Earth when the many self-reinforcing feedback loops associated with climate change come more obviously into play. The conclusion that all life on Earth will go extinct was reached by Strona and Bradshaw in their 13 November 2018 peer-reviewed paper, Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change. This paper was published in the open-access Scientific Reports, part of the renowned Nature series of peer-reviewed publications. As most viewers know, I had identified enough self-reinforcing feedback loops to conclude climate change is abrupt and irreversible by 20 June 2012. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reached the same conclusion with reports in October 2018 and September 2019, respectively. Specifically, the IPCC concluded climate change was more abrupt than any previous event in planetary history with its 8 October 2018 report, Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees. Not quite a year later, the IPCC concluded climate change was irreversible with its IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, released on 24 September 2018. As I have reported previously in this space, a single self-reinforcing feedback loop is sufficient to conclude climate change is irreversible. Unfortunately, we have clearly reached the acceleration phase of the nonlinear system that is climate catastrophe.

The response to the IPCC reaching the same conclusion I reached, albeit more than seven years later, was virtual silence. When was the last time you heard anybody from the corporate media, the government, or the large body of paid climate scientists mention anything about abrupt, irreversible climate change? In contrast, the responses to my reaching this same conclusion included a coordinated defamation campaign that effectively removed me from the public service I was providing for no charge. Apparently, American science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein was correct when he wrote in his 1 July 2005 book Expanded Universe, “being right too soon is socially unacceptable.”

The climate-change data, models, and assessments keep coming at us, like waves crashing on a rocky, indifferent beach. Mega-droughts, massive fires, and devastating flooding throughout the world are met by levels of societal ignorance and political silence I’ve come to expect. And climate change, of course, is only part of the story.

Consider, for example, the meltdown of the world’s nuclear facilities, which number in excess of 440. Even first responders fail to respond when a crisis expands. They return home to their loved ones, as any decent person would. One result will be the release of ionizing radiation into the atmosphere. This will cause stratospheric ozone to be stripped away, as pointed out artistically by the 2021 film, Finch, and somewhat less artistically by me with a video described and released via blog post at guymcpherson dot com on 29 June 2021.

Can we kill every single species on Earth? Apparently, we’re willing to give it a try, and I will not be surprised by our “success” at this omnicidal endeavor. If the all-important rate of environmental change doesn’t do the trick in the wake of our demise, then surely the stripping away of stratospheric ozone will cause the extinction of all life on Earth.

I’m sad, of course, at the societal path we’ve taken. Swept up in the pursuit of more instead of better, we’ve become the waves approaching the rocky shore. Long ago, our predecessors had opportunities to return to their—and our—tribal roots, as others have done when civilizations collapsed. Consider, for example, the survivors from the Olmec, Chaco, and Mimbres cultures, all of whom chose tribalism when their civilizations collapsed. Tribalism worked for some two million years in a diverse array of situations. It worked before and after civilizations arose in specific regions. For many decades, our version of civilization has been successful only for a few individuals of one species, yet we keep tinkering with the system long after it’s failed.

Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, we’ve come to believe industrial civilization is the only way to live. As we’ll soon discover, it’s the fastest way to die, at least at the level of our species.

Lest I am misunderstood, I’m not suggesting we quit. Giving up is not giving in: Accepting our fate is not synonymous with jumping into the absurdly omnicidal mainstream. Just because we’re opossums on the roadway doesn’t mean we should play possum. Resistance is fertile, after all. To employ a bit of The Boss: “In the end what you don’t surrender, well the world just strips away.”

Or, to employ a bit of Zen: Let go, or be dragged.

Or, to employ a bit of popular culture: Carpe diem.

Or, to employ a bit of Nietzsche: “Live as though the day were here.”

As a result of the ongoing, accelerating climate change discovered by other scholars and promulgated by me, I’m letting go of the notion that Homo sapiens will inhabit this planet beyond a few more years. As one result, I’m letting go of the notion we’ll retain even a fraction of the species currently on Earth beyond a few decades. But I’m not letting go of the notion of resistance, which is a moral imperative.

I will no longer judge people for buying into cultural conditioning. It’s far easier to live in a city, at the height of civilization’s excesses, than not. I know how easy it is to live in a city surrounded by beautiful distractions and pleasant interactions, and I fully understand the costs and consequences of dwelling there, as well as the price to be paid in the near future. I’ve spent about half my life in various cities, and I understand the physical ease and existential pain of living at the apex of empire. Also, I know all about the small joys and great pains associated with living in the country. I spent the other half of my life in the country and in towns with fewer than a thousand people. I understand why the country bumpkin is assigned stereotypical labels related to ignorance and, paradoxically, self-reliance. It’s clearly too late to tear down this irredeemably corrupt system and realize any substantive benefits for humans or other organisms, even without considering the aerosol masking effect or the loss of stratospheric ozone in the wake of civilization’s demise.

Our remaining time on this orb is too short to cast aspersions at those who live differently from ourselves. Most people in the industrialized world became cultural crack babies in the womb. There is little hope of breaking the addiction at this late point in the era of industry, and I’m throwing in the towel on changing the minds of others. No longer will I try to convince people to give up the crack pipe based on my perception of reality. I’ll no longer recommend to others the path I’ve taken, for many obvious reasons.

Nietzsche’s comment about seizing the day, every day, brings to mind the final words of Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces: “It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.”

With the preceding dire news in mind, it would be easy to forget how fortunate we are. After all, we get to die. That simple fact alone is cause for celebration because it indicates we get to live. As I have been pointing out for many years, our knowledge of DNA assures us that the odds any one of us existing are greater than the odds against being a particular grain of sand on all the world’s beaches. No, the odds are much greater than that: they exceed the odds of being a single atom plucked at random from the entire universe.

A line from English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins comes to mind: “In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I that are privileged to be here, privileged with eyes to see where we are and brains to wonder why.”

Finally, I’ll finish with a line from Kurt Vonnegut’s uncle Alex, which Vonnegut turned into a book that was published in 2013. The quote, and the book: “If this isn’t nice, what is?” Vonnegut’s uncle Alex would interrupt any conversation by pointing out that, for example, sitting in the shade of a tree, was a pleasant experience. He’d say, upon noticing how pleasant the current circumstances were, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”

Think about it, please. Ponder your circumstances at any point in time. Find the good, in the moment, even in a world characterized by misogyny, racism, and wars that never end … even within the midst of abrupt, irreversible climate change leading to the extinction of our species and probably all life on Earth … even within the rapid transformation from a beautiful, verdant planet to a lifeless rock floating through space, we get to be here. We get to be here, now. If this isn’t nice, what is?

Perhaps you can take a moment the next time you’re spending time with friends. As Vonnegut recommended, when things are going sweetly and peacefully, you can pause for a moment and then say out loud, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”