Saturday, November 7, 2015

62 Responses to ““Bill Nye’s Global Meltdown” on National Geographic” re GUY McPHERSON's take

62 Responses to ““Bill Nye’s Global Meltdown” on National Geographic

  1. Dredd Says:
    Nigh, but no cigar.
    Gives new meaning to scientific propaganda.
    I expect it to increase.
    In past civilizations, like the current one, the minds of people in power go first, then the minds of those they infect, spreading until critical institutions become pathogens.
    Finally, the extinction of infrastructure causes implosion.
    In other words, a society does not ever die ‘from natural causes’, but always dies from suicide or murder — and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown.” – Arnold J. Toynbee (A Study of History)
    This, the Anthropocene, is different because this civilization is trying to take out all species along with itself, led proudly by Oil-Qaeda (The Extinction of Chesapeake Bay Islands).
    Have you figured out, yet, why they are beginning to sell memory products, etc. made out of jellyfish?
  2. Dredd Says:
    National Geographic lays off staff following 21st Century Fox merger
    Cuts amount to about 180 people, or 9% of staff, ahead of expected closing of deal over new for-profit venture National Geographic Partners” (Guardian).
    A late version of Mocking America.
  3. Wester Says:
    “The very derivation of the word patriarchy is instructive. Pater means owner, possessor, or master. The basic social unit of patriarchy is the family. The word family comes from the Oscan famel, which means servant, slave, or possession. Paterfamilias means owner of slaves.”
    Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood
  4. Tom Says:
    Nye and Schwarzenegger’s happy-clappy (just listen to the music) faux concern tinged program is just the kind of nonsense that gets quickly dismissed by the general public. I doubt it gets many views in the grand scheme of tv fare. He’s SAYING all the right stuff, but can’t go so far as to accept Guy’s stance. As soon as the viewer hits the
    33 minute mark, it all goes off the rails with the usual hopium/techno-fix nonsense that forgets that keeping civilization (a heat engine) going IS the problem.

    Thanks for participating Guy. You are believable and forthright. Many will at least look into your message after this. Whether they reach acceptance or not doesn’t matter any more.
  5. ogardener Says:
    National Geographic – Now a Murdoch publication.
    The first ones to get the ax were the NG fact checkers. Are you not surprised¿
     
  6. mt Says:
    facts! we don’t deal in facts-NG
  7. Caroline Says:
    Second what Tom says to Guy: “You are believable and forthright. Many will at least look into your message after this. Whether they reach acceptance or not doesn’t matter any more. “
    Agreed Tom—– I don’t think it matters anymore who reaches acceptance or even who is in denial.
    If (when?)oxygen is diminished to unlivable levels due to humans stupidity/greed/whatever—– I know people who will probably gasp their last breath making utterances of denial and blaming Al Gore. NOTHING will change that.
    No flood, Cat 6 hurricane, desertification—-nothing. They will be deniers until the end.
    I am so grateful to be able to come here and have my perception of reality confirmed; that things are terribly off, all ecosystems are collapsing and there are way too many tipping points that have been reached.
    At least there are some voices among the shit (sorry, couldn’t find a better word at the moment!) of industrial civilization who dare to speak the truth. If there were NO voices it would be complete and utter crazy making: the denial of death and denial of the science/reality of extinction.
    As far as Revkin goes—–he has done a huge amount of damage with his bully pulpit at the NY Times. A rag interspersed with the most unconscionable ads ($15,000+ watches, anorexic teen models in $5,000+ outfits, pictures of the Koch brothers at social events not to mention promoting the war machine, capitalism and continuing the minimization (if not denial) of the extent of AGW and human’s destruction of the planet.

  8. In the links Guy provides above, Revkin cites Michael Tobis who apparently thinks all of us here who respect Guy are nothing more than “permaculture types”(I will admit, I am not a “permie”—-but I would like to be!).
    Message to Tobis: Is trying to live lightly on the land where the elements interact in mutually beneficial ways to produce a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts a bad thing?
    That’s the implication here in his snide, condescending tone:
    Tobis says:
    A former professor of ecology, Guy McPherson has attained some fame and respect among back-to-the-land “permaculture” types. I have no idea what he may or may not know about ecology, but he doesn’t know much about climate. This hasn’t prevented him from using his professorial credentials in the “permie” subculture, and what he tells the permies is that we are absolutely, irrevocably doomed.”
    This from a man (Tobis) who proudly works with “Clotho Business Solutions LLC” that specializes in:
    eCommerce Solutions
    Website Content Management Tools
    Flash Programming
    Interactive Design
    Back-End Systems Integration
    Mobile Applications
    Online Promotional Campaigns
    Now THAT’s the ticket Tobis! Did you hear that all you “permies” out there? (although I’d like to know how many “permies” there are out there—-I have a hunch not as many as Tobis thinks)
    Get away from the land and find some “ecommerce solutions!
    It will all be OK!

