Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Professor-emeritus Guy McPherson of University of Arizona, speaking in New Zealand, thinks we don’t have to worry about climate change, because the “6th mass extinction” will finish us all off in the next 10 years.
Humans ‘don’t have 10 years’ left thanks to climate change – scientist
There’s no point trying to fight climate change – we’ll all be dead in the next decade and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, a visiting scientist claims.
Guy McPherson, a biology professor at the University of Arizona, says the human destruction of our own habitat is leading towards the world’s sixth mass extinction.
Instead of fighting, he says we should just embrace it and live life while we can.
“It’s locked down, it’s been locked in for a long time – we’re in the midst of our sixth mass extinction,” he told Paul Henry on Thursday.
But Professor James Renwick, a climate scientist at Victoria University, says people should not use his words more as an excuse to give up.
While he agrees that climate change is possibly the “biggest issue humanity has ever faced”, he says “giving up is not really helpful”.
Instead, Prof Renwick says he hopes Prof McPherson’s 10-year claim will encourage people to take action.
…
Read more (includes video): http://www.newshub.co.nz/world/humans-dont-have-10-years-left-thanks-to-climate-change—scientist-2016112408
It is difficult to see why “its locked in, we’re all going to die” should be construed as a call to action.
On the other hand there might be a silver lining to this mass extinction business. With any luck the mass extinction event will take out all the mosquitoes and other annoying pest species first, giving us a last few happy years of bug free outdoor BBQs.
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Failed doomsday predictions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
This will go down as another one.
John, re the Wiki-listed doomsday predictions, they’ve failed to list Dr Paul Ehrlich’s world-wide famine die-offs (hundreds and hundreds of millions died… you remember that) that occurred in the 1970s, oh, and the unavoidably increasing death rates (which have dropped from 13/10,000 in the ’50s-’60s to less than 10/10,000 by the ’90s) but then, Ehrlich was criticized for being “was much too optimistic about the future.”
Too bad Wiki doesn’t list the doomsday of polar ice, which apparently all vanished several years back, as another doomsday prediction. And Wiki fails to list the soon-to-occur global “Great Flood” event, which will wash away and drown all of Humanity’s “eco-sins,” just as soon as the ever so increasing rate of sea level rise gets into gear… maybe folks in AZ and CO can invest in ocean-front property?
Oops… deaths rates off by a factor of ten… should be 13/1000 and 10/1000 respectively… of course, the ultimate death rate is 1000/1000… given time enough. 😉
Are you sure this is not one of those ‘fake news’ sites designed to gather click throughs while serving sad to you? Something so stupid cannot possibly be for real.
Watched the video, as far as I can tell the prof really said we’ll be all gone in 10 years.
If he reckons ten years is all we have max…. Then two years should see absolute confirmation of his prediction. Temperature would have to be going up rapidly by then… Heck, we’d start seeing it in six months. We’d be seeing it now actually…..
What a fool. How the fuk did a whole political establishment end up listening to fukwits like this guy?
These people have ruined the lives and livelihoods of literally millions of people…..Grrrr. Now I’m angry.
Be patient J.H. It will all be over soon.
In 9 years, 11 months and 30 days.
…. Maybe I should go through the “Five Stages of Grief”? ….. 😉
“Temperature would have to be going up rapidly by then… Heck, we’d start seeing it in six months. We’d be seeing it now actually…..”
Cough, cough, um, er…ah forget it.
We can hypothsize about McPherson’s mental state, but make no mistake; what he espouses is pure evil. There is no other way to describe it. His point of view is that extreme and that anti-human.
I cannot be writing this, as according to Paul Ehrlich, I died in a famine forty years ago. I also died of heatstroke or drowning according to James Hansen, but I didn’t notice, as I was already dead. /s
So, did you join with the other dead people and vote in the last election?
I wonder if he’ll give us a ten year extension on 1/1/ 2027? The post is mislabeled. Friday Follies would be an accurate heading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9UXKOIvuYE : Marshall Herff Applewhite created a religious cult commonly known as Heaven’s Gate.In 1997, he led his 38 followers to commit suicide in hopes of being transported onto a spaceship traveling with Hale-Bopp comet.
Everybody assumes they killed themselves for nothing, but what evidence do we have that they are not having the time of their lives on Hale-Bopp right this very minute??
And they were all wearing Nike tracksuits. This prompted one wag in the media to suggest that Nike should consider changing its motto to “Maybe you should think about it first”.
Hahaha! You must give it to them: they have a sense of humour, or is it a sense of the absurd?
Guy McPherson is 56 years old, sort of age where, if a family man, you carry life insurance. I wonder if he has informed his broker that he is going to die before he is 67?
I may not be here to see it but I’m confident that humanity will survive longer than the next 10 years! This Prof should be forced to commit to forfeiting all his possession if 2017 rolls around and humanity is still here! I’m sure he doesn’t have the guts to make that pledge!
Typo – in 2027. Sorry!
Let’s not go crazy everybody. He didn’t say 10 Earth years.
It’s actually 20 years til Apophis.
