Posts
Guy
McPherson on television
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The
End: Walking Away from Apocalypse with Guy McPherson
3
May, 2013
“Now
it’s dark.”
– Frank, the villain (played by Dennis Hopper) of
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, 1986
“I
don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get my kicks before this
whole shit-house goes up in flames.”
– Jim Morrison (played by
Val Kilmar) in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, 1991
“Submitted
for your approval…”
– Rod Serling (played yourself),
Where-ever You Are, Now
The
evidence for human extinction by 2030 is overwhelming.1
“Every
bit of news about the industrial economy — shockingly to
neoclassical economists — is dire and growing worse,” writes Guy
McPherson, in Walking Away From Empire.2 “The Greatest Depression
is proceeding apace, and even the mainstream media have begun to
notice the rapidity with which things are falling apart between
never-ending worship of their heroes in the fields of athletics and
cinema, occasionally mixed with a story about somebody shooting
somebody else on an overshot planet. Our immorality has insulted the
living planet nearly to the point of complete environmental
collapse.”
McPherson,
University of Arizona Professor emeritus – very emeritus – in
ecological biology, goes on to remark that he “wouldn’t be
surprised at chaos in the streets of every industrial nation within a
matter of months as the economy implodes, and there is no doubt we
will continue to foul the air, dirty the waters, and generally
destroy every aspect of our planetary life-support system.”
Conventional
crude oil peaked in 2005 (though oil shale and tar sands commonly are
considered crude, too, thereby extending the peak somewhat),
according to McPherson.
True,
that’s just his opinion, but it’s an “opinion” formed by
analysis of incontestable facts drawn from “Hard” Science, and
shared by most scientists not on some corporate, government or
university payroll, the world over. Many seem to share McPherson’s
point-of-view, some are more pessimistic, others, though their
numbers are dwindling, a bit more optimistic.
One
such “optimist” is James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost
climate scientists, who sounded the alarm as early as 1981, in an
article he and colleagues published in Science magazine. In a
February, 2013 Technology, Engineering and Design (TED) talk,3 Hanson
explained that he and his peers predicted that “Earth would likely
warm in the 1980′s, and warming would exceed the noise level of
random weather by the end of the century. We also said that the 21st
century would see shifting climate zones, creation of drought-prone
regions in North America and Asia, erosion of ice sheets, rising sea
levels and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage. All of these
impacts have since either happened or are now well under way.”
Hansen’s
belief is that it’s almost too late to save life on planet earth,
but it’s still a possibility. He said that “the tragedy about
climate change is that we can solve it with a simple, honest approach
of a gradually rising carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies
and distributed 100 percent electronically every month to all legal
residents on a per capita basis, with the government not keeping one
dime. Most people would get more in the monthly dividend than they’d
pay in increased prices. This fee and dividend would stimulate the
economy and innovations, creating millions of jobs. It is the
principal requirement for moving us rapidly to a clean energy
future.” 4
However,
governments of the world, lead by The Government of The Empire, are
subsidizing fossil fuel extraction to the tune of $400-500 billion
dollars a year worldwide, “thus encouraging extraction of every
fossil fuel — mountaintop removal, longwall mining, fracking, tar
sands, tar shale, deep ocean Arctic drilling. This path, if
continued, guarantees that we will pass tipping points leading to ice
sheet disintegration that will accelerate out of control of future
generations.”
Hansen
likens our current situation to facing a giant asteroid on a direct
collision course with Earth.
“That
is the equivalent of what we face now. Yet, we dither, taking no
action to divert the asteroid, even though the longer we wait, the
more difficult and expensive it becomes. ” said Hansen, and he’s
the optimist, that is, he believes it’s still possible to stop it
before it reaches a “tipping point” and takes on a life of its
own, fail-safe, beyond human control.
Nevertheless,
Hansen considers it his duty, as a scientist, grand-father and human
being, to make as much noise as he can in the hope that “the
world’s governments” (i.e. the corporate-government-military
apparatus of The Empire) will do something before it’s too late.
It’s a noble attempt by a good man to do what he can, as an
acknowledged expert, former research scientist for NASA, to prevent a
catastrophe of unimaginable horror. But honestly, if Godzilla himself
were to attack The Homeland, stomping major metropolitan areas while
drunk on Grape-flavored, highly caffeinated
malt-liquor-energy-drinks, what would “our leaders” do, besides
call in the obligatory drone-squadron to fell the monster (depending
on who he’s actually working for)? Raid the tax-payer kitty to
replace the too-big-to-fall skyscrapers owned by their corporate
sponsors? Send Godzilla to mandatory counseling and 12-step meetings?