  9. Paul Chefurka Says:
    Here is David Wasdell’s latest opus in advance of COP21: Climate Dynamics: Facing the Harsh Realities of Now :a climate sensitivity of 7.8 degrees per doubling of CO2, and a soi-disant “Carbon Budget” that we’ve already overdrawn by 100%.
    You can’t get there from here!
  10. Edward Kerr Says:
    Guy,
    As watched the program I too noticed that the issue of grief and acceptance was glossed over and a return to the “we can fix this thing with technology” was the last word, so to speak. It’s possible that that, however unlikely,is true but I note that no one is offering anything that even smells like an informed “plan” to make a reasonable attempt to mitigate the situation other than “lowering emissions”.
    Even people of science are prone to avoid the whole idea of human extinction for a variety of reasons.(few give a hoot about other species)
    Even though it’s difficult maintaining a sense of of humor I chuckled to myself as I thought, “All one need do to get Guy to comb his hair is to have him appear on a nationally-watched broadcast”
    Regards,
    Ed
  11. Guy McPherson Says: ''Ed, it wasn’t my fault. I prefer my usual unkempt look. The makeup artist constantly had his comb in my hair.''
  12. john d Says:
    I thought Bill Nye did a great job with your segment by MSM standards; injecting a little humor doesn’t hurt either. At least he acknowledged (tacitly) that your point of view is worthy of inclusion.
    Curious to me that the role of animal agriculture rarely gets mentioned. I read recently that if all fossil fuels stopped tomorrow, the 75 billion human owned animal’s methane will still push us over the edge.
    Revenge of the cows/pigs/chickens indeed!
  13. infanttyrone Says:
    Where does Max Keiser find time to play keyboards?

  14. kevin moore Says:
    Mainstream culture cannot function without denial of reality, misrepresentation, lies, and either no science or junk science within government, and continuous promulgation of absurdities to the masses. And it cannot be maintained without an increasing supply of cheap, easily-transported liquid fuels.
    Most adherents to mainstream culture are not suffering enough yet.
    The decline in the availability of cheap, easily-transported liquid fuels or the inability to pay for them, which must come soon, will severely dent mainstream culture. And when there is mass starvation, repeated widespread environmental catastrophe in ‘developed’ nations, and breakdown of systems etc. the dominant culture will be seen to be the sham it has always been. Until then the ridiculous games continue.
  15. Tom Says:
    Thanks for your perspective and comment(s) Caroline; also Paul, ogardener,
    Edward, Wester, mt, and Dredd.
  16. LWA Says:
    .
    First of all, thanks to @David for the link in the last thread to Guy’s nat. geo. appearance. I had asked for a link, and your post got me there. I really appreciate that a lot, so thank you! :)
    .
    @Guy
    ****The show was better that expected for me too. I had no idea it was going to be so uptown and Hollywood. Wow, Arny even, (he’s back … just like he always threatens) lol. Who knew it was going to be such a big production? As a person acquainted with the theatre and show business media types, I’ll tell ya … that sure was some big time production stuff. So cool! Top 40 primetime!
    I was interested in how they framed it around the stages of grief. But, isn’t that your intellectual contribution to NTE … isn’t that your ‘shtick’? Aren’t you the one who offers to run workshops to help people cope emotionally with NTE by applying the ‘stages of grief’ model to people’s response to climate change?
    Did they just rip off your whole idea of ‘greif stages vs. Climate chaos’, and then not credit you with being the source of that idea? It was pretty fundamental to the artistic layout and the plot of their show. Really, it was. I think you should be given several hundred thousand dollars out of all of that advertising revenue that nat. geo. hoovers up as compensation for them using your ‘stages of grief as applied to climate change’ concept. Otherwise, they just took that from you, didn’t they? Trust me; in hip hop … if you take someone’s song or even copy their sound … they’ll cap your ass.
    I hope you catch my slight humor in all of that by the way. Of course nobody’s going to pay you anything, when do they ever do that? The pay is only for them.
    All of that aside, I really quite enjoyed your few moments on the show, especially when you were sitting there on your bench. I saw into your eyes for a moment, and they actually seemed a little sadder than the ‘you’ I usually see during your public speaking videos. I’ll tell you Guy, even though I face doom fairly sober these days by personal choice … I imagined myself sitting there with you getting all nasty with that JD and me smoking all your cigarettes. There was just something about the look in your eyes during the show that made me think that it would just be good to be sitting there with you doing that.
    Hey, you never know … maybe if nat. geo. cuts you a huge cheque as compensation for your intellectual property over the stages of grief thingy, then you could fly me down there and we could get right on that! (Although, I do prefer scotch to bourbon … but I wouldn’t be too picky, as long as you’ve got lots of smokes!) Ha ha, I even quit smoking tobacco awhile back … but hell, if you got ‘em … I’ll smoke ‘em!
    Anyway, like I said … the show was actually more entertaining and polished than I had realized it was going to be. Putting all proper philosophy aside, you should be very proud of your foray into the glossy big time. Congrats!
    And I did wind up chuckling at Bill Nye, just like I thought I would. I mean … who can’t laugh at Arny!