I hope Professor McPherson quickly gets the psychiatric treatment he so desperately needs. After he is placed on permanent sabbatical for his delusional need to promote anti-scientific fake news.
Oh the humanity!
I couldn’t care less about the good professor’s fears for his own life, or the earth’s, but he teaches (molds?) young minds, as do many others who profess this doomsday nonsense. What of the kids, some as young as five or six, who are being fed this line of bull? If you desire anarchy, teaching hopelessness is a good way to seed it in.
People like this need to be brought to heel. Hopefully severe budget cuts are on the way and will do the trick.
That’s quite short, even for a Hermie*
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8408386.stm
This looks to me like a compelling bit of evidence for why tenure is a bad idea.
Guys like this used to wear signboards and long beards, and wander around the downtowns of major population centers. When did they get so normalized as this?
Since we are all going to die in 10 years, we don’t need the University of Arizona any more, or any university or school. It would be sensible to just shut them all down. I’m certain that McPherson would think this would be proper.
McPherson’s website reads almost identically to that of a UFO promoter. Additionally, the esteemed McPherson writes in his letter to the future that language, writing and civilization are the fundamental mistakes a species can make, because they lead to such terrible assaults on the environment. He is not merely a pathetic misanthrope, he is not simply a hypocrite of the most cynical sort. He is above all a shallow bloviating ignorant twit.
I’m curious… McPherson has reached “emeritus” status at the advanced age of 56? (born in 1960). Most professores emeriti I’ve known have been gentlemen (and gentlewomen) in their 70s and 80s. I’ve gone through McPherson’s website (guymcpherson.com) and he seems a bit, er, ‘off.’ Has he perhaps succumbed to some form of early onset dementia, and been “put out to pasture” by U of Az, hence “emeritus” bestowed as a means of relegating him to an early retirement?
Here’s his story of ‘retirement’.
https://guymcpherson.com/2009/04/illegitimi-non-carborundum/
“Alas, the bastards wore me down. And, finally, out. My last day on the taxpayer dime will be 1 May 2009, twenty years to the day after I was hired. Fittingly, 1 May is a day of celebration for labor and laborers throughout the world. My department accepted my resignation with considerable glee, and the university granted me emeritus status so I can keep working for free. Stunningly, they didn’t offer a gold watch.”
In every detail, he appears to be a deluded communist. Well, communists usually are.
“My department accepted my resignation with considerable glee”
They probably got tired of all that “gloom and doom”. Professor McPherson probably wasn’t much fun at parties.
It’s not the “U of Az”, it’s the “U of Alz…”
Actually it is the perfect advice to give the faithful. Stop worrying and live your life.
What did you expect? A fellow who spent twenty years pushing CAGW to suddenly say “oops” never mind. So now after a career of shoveling the stuff, its now time for a quiet retirement; where you don’t want your now out of control minions tearing down the standard of living you have come to enjoy. Tell them its to late, live your life, and don’t expect anything (like self-sacrifice) from me.
michael
This nutjob has been writing this garbage for years.
His own website is here:
https://guymcpherson.com/
None of his academic contemporaries takes his message od doom seriously. He is 56 yr old, and can be put in the Wadhams category of fruits and nuts. His fellow serious academic ecologists actually laugh behind his back. Laugh they may, but this nutter does publish books that sell because there are plenty of people who buy into every “End of Times” theory and his academic credientials adds a false air of authority.
And because he is published and read, and makes a good living off his nutjob theories and proclamations, he can take “Emeritus” status (retired) and the university doesn’t have to pay him. The emeritus status falsly elevates his stature among gullible and ignorant reporters who breathlessly are writing click-bait stories, and other academics who use his nutjob status to gain attention.
I guess I should refer to myself as Facility Manager Emeritus, SIUE (LOL). Especially if there’s only ten years left to say it.
I judge by his mien that he is thoroughly enjoying his little joke while the Chicken Little crowd puts the tingle of the jingle in his pockets.
He has been doing peak-oil doom anti-capitalist tin-foil stuff for at least ten years, and in 2007 there were to be only a few years before the collapse will come. In ten years the few has grown into 10 years, so basically he’s learning the nigh in end-is-nigh can’t be too.nigh.
De-nigh-al?
Technically we have less than ten years now that time has passed since his prophesy. I’m just glad to know that I’ll be gone before my warranty on my water heater expires. I feel strangely liberated. Off the hook. I suspect that Professor has the same tailor as Saul Goodman’s brother. A well made suit lined with tin foil.
+1 Can we accelerate the schedule? My water heater is due to go any day now.
Professor McPherson’s Emeritus-ness has pumped up his capacity for displaying academic vanity. Anyone who makes predictions of the future is showing their arrogance, soon to be recognized as ignorance. Even Nostradamus.
If you really believe your BS, “professor”, there is no reason to be teaching anything. What’s the sense of it? Quit your job and go spend some time communing with nature. By the way, you don’t need any money you might have saved. Show your sincerity of commitment to your claim by giving it all to the poor so they might enjoy what little life they have left.