Arizona Professor: Forget Climate, Humans "Don't Have 10 Years"

asteroid-impact

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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Kira
November 25, 2016 9:19 am

The world is getting better. Doomsayers often don’t use data, or project a trend into the future forever.
See: Nature Rebounds – https://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/Nature_Rebounds.pdf

Steve Fraser
November 25, 2016 9:23 am

I loved this quote from the article…
“We’re heading for a temperature within that span that is at or near the highest temperature experienced on Earth in the last 2 billion years.”
Ooo, that would mean some nicely warm years in Canada, even to the Holocene climate optimum! I can hardly wait…

Reply to  Steve Fraser
November 25, 2016 9:31 am

And PETM (+ 6deg C over HCO) was ***only*** 56Mya.

TomB
November 25, 2016 9:23 am

I’ve never seen a such a series of posts so desperately in need of the /sarc tag.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  TomB
November 25, 2016 9:44 am

When Leif shows up they’ll have to toe the line.

Reply to  TomB
November 25, 2016 9:16 pm

At least your comment has the proper tag.

littlepeaks
November 25, 2016 9:32 am

I’m wondering exactly how much the temperature must rise to cause a mass extinction. Out here in Colorado Springs I do know that I am currently freezing my a$$ off, but we’ve had a warm and very dry fall. We don’t have to worry about the lack of precipitation for a while — our city just completed the Southern Delivery System (SDS) to take care of our water needs during extended dry spells.

eyesonu
November 25, 2016 9:43 am

I’m not sure if CO2 has any effect on the climate but it sure seems have caused a lot of people to completely lose their minds. Or are they holding their breath? Maybe their loss was a loose mind to start with. Psychiatric counseling and care is in order.

tom s
November 25, 2016 9:44 am

How can supposedly smart people actually believe this? He’s mentally disturbed and a danger to us all. Lock him up.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  tom s
November 25, 2016 8:51 pm

When your pay and future pension depends on it.

November 25, 2016 9:50 am

In that case, why doesn’t he put in for early retirement and cash in his pension?

Pamela Gray
November 25, 2016 9:59 am

A measure of the intelligence of the Ivory Tower now that everybody and his dog can get in: Everybody that is in to shouting warnings about end times says the same thing, almost. They just change the cause. But even that is beginning to sound the same. The above pontification by the Ivory Towered professor is an identical twin to these idiots:
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/china-warns-japan-fears-and-george-soros-freaks-out-as-donald-trump-continues-end-times-rise-to-the-top/
Strange he does not see himself in that mirror.

Reply to  Pamela Gray
November 25, 2016 12:34 pm

Boy, Pamela, and I thought Rapture Ready was the strangest end-times site. Yours really has that beat!

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Pamela Gray
November 26, 2016 2:30 pm

I like how they throw out a Bible quote that can mean just about anything, or nothing, and it somehow reinforces what they’re saying.

Admin
November 25, 2016 10:12 am

I was once asked to debate Guy McPherson, and I raised objections with the moderator before the debate that the ex-professor believed some pretty bizarre things. The moderator countered with “no he doesn’t, those are just things other people write about him” So I agreed, but the very next day, the very same bizarre things I objected to were in full view on McPherson’s website.
That is the first and only debate I ever walked away from, and I’m glad I did.
McPherson is about as credible as Harold Camping and a host of other doomsayers- useless fear mongering.

Latitude
Reply to  Anthony Watts
November 25, 2016 10:35 am

dang…..you know, it really is a small world

Alx
November 25, 2016 10:12 am

I am pretty sure the world has already ended, but the computer models have not caught up with this reality. As soon as the models show humanity is extinct, then it is official, and the professor can report we are all extinct.
Sarcasm aside, the concern on the left should be the continuing growth of mass stupid on the left. That definitely leads to mass extinction of not humanity, but of leftist politics. Evidence of this is the democratic party in America in full meltdown losing every branch of government there is to lose. House, Senate, and State Governors all have Republican majorities. The judicial court will soon become slanted conservative and of course the executive branch is now the playground of Donald Trump. You’d think this would be a reality check…but noooooo, their political platform seems to be that global warming is killing everyone not being put into Nazi concentration camps built by Trump Industries.

TA
Reply to  Alx
November 25, 2016 12:45 pm

I heard a report on tv the other day that said of the 5,000+ total counties in the United States, Trump won all of them except for the 300 Hillary won.
A pretty lopsided victory.