    .
    P.S. Also thanks to Gloucon X for posting that hummer link last thread.
    I’ll be back!
    Oh, brother. Are we doomed yet? 😉
  17. Guy McPherson Says:
    LWA asks, “Did they just rip off your whole idea of ‘greif (sic) stages vs. Climate chaos’, and then not credit you with being the source of that idea?”
    Yes, absolutely, as I expected. At the very least, I popularized the idea.
    No check, and none on the way. I’m ecstatic to get out the word with big-time production values, though.
  18. Apneaman Says:
    Rupert Murdoch/Fox has now acquired National Geographic, so programming changes will be forthcoming. Here is a preview.

  19. Mark Austin Says:
    “Permafrost toxin’s are something the Seberia Antelope species can survive,” Kock told the New York Times. “After the mass die off this year, you could actually have extinction in one more year.” DREDD is good about posting links to this sort of extinction news above.
    Doug Fasching I did read you last week. I think many people read here at various times so don’t feel like you go un-noticed even if there are no reply comments. ZARRQUON is very interesting.
    I’m still sad I could not get Washington D.C. inter-departmental co-operation for Guy to present here at Science center. Then again the big PBS environmental TV series we produced in 1998 with Redford and all sorts of stars did little good. Maybe getting the message out will still count somehow. At least Entergy has gotten very serious this last week about adding Indian Point Nuclear plant to the decomissiong deal in the works for Pilgrim plant. One at a time I desperately try to reduce the radiation risks in the USA…while China plans to build 57 more cheap reactors around the world including Africa & Pakistan.
    SATISH – Your awareness of EMFrefuge on blogspot was great. Everything is getting slowly cooked by increased microwave cell ph frequencies. The mixed sources of EMF radiation from many electromagnetic technologies & communication industries is a major reason the EPA will no longer monitor the “harmful” Fukishima traces. Lamar (R-TX) was lobbied by AT&T & Sprint & a consortium of cellular combines to de-fund the radiation monitoring. The giant computer centers of Google, NSA & Bank Of America conduct strong radioactive fields. All power lines emit more side-effect energy than most people realize. Civilization is a heat & RADIATION engine. Turkey Point nuclear station near Miami is overheating again this week as Florida enters 3rd week of record heatwave days.
  20. Zarquon Says:
    Amazing! Not a single mention of Attachment Theory! I was expecting him to throw Arnie on the couch at any moment – “Tell me about your childhood”… He’s probably saving it for the sequel?
    Hate to be picky but I think it was Carolyn Baker who first used the ‘five stages’ reference in regards to collapse in a blog article in 2007. She then referred to it in ‘Sacred Demise’ 1st ed in 2009 and finally used it unequivocally in ‘Navigating the Coming Chaos’ in 2011
    Reg Morisson was my earliest heads up to Arctic Methane release and global extinction in ‘Spirit In The Gene’ 1999 An absolute must-read, it’s all there.
    http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Gene-Humanitys-Illusion-Comstock/dp/0801436516/
    I think it was Dale Allen Pfeiffer that first drew my attention to the inevitability of collapse and the futility of a techno-fix with the immortal quote: “It’s like falling out of a plane and trying to knit a parachute out of your cardigan”. That would have been circa 2005?
    Pasta la Vista Baby

  21. Zarquon Says:
    You’re in the wrong business Guy!
    (Warning – Satire Alert, maybe)
    http://huzlers.com/breaking-bill-nye-science-guy-arrested-manufacturing-selling-illegal-drugs/
    Bill Nye The Science Guy Arrested For Manufacturing And Selling Illegal Drugs
    By: Warlock
    LOS ANGELES – It is being confirmed that American scientist and television host Bill Nye, popularly known as ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’, has been arrested for allegedly selling and manufacturing illegal drugs such as marijuana, acid, and crystal meth. Authorities say he was operating under the street name “Slim Killa”.
    Bill Nye was arrested in his Los Angeles home after investigators became suspicious of Nye taking part of the sale and manufacture of illegal drugs. Investigators found pounds of illegal drugs and money in a secret basement in Bill Nye’s home, including 6 Million dollars cash, 13 illegal firearms, 121 pounds of marijuana, 2 gallons of LSD, and 63 pounds of crystallized methamphetamine, commonly known as simply crystal meth, as well as boxes of condoms, women under garments, and a stripper pole in the very lab.
    “Well, this isn’t much of a surprise” says FBI agent Cornell Geyers “not one bit, this man had a vast understanding and knowledge of chemistry and how to make substances and whatnot, I’ve seen enough breaking bad to know to expect anything, all we have to do now is find the mans Jesse Pinkman”, finished Geyers as he began to laugh.
    Investigators believe Nye was responsible for 19% of the total illegal drug sales in the Los Angeles area. “We believe he’s responsible for nineteen percent of drug sales in Los Angeles, almost one-fifth, yet we only found six million dollars in his home, which leads us to believe he has more hiding somewhere else or he had just began the illegal drug business and quickly climbed the power ladder. The man is also very dangerous and has “street credit”, all he had to do was order someone killed and it was done, no questions asked” says another FBI investigator Jose Cardenas. Investigators also believe Nye had secret ties with the Mexican cartel, however that is only a speculation.
