Posted on 10/28/2014 12:05:14 PM PDT by wagglebee
A former professor at the University of Arizona is so convinced that global warming is ruining Earth that he’s proposing a desperate plan to save the world: Destroy human civilization as we know it.
Guy McPherson, who left academia in 2009 for “ethical reasons,” says humanity will be extinct by 2030 no matter what we do, so for the sake of the other species on Earth, we must “terminate industrial civilization” and abandon the modern technology that gives us electricity, worldwide mobility, clean drinking water, and medical care; to say nothing of the creature comforts of modern life.
“I think there’s ample chance we can save the living planet, but not our species. … Some people think that this whole thing is about us,” McPherson told the Paul Henry Show in New Zealand last week, during a tour to promote his new book Extinction Dialogues: How To Live With Death In Mind. “We just showed up… I don’t think this is about us, I think it’s about the living planet,” McPherson said.
Although McPherson makes a significant portion of his living peddling climate hysteria online, high-speed internet connections, computers and iPhones are not part of his view of the future. Instead, he argues, we must look to “indigenous” people with their mud and straw huts and hunter-gatherer lifestyles as an example of how to live out our final days on Earth. Indeed, McPherson himself claims to live in “a straw house in the middle of the woods surrounded by animals” and says that nothing short of the total collapse of human civilization will slow the imminent destruction of our world.
“I work toward collapse,” McPherson says in an essay on his website. “Largely unafflicted by the arrogance of humanism, I work on behalf of non-human species. Industrial civilization is destroying every aspect of the living planet, and I know virtually nobody who wants to stop the runaway train. Yes, collapse will kill us. But our deaths are guaranteed regardless, unless I missed a memo.”
If McPherson’s perspective seems lacking in optimism, you’re not wrong. He and his followers in the “near-term extinction” (NTE) movement derisively refer to hope as “hopium,” and accuse mainstream environmental scientists whose studies point to anything other than imminent apocalypse as “deniers.” Some observers in the scientific community have referred to the NTE as a “death cult,” a criticism so common that McPherson has pinned a disclaimer at the top of his website saying that while he does not advocate for or against suicide, he urges those who contemplate it to “re-consider.”
It’s tempting to dismiss McPherson as a crank, but much of the rhetoric coming out of President Obama’s administration in recent days has echoed the professor’s paranoia regarding climate change.
At a recent UN summit on the climate, Obama described climate change as the most imminent threat facing the world today – more dangerous than terrorism, instability, inequality, and deadly diseases like Ebola and Enterovirus D-68.
Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Obama said that he believes "there is such a thing as being too late" – and insisted the world must "move toward a global compact to confront a changing climate while we still can.”
And at a State Department reception to celebrate the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, Secretary of State John Kerry said that climate change, not Muslim extremism, was at least partially to blame for the deadly actions of terrorist groups like ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, and Boko Haram.
“The extremism that we see, the radical exploitation of religion which is translated into violence, has no basis in any of the real religions,” Kerry told a group of Muslim leaders. “There’s nothing Islamic about what ISIL/Daesh stands for, or is doing to people.”
Kerry said that the real reasons behind Islamic terrorism are economic, driven by weather conditions he attributes to global warming.
“[C]limate change … is profoundly having an impact in various parts of the world, where droughts are occurring not at a 100-year level but at a 500-year level in places that they haven’t occurred, floods of massive proportions, diminishment of water for crops and agriculture at a time where we need to be talking about sustainable food,” Kerry said. “And in many places we see the desert increasingly creeping into East Africa. We’re seeing herders and farmers pushed into deadly conflict as a result.”
Despite the Obama administration’s feverish devotion to the global warming narrative, the scientific data backing it up is less than compelling. In fact, scientists are currently scrambling to explain why there has been no recorded warming of the Earth in the last 18 years. They have so far come up with 52 possible reasons for what they’re calling the “pause” in global warming, ranging from low solar activity to “coincidence.”
It’s their only solution to anything: Death.
Quite an interesting phenomenon really. We see it also in the various flavors of identity politics, usually feminists and black racists, who end up way out on the curve, espousing frankly delusional things.
Crazy ex college professor... hey, try it yourself...and I’ll enjoy civilization.
A professor of what?
Folks that argue that humanity is a pox on Mother Gaia haven’t thought things through completely. By their reasoning, Gaia herself “just showed up”, and should be regarded as a contaminant sliming up a wholesome, pristine, lifeless planet. Shouldn’t it be completely sterilized to return it to its original state of purity and perfection?
Better yet, maybe they should give up on inventing a religion. They’re not at all good at it.
Twelve Monkeys
Kinda like the muslims, no wonder they get along.
I assume he rowed across the pacific to get to NZ. It's a long way to go to promote a book that only a few people will read. I'm sure he wouldn't have gone in one of those "Carbon" spewing aeroplanes , what with the earth being in such dire straits.
I think he's trying to muscle in on Paul Erlich's territory.
"McPherson bills himself as a scientist simply passing along the science (even as he dismisses climate scientists and their work), but he cites nearly as many blog posts and newspaper columns as published studies. When he does cite a study, it’s often clear that he hasn’t taken the time to actually read it, depending instead on a news story about it. He frequently gets the information from the study completely wrong, which is a difficult thing for most readers to check given that most papers are behind paywalls (not to mention that scientific papers aren’t easy to understand)."
It's worth your time to read.
He sounds like Unibomber.
And if any of them were Muslim, MI6 would have Bond take sensitivity training and leave them alone.
Neil Burnside of SIS and the sandbaggers would solve the problem.
lol
true
Goody!
Let’s start with destroying the University of Arizona first!
Oh, what? You thought we would only destroy non-academic sites?
Hah! /s
Hey Mac! We need an example so give all your worldly belongings to the homeless and go of the grid!
Is there some reason stopping you from lewding by example? Or are you more interested in starting a new cult so you can take women you want and begin populating the earth with more “right minded citizens of the world”.
this is exactly the type of tiptoe thru the tulips pompous idiot that will be eaten by a bear or wildcat, to whom straw is a removeable drape. Considering his decades of child abuse in the form of fatalistic enviromental fearmongering, is it horrible to speculate whether Professor Dearest left the 'modern conveniences' of a longgun and bullets behind, too?
What an icehole
There is really very little difference between this supposed man of learning and Charles Manson or the unibomber Ted Kaczynski. The philosophy is identical.
I think these guys are right!
Its settled science!
Mankind will be extinct in 2030 (or maybe 2031.5) so all we can do now is to extinguish mankind to save the planet!
All humans must self-sacrifice!
But the leaders of the environmental and liberal/socialist causes should really lead the way, and show we poor, selfish conservatives how its done!
And I Obama-promise to follow, once they lead the way!
So what's the problem, prof?...................
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