Roger Knights
Reply to  TA
November 27, 2016 3:23 am

wikipedia says:

As of 2013 , there were 3,007 counties, 64 parishes, 19 organized boroughs, 11 census areas, 41 independent cities, and the District of Columbia for a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents in the United States.

November 25, 2016 10:20 am

When will the guy receive an honorary FRS ? Oh yes, in 12 years’ time, just like Paul Ehrlich did in 2012 after prophesying half of the planet would be extinct by 2000. Oh he also said there would total extinction last year – did I miss something?

Steve Oregon
November 25, 2016 10:25 am

Why aren’t these bozos more careful with what they say?
I reckon they just don’t care if they humiliate themselves like so many before them?
Perhaps it’s their academic “safe space” which has caused personal shame to be outdated and obsolete?
http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-apocalyptic-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-3/

Bob Hoye
November 25, 2016 10:30 am

I published a piece in January 2008, which places McPherson’s nonsense in perspective.
“Intellectual Hysteria”– It can be Googled.
Bob Hoye

Reply to  Bob Hoye
November 25, 2016 9:44 pm

Well done, Bob.
I don’t remember seeing mentions of a possible link between commodity price cycles and mass delusions, but it makes a lot of sense.

November 25, 2016 10:37 am

Ha Ha Ha
The professor is a fool.
Everyone knows the world is coming to an end in nine years in 2025.
So it will be scientifically impossible for his ‘ten years to the end’, to be right.
While it is true that in 2005 I predicted the end of the world in 2015, that prediction was wrong ONLY because of an adding error, caused ONLY by the fact that I needed to buy reading glasses and did not have them yet — the correct end of the world number back in 2005, was also 2025.
And that is conclusive proof of my consistency — the world will end in 2025 — I predicted it then, and I’m predicting it now.
This professor who claims the world will end in ten years is just making up that number to get attention.

Eugene WR Gallun
Reply to  Richard Greene
November 25, 2016 11:17 am

Richard Greene — You sound reasonable to me. — Eugene WR Gallun.

Reply to  Richard Greene
November 26, 2016 11:02 am

Richard
Can you please accelerate the schedule? My water hearer is unlikely to last until 2025.
Thanks

Dave O.
November 25, 2016 10:38 am

They have the audacity to label themselves “progressives”.

Reasonable Skeptic
November 25, 2016 10:42 am

I should make a bet with this guy that he is wrong. At least he will be happy that he won the bet when we are all gone in 10 years.

1saveenergy
November 25, 2016 10:56 am

This Guy has seen a gap in the market since Harold Camping found his end was nigh.

F. Ross
November 25, 2016 11:11 am

Sounds like this guy Guy McPherson would be a grand candidate for wearing a DOOM message sandwich board in Times Square.

Eugene WR Gallun
November 25, 2016 11:14 am

McPherson simply believes that when he dies the world ends. We are all his dreaming and at his death the dream ceases. He figures ten years are tops for him. This is a theme found in many a book — Ursala Le Guin’s THE LATHE OF HEAVEN immediately comes to mind.
Eugene WR Gallun

Javert Chip
November 25, 2016 11:37 am

Not a happy feeling that taxpayers are forced to pay for this bed-wetter McPherson.
It is always amazing that some book-smart individuals have such maturity/judgement issues.
If Trump is really able to defund billions of climate science nonsense, guys like this might actually be happier as burger flippers.

Gerald Machnee
November 25, 2016 11:38 am

So it is worse than we thought!

David L. Hagen
November 25, 2016 11:52 am

Hopefully all doom and gloomers like Prof. McPherson will retire or die, saving us from their misery. Realists who understand Who controls our future expect at worst an asteroid impact that will take out 1/3 of all ships but not wipe out all mankind. vis A href=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+8%3A8-9&version=ESV>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+8%3A8-9&version=ESV>Revelation 8:8-9

November 25, 2016 12:14 pm

Good cop, bad cop. Guy the heavy leaves the interrogation room to cool down, sweetie-pie James offers us a cup of coffee…

Killer Marmot
November 25, 2016 12:20 pm

MacPherson is 56 years old. He likely set the date of the apocalypse to one year after his expected retirement. He’s no dummy.

Reply to  Killer Marmot
November 25, 2016 12:25 pm

KM. it was noted earlier in this thread that McPherson already took early retirement (20 years and out?).

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Tom Halla
November 25, 2016 2:52 pm

Most states allow retirement from Civil Service Education jobs at 55.

November 25, 2016 12:33 pm

Looks like a good time to snag that reverse mortgage!

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