    Bill Nye is currently awaiting trial and could face up to life in prison for his crimes. I guess we wont be seeing Bill Nye the Science Guy around anymore, or should i say, Bill Nye The Secret Drug Manuacturer and Seller Guy. visit huzlers.com daily for more news! Tweet “#FreeBillNye” on Twitter!
  22. Mark Austin Says:
    “Siberia species can NOT survive.” Please forgive my misquote above. Forgot to proofread my note.
    CAROLINE – worth repeating: “I am so grateful to be able to come here and have my perception of reality confirmed; that things are terribly off, all ecosystems are collapsing and there are way too many tipping points that have been reached.”
    I was surprised to see Guy smoked. Too much CONSUMER population to fix the environment with trucks run on LPG from massive acres of garbage generated daily.
  23. Guy McPherson Says: I’ve smoked cigarettes twice. My dad pushed a cigarette into each of his three kids’ mouths when I was about six years old. You saw the next time, done strictly for television.
    Only rare do I drink alcohol. The Jack Daniels bottle was filled with Snapple, peach-flavored ice tea.
  24. Caroline Says:
    @Rita from previous post: sounds like we have the same neighbor! Makes me want to hit the real Jack Daniels
    @Zarquon: Really appreciated your beautiful, poignant elegy. You beat me to posting the Europe song—-cracked me up, thanks for that. So good to laugh. My teen daughter is fascinated with music from the era when that Europe song was taken seriously. The hair! The outfits! The hair! Yikes!
    Speaking of hair; Guy—nice doo, very dapper! Thanks for posting the N.G. link. Sorry for the long rant; crabby/sad today. Yesterday I found out all the oaks–about 10— where I live are dying from oak wilt.
  25. Brutus Says:
    I watched the video/episode and shook my head in mild disgust and irritation. My biggest objection is the technofix being a near inevitability. Another is the talking-to-children tone, with Bill Nye especially using an overmodulated, singsong voice. Given the subject matter, one might expect more gravitas than a goofy after-school special. I also tired quickly of the stages of grief metaphor, which only goes so far to explain how processing of the collapse/NTE meme might progress. They left out Guy’s stage 7: fuck it! Last, although several science dudes (included Guy) are featured, it’s pretty clear the producers have replaced appeals to authority with appeals to celebrity by bringing in Dr. [sic] Schwarzenegger to reprise his old shtick.
    I realize I’m not part of the intended audience for this drivel, but still. If Bill Nye were less infatuated with being a media whore (seriously, whisky — faked, natch — and cigars?), maybe I’d take him a little more seriously when he stands on the courthouse steps and screams “climate change” at no one in particular.
  26. shep Says:
    At last! Tangible witness for justice. Delicious!
    http://www.blackagendareport.com/when_skin_privilege_is_not_enough
    “Working class people of all ethnicities have lost a great deal of economic ground under late stage capitalism in America, but the uneducated white males have also lost what they were led to expect was their special place in the racialized pecking order. Late in life, they find that white skin privilege can’t buy security or serenity in the age of austerity – and their worlds fall apart.
    You might say they died from a White Lie.”
  27. B9K9 Says:
    Perhaps there are nested degrees of the 5 stages, the first of which on the non-primary loop seems to be on full display right here @ NBL. In other words, denial that potential solutions – unfortunately, ones that won’t be including a large number of people – are possible.
    Rather, science, technology and other advances into the very mechanics of physics, chemistry & biology, are to be sacrificed upon the alter of conventional thinking. That is, BAU continues until NTE is reached. Right.
    All the while, prog-libs will continue to enjoy that sweet endorphin rush as they embrace banal self-congratulatory emblems of righteousness, while vilifying the unconscionable, unfair, unethical, immoral acts of their oppressors. However, ironically, never once contemplating that their entire basis of judgment is founded on deeply held beliefs, myths and lies.
    Like Guy said, you can’t make this stuff up. But seriously, I’ve asked this question many times before: you don’t think the PTB knows what’s up? You don’t think they understand perfectly well what Guy is saying? The problem is, Guy probably knows what the solution is – as do they – but won’t come out and say it.
    OK, I will: reduced population and per capita consumption sufficient to support a small minority of elite scientists & technocrats who will continue to advance the causes of knowledge.
    Musk, Nye and all the other optimists are right about great leaps forward. They just don’t want to mention that most people won’t be around to enjoy the fruits of these discoveries.
  28. Guy McPherson Says:
    B9K9, there’s a reason I “won’t come out and say” your solution is the solution. It’s not.
    That was easy.
    We’re embroiled in numerous predicaments. By definition, none have solutions.
  29. pat Says:
    .
    I totally agree with B9K9 that there is a solution – dismantle the toxic infrastructure of industrial civilization, 90% die-off of humans, and the survivors vow to never again plant crops or build cities.
    .
    easy enough.
    .
  30. Guy McPherson Says:
    pat, who’s going to take care of safely dismantling the nuclear power plants? Fukushima alone is an extinction-level event for humans. Multiplying by a few hundred seems problematic to me. And then there’s the clathrate gun. And so on.
  31. Henry Says:
    Bill did an excellent and very entertaining job of presenting the “problem”. I thank Guy for reminding us that it is a “predicament”. As in the “5 stages” approach, you do not tell the terminal cancer patient that he will be cured. You help him accept that he must make the most of his remaining days. Bill never let Guy get close to that prescription.
    So, Bill visits Guy, and does not do a hatchet job on him, though he makes some of the interaction laughable, allowing audiences to dismiss the “doomsayer”. Shame on that approach.
    He mentions the methane, briefly though accurately, in the depression phase. And he does not quite let Guy, as the expert witness, tie the methane release to his conclusions about NTHE. He deflects.
    And so Bill ends up mis-defining the meaning of “Acceptance”. He reverts to an acceptance of the problem, not an acceptance of its necessary outcome. In that regard, he is still bargaining over what will be that outcome.
    At the end, it all comes down to our ongoing assessment of the methane release, its amounts and methods and timing, and all adept ostriches have their sandpiles (technology, SCIENCE!) close by.
    I would like to say that each of us, having reached Acceptance, may choose to spend our days as we choose, including ameliorating CO2 effects, as Bill concludes his program with. But a mass media program, offered under the Industrial Civilization regime, can only be allowed to go as far as Bargaining.
    That is an admirable presentation, yes, in furthering public education, but if you are truthfully reaching back from Acceptance, and enlisting all of your previous feelings during stages such as ANGER, wouldn’t you also want to provide some mention of efforts and philosophies such as DGR? And of dismantling (monkey-wrenching) Industrial Civilization, so we can at least get our individual noses down into the “grass-roots” source of the predicament, as we “walk” or “bike” through our IndCiv lives each day?
    To leave behind a testimonial that at least some of us “got it” towards the end. To me, that is a more admirable way to pass your time in the stage of Acceptance.
  32. kevin moore Says:
    Massive energetic, environmental, financial, economic, political and social change is underway. Thinking or pretending that present arrangements will continue for more than a few years demonstrates gross ignorance or extreme stupidity. Thinking or pretending that current arrangements can persist for decades into the future amounts to insanity.
    Hardly a day passes without further evidence we are living in ‘end times’.
    Saudi Arabia, which increased in population from around 4 million to around 32 million on the back of oil revenues and industrialised food, is now in deep shit.
    ‘Last week, in the latest sign of Saudi Arabia’s deteriorating financial condition, S&P downgraded the kingdom to AA- negative citing “lower for longer” crude and the attendant ballooning fiscal deficit…..
    The Saudis are paying a heavy price to pacify the masses and ensure that some type of Arab Spring event doesn’t come to Riyadh. This puts enormous pressure on the budget which leads directly to pressure on SAMA reserves when oil prices collapse.
    In a sign of the times, the Saudis have also tapped the debt market, setting up a scenario where Riyadh’s debt-to-GDP ratio (which might as well have been zero) is now set to rise at least sevenfold by the end of next year and fifteenfold by 2020….
    Despite torrid weather and virtually no rain, the world’s largest oil producer once grew so much of the grain that its exports could feed Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen. The circular wheat farms, half a mile across with a central sprinkler system, spread across the desert in the 1980s and 1990s, visible in spring to anyone overflying the Arabian peninsula as green spots amid a dun sea of sand.
    The oilfields remain, but the last wheat farms have just disappeared to save the aquifers supplying them. For the first time, Saudi Arabia will rely almost completely on wheat imports in 2016, a reversal from its policy of self-sufficiency. It will become a full member of the club of Middle Eastern nations that, according to the commodity-trade adage, “sell hydrocarbons to buy carbohydrates.”
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-04/its-just-not-saudi-arabias-year-first-oil-prices-now
    Meanwhile, Canada, the antithesis of Saudi Arabia, appears to be on the cusp of something quite spectacular.
    ‘According to BofA’s Kamal Sharma, Canada’s basic balance – a combination of the capital and the current account: a measure of national accounts that spans everything from trade to financial-market flows – swung from a surplus of 4.2% of GDP to a deficit of 7.9% in the 12 months ending in June. That’s the fastest one-year deterioration among 10 major developed nations.’
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-02/forget-china-extremely-developed-country-just-suffered-its-biggest-money-outflow-eve
    Sure, money-printing by central banks and systemic fraud and denial can hold it all together in the short term but the global economic system cannot function ‘normally’ with near-zero interest rates (or even worse, negative interest rates) and oil at below $50 a barrel. Nor can it now function ‘normally’ with historically usual interest rates and oil at $100+ a barrel. As most at NBL recognise, the global economy cannot function ‘normally’ post peak net energy. EROEI does matter.
    However, throughout most of the world there is the Christmas shopping opportunity to keep the make-believe economy and the make-believe culture alive just a bit longer, even if the world is already awash with junk. And around here there will be several orgies of consumption, heavily promoted by NPDC and the media, to persuade people to contribute to their own impoverishment and contribute to faster meltdown of the planet.
    Death-by-a-thousand-cuts continues, though the cuts do seem to be getting deeper, along with the levels of fraud and incompetence.
    Wondering what else the Southern Hemisphere summer will bring, other than more ‘refugees’ from the Northern Hemisphere.
  33. Patricia Hval Says:
    Guy – I am so proud of you! Perseverance has finally paid off – in a way. Keep on keeping on……………… xoxox
  34. kevin moore Says:
    B9K9
    ‘In other words, denial that potential solutions – unfortunately, ones that won’t be including a large number of people – are possible.’
    That is one of the favourite ploys of denialists: to say there are solutions without quantifying them.
    Okay B9K9, just how do you propose to reduce the current atmospheric CO2 concentration of 400ppm CO2 down to the safe level of 300ppm in a world that is geared to raising the CO2 level as quickly as possible (and is succeeding)?
    https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k_zoom.png
    I know: shut down all mining and fossil fuel extraction, kill 99% of the human population, clear all the concrete and asphalt that has been laid over the past century-and-a-half, along with most of the buildings, and put all the rubble into empty quarries, and then reforest Europe, The US, South America, Australia, NZ, Indonesia, Korea, China, and Japan etc., in an attempt to return the world to roughly how it was in the 7th century.
    Yes, having billions of saplings growing all over the planet and no net carbon emission might just do it.
    Or as Guy said, there are no solutions (though we could attempt to slow down the meltdown if there were political will to do so, which there is not).
  35. Kevin Says:
    Guy-
    Beth & I say: Well done! Keep the flag flying. from ChapelHill, NC
  36. jay Says:
    Just a thought,could a reply option be installed to allow responses to individual posts? Possible negative it could lead to long digressions or diversions away from the header subject.Many other websites do have reply options. One option: trial it and if not suitable remove it.
    I don’t think the Terminator will be able to help us in this Climate Change disaster,but never mind.
  37. Gerald Spezio Says:
    The ghost in the blogging machine has thwarted my efforts with 3 ugly frustrating 404s.
  38. Gerald Spezio Says:
    Comes now more of the legal rights game/scam
    “YOU HAVE VALUABLE LEGAL RIGHTS.”
    Let us help you.
    … and only a professional lawyerfish licensed by the Bar Association’s monopoly can ask another lawyerfish /judge dressed in a black bathrobe to DELIVER.
    Until a lawyerfish/judge says so, it ain’t so.
    http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2015/11/04/front-packed-courtroom-young-petitioners-ask-judge-uphold-their-rights-safe
  39. Nostalgic Fool Says:
    Thank you Dr McPherson.
    From a lonely, tired ex-pat, whiling away the days in Japan. Just sitting on the bullet train, staring out the window(no pet on my lap), wondering where we’re all so quickly travelling to?..
  40. david higham Says:
    If you want your head to explode,have a read of this. This is by a chief scientist at the CSIRO. In the comments section, the author states ‘Our study shows that we can make great progress towards sustainability by 2050,while also having strong economic growth. If you think more fundamental changes are required,at least that would give humanity some
    breathing space to work on those challenges’
    The comments by Hugh Spencer and Christopher Wright are worth reading.
    Krugman makes similar arguments when defending mainstream economics,that future economic growth will be in the non-material realm. The only way that is remotely possible is if the human population is stable. In the physical world,an increasing population always requires an increasing consumption of material resources.
  41. F Gunter Says:
    Thanks for the link to the show. I suppose it was rated ‘PG’ since the word “Doomer” was not used in association with Arnold and his silly, techno created thrash flicks the fill the theaters with both youth and adults who came to see how their hero would get the villains and and save humanity from any foe who dares challenge his inventive power.
    This “Doomer” was actually someone who could really scare children or at least bring into question the situation we have today for their future.
    Battles are being fought all over the world to save near extinct animals, or plants, or vital resources for life habitat. Yet, the big one, to save ourselves, has pasted. Here in North America, it has taken less than two hundred years to do what the native Americans could not do in twenty thousand years because of our numbers and the desire to have twenty of anything in our lifetimes.
    A carbon bubble is growing over our heads which may not deflate when we do.
    The waste of our recent ancestors still haunts the planet. Combined with our own thrash the bubble is exploding in the form of irreversible heat waves, super storms and just pure hell on earth. This is our history and the reason parents cover their children’s eyes while they continue to rape the earth of resources. But as the bubble explodes they see the dreams of the children’s life of living like the Kardashians evaporate.
    Instead, toward the end of earth’s last war with modern humans there will be acceptance of our demise.
    Only then, some of the elite may even do so far as to offer one last Nobel Peace Prize to the person or people who saw it coming and tried to get the word out. So hold your head up high, and be proud that you stood up and got noticed.
  42. Jackson Davis Says:
    “We’ve got to do much more than stem the rise of our CO2 emissions. We have to reduce them, and soon. Otherwise we could be remembered as the generation that killed the planet.” The question is, remembered by whom? Also, the units on the thermometer should have been Centigrade instead of Fahrenheit! lol
  43. Denise Says:
    Cowgirl Apocalypse Global Meltdown Limerick
    That Science Guy can’t be a chump-
    he finds treasure, where most see a dump.
    Beneath dirty diapers and an old garden hose-
    down where it’s funky, so please, hold your nose-
    lies Hope, in a mouldering lump.
  44. kevin moore Says:
    ‘We live in dark times.
    Dark times of rampant, media-supported climate change doubt and denial mongering. Dark times when global temperatures are hitting new all-time record highs and extreme weather and climate change related events are growing in scope, scale, and danger. Dark times when it is becoming all-too-obvious that the fossil fuel companies of the world are committed to continue burning their dangerous and heat amplifying fuels regardless of the cost or pain or devastation inflicted upon others. Inflicted on persons, communities and the very nations of this world. Dark times when public officials level unfounded and baseless attacks against the very science upon which we depend to track the dangerous and growing crisis that is human-forced warming of the globe……..’
    http://robertscribbler.com/2015/11/04/elephant-tears-over-lost-climate-cherries-house-republicans-most-recent-witch-hunt-targets-noaa/
  45. Gerald Spezio Says:
    david higham, “Krugman makes similar arguments when defending mainstream economics,that future economic growth will be in the non-material realm. The only way that is remotely possible is if the human population is stable. In the physical world,an increasing population always requires an increasing consumption of material resources.”
    If “future economic growth will be in the non-material realm,” where & what is this “spooky” non-material realm?
    Even avowed spiritual breathairians admit to using molecules of oxygen in air.
    Can Mr. Krugman bring some non-material nourishment (non-material rice maybe?) to the some hungry children in Bangledesh?
    “In the physical world, an increasing population always requires an increasing consumption of material resources.”
    Increasing population or not increasing – it still requires a material
    base.
    Same sentence with “increasing” removed.
    In the physical world, any population (biological life form) always requires consumption of material resources.
  46. Gerald Spezio Says:
    Maybe Mr Krugman is seriously confused by his life long acceptance of the mystical creation of material money from the IDEA of money, as in banking.
    The material banksters at the Big Fed know how to magically create material money, ex nihilo.
    A bankster thinks about the creation OF MATERIAL MONEY in his mind & shazam the material money MANIFESTS, ex nihilo!
    If one borrows material money from the bankster, the borrower must pay back in material (countable) money three times more than what he borrowed because of compound interest, another amazing non-material idea.
    Maybe Mr Krugman’s amazing scheme will give the hungry Bangledesh children the idea of food/rice?
    Everything comes from magical non-material ideas, right?
  47. Jackson Davis Says:
    Who ya gonna believe? Some guy who calls himself an “Ecologist” and lives in a mud hut in the middle of the desert, or a Stanford University Climate Scientist, who works in an office? Huh?
  48. Gerald Spezio Says:
    Jackson Baby, Take your pick, but whatever you do; watch out for dressed up lawyerfish, muddleheaded psychologists, peeyar preverts, used car salesmen, & ax murderers.
    Fock where they live, Jackson – Go for the evidence.
    It’s not at all difficult.
  49. Gloucon X Says:
    OK, we get to zero humans in 2030. So what’s the timeline to 2030 look like? In what year do we lose the first billion? In what year is half the population gone?
    The 2030 prediction was made three year ago, I believe, yet in 2015 global population has grown by another 70 million with two months still to come.
    Certainly, pop. growth must stop first and pretty soon to get to zero humans by 2030, so what’s the target year for that important first milestone on the path to extinction?
    Guy? Anyone?
  50. david higham Says:
    Gerald,
    Agreed. I wasn’t defending Krugman. A stable population still requires material resources,but the only possibility of having a steady state economy without economic growth is if the population is stable.
  51. Frank Carlucci Says:
    Bill Nye
  52. George Tenet Says:
    Bill Nye
  53. Zarquon Says:
    Glaucon X says – “OK, we get to zero humans in 2030. So what’s the timeline to 2030 look like? In what year do we lose the first billion? In what year is half the population gone?”
    My take is that you won’t have to wait another fifteen years for climate change to instigate Freak Out! although a growing awareness of the intractability of the Climate Change predicament will insidiously feed into the financial system and social awareness. These are my top five trigger points, any one of which will set off the others at any time, the longer the delay, the worse it will be:
    Derivatives time-bomb explodes
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/global-derivatives-1-5-quadrillion-time-bomb/5464666
    http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/derivativestimebomb.asp
    Major bond default
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-04/china-s-latest-bond-scare-burns-holdouts-as-default-risks-spread
    Shale oil/gas, and/or Tar Sands companies non-performance and bankruptcies reach tipping point, investors withdraw en-mass
    http://www.economist.com/news/business/21656671-americas-shale-energy-industry-has-future-many-shale-firms-do-not-fractured-finances
    http://www.artberman.com/the-oil-price-collapse-is-because-of-expensive-tight-oil/
    Major TBTF bank declares insolvency, or rumours of become self-fulfilling.
    Credit Default Swaps cascade.
    http://www-old.newton.ac.uk/preprints/NI14069.pdf
    Within 48hrs the entire global financial system will have seized up.
    Within three to four days there will be rationing, rioting, troops on the streets, chaos.
    Within a week the grid and transport system will go down.
    Within two weeks all nuke stations will have melted down and discharged.
    Within a month 90% of humans will be dead.
    After that it will get really bad.
  54. 18000days Says:
    @jay: “trial it and if not suitable remove it.”
    That has already happened here once.
    @Gloucon X:
    Yeah, I, like most people I guess, used to think I would need to see the beginning of a drop in world human population, before accepting this extinction-in-our-lifetimes thing, but then it occured to me that, by the time we ‘lose’ the first billion, I doubt if anyone is going to be counting any more anyway. The performance of censuses/head-counts is an economic growth-dependent activity. That’s the whole point of them isn’t it? To plan how much more ‘resources’ you are going to need, how much more infrastructure you need to build, and all that?
  55. Guy McPherson Says:
    I’ve posted something old, something new, and … well, more. It’s here.
  56. Deb Says:
    @Zarquon:
    “After that it will get really bad.” LOL!
  57. Jimbot Says:
    Guy,
    I think this show is a tremendous amount of progress in your mission of getting the word out.
    There’s a famous story of the Buddha, right after he attained enlightenment ( or full realization as Robin Datta says ). He thought there was no point in trying to educate people since they were too caught up in delusion and so decided he wouldn’t bother. He got a visit from a higher ( Brahma realm ) being who convinced him that he could reach those who had “just a little dust in their eyes”, and so he made that his lifelong effort.
    But he didn’t have the power of television and slick production.
    I think it’s very significant that Mr. Schwarzenegger is on the show. Not only did he propose that everyone in California should put solar panels on their roofs ( to which he found a lot of opposition ), he is connected with those that pulls the strings, from most accounts. Which maybe means that at least some of them know and understand your message, as DOG says. In fact the whole thing is kind of a Pilgim’s Progress morality play, it’s very well written.
    Anyway this could be a very broad hint as to what we should expect as a reaction as things rapidly progress. Or maybe I’m reading way too much into it.
    As Matt Damon says in his latest movie where he is stranded alone on Mars, “Looks like I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.”
  58. Bob Boldt Says:
    I think Guy at least got a relatively fair hearing in this National Geographic special and at least one of his many non-reversible positive feed-back loops was touched on. Of course there is always the requisite promise that “it is not too late” — that the science and technology that got us into this trap can somehow pull our sorry assess out of this self-constructed crapper.
    Bill and Arnold missed a few really important thousand ton elephants in the room. Forget the climate deniers. Even good, liberal folks are never going to marshal the political will or the requisite sacrifices to take the necessary steps to save our species in the short time left. By the time Nature really starts to wail on our asses it will be totally too late. Only unwelcome, draconian measures will come close to extending the small amount of time we have left. Post carbon population numbers will have to somehow be reduced downwards by six billion –yesterday. And we will literally have to return to energy systems that existed prior to the 18th Century. All our high tech alt energy gizmos are at best only a short term solution to temporarily wean us off the carbon teat. Solar panels, wind and tide turbines, and other “green” hardware are dependent on an active, viable carbon infrastructure for rare ingredients acquisition, manufacture, transportation to site, maintenance, replacement and disposal. Don’t kid yourself that you are going to knock out a modern solar panel or a wind turbine in the 21st century equivalent of a blacksmith shop.
    Sorry, but I think that hopium smokers like Bill Nye will probably end up doing more damage for all their good intentions than the actual climate deniers. Climate deniers certainly are not worth of the effort to refute them. The debate we should be having is: inevitable human extinction now or later. The best our mediation strategies can hope to accomplish is perhaps a few decades lease on some minimal quality of life before the species’ big dirt nap. I believe that contrary to the conclusion of this National Geographic special, the last stage of climate change grieving must ultimately be the acceptance of how fucked we really are.
  59. Denise Says:
    Cowgirl Apocalypse Global Meltdown Limerick
    The Science Guy can’t be a chump-
    he finds treasure, where most see a dump.
    Beneath dirty diapers and an old garden hose-
    down where it’s funky, so please, hold your nose-
    lies hope, in a mouldering lump.
    Hope turns to a gas, when it finally expires,
    creating thick fog, spread by climate deniers-
    who work for Big Oil, and their slick, deadly game-
    shamelessly greenwashing more of the same,
    using lovable, “science-y” liars.
    Cut to the Mud Hut, for dramatic contrast-
    starring its earnest and low-budget cast.
    Professor Guy, looking dapper, and soulfully sad-
    talking extinction. It’s really that bad.
    Might as well smoke ’em, ‘cuz Nature Bats Last.

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