Thus
far, our fearless leaders and their media mouth-pieces haven’t said
a word about what really ails us, despite severe droughts, major
hurricanes, and the reduction of four seasons, in temperate regions,
down to two: it is November from late-October until early-June; then
it is August from early-June till late October. True, our “elected
officials” never say anything about anything, but they are
particularly silent on this issue, or suspiciously focused on the
impossibility of cataclysmic climate change being anything but yet
another lunatic “conspiracy theory” (conspiracy of whom? vanished
frogs, bees and other “deceptively extinct” species, perhaps on
the pay-roll of some un-American weather-climate-atmospheric
complex?). Why on earth would you be stupid enough to believe your
own senses? They’ve hustled you before, haven’t they?
McPherson’s
solution, delineated in Walking Away from Empire, is a bit more
practical, albeit as he himself will admit, perhaps equally as
futile. Stop The Machine of Industry, immediately if not sooner,
before it stops us. “Us” being homo sapiens, along with most
other life forms. Derrick Jensen, John Zerzan, and others as far back
as Lewis Mumford, in his 1967-1971 classic, The Myth of the Machine,
have been urging this for years.
But,
since the Western Civilization we all know and love is already
punch-drunk and needs only one or two blows to send it to the canvas,
bringing its vassals and the rest of the — to one degree or another
— oppressed serf-nations with
it, McPherson and like-minded
others are determined to cut the ropes, dismantle the ring and set up
a new game once the “Champ’s” unconscious, muscle-bound — but
also sagging flab and pocked with cellulite — body out of the
arena.
Hence,
McPherson also argues that if you can’t stop the civilization you
live in from dying, you can at least stop yourself and loved ones
from dying with the civilization by not living in it, literally
walking away from Empire.
McPherson
left his tenured professorship at the University of Arizona, moved to
a small, rural community 200 miles from the nearest city, and began
to prepare for a sustainable, post-carbon life, accompanied by his
wife and their dog. And chickens, ducks, goats, vegetables and
legumes and whatever else people might need if they’re too far from
Whole Foods or even the tentacles of Amazon to order-in. In addition
to cultivating gardens, the McPhersons are making friends and
neighbors in a small community of like-minded “doomers” who grow
their own food, build or re-build their own shelters, dig wells for
water, etc. The kinds of relationships that might prove significantly
more lasting and valuable than a thousand Facebook “friends.”
Walking
Away from Empire is McPherson’s account, first and foremost of the
omnicidal (“omnicide” is a term coined by Jensen) lunacy of
Civilization, it’s impending collapse, and his attempt do deal with
the situation at hand. The situation common to us all, whether we
choose to learn about it now, or after the lights go out and Dominoes
takes a hell of a lot longer than 30 minutes to deliver its tepid
simulacrum of pizza.
Money
will be useless once the system crashes due to oil-depletion and
climate change. The longer industrial civilization chugs along —
and it won’t be all that long — the lower the chances of survival
for all humans and all species. There’s really no choice in terms
of getting splattered when the shit hits the fan.
McPherson’s
is not an option for everyone though, as he states in the interview
below, if a fifty-year-old urban scholar like himself, who’d spent
most of his adult years in academia, can do it, others can too. But
as he relates in the book, it is not easy.
Nevertheless,
as Mumford urged as far back as the late 1960s, we can all do our bit
to toss a monkey-wrench into the works. Considering what’s been
going on with bank bail-outs, “austerity,” drones over our skies,
and mass-murder across the global Empire, we might have to just sit
down one day and refuse to get up for a while. Mass refusal to be
serfs, slaves, suicides, simpletons and suckers.
Good
heavens, what would that do to the DOW?!
Interview
questions in italics.
One
of the reasons tribal cultures succeeded (until Western Civilization
attained boats and gun-powder), and all civilizations failed and fell
according to writers such as Lewis Mumford, Derrick Jensen, John
Zerzan and many Native American thinkers such as Leonard Crow Dog,
Mary Crow Dog and John “Fire” Lame Deer, is because they had no
real empathy with or understanding of life and nature, as anything
but things and ideas, which civilized scientists, mathematicians and
corporations excel in. Civilizations have “religion” but no
sense of the “sacred.”
I
agree: civilizations have religion without a sense of sacred. We
worship money and prestige and we fear dropping lower in the
hierarchy. We value other’s perception of us more than we value
life, especially non-human life.
Nietzsche
and Schopenhauer were fans of Hinduism. Neither was a fan of
unthinking societal “progress” at the expense of personal growth.
I suspect they would be aghast at the robotic actions of industrial
humans, most of whom are pursuing fiat currency instead of reflecting
on a whole life.
Even
though Nietzsche largely gave up on the notion of the Superman late
in his career, he knew we were capable of thinking deeply and living
fully. Both he and Schopenhauer knew individuals were capable of
overcoming the dark side of culture in which they were embedded. They
knew we are more than is indicated by our material possessions. I
shudder to think what they would think about manifest destiny.
Even
when one mentions the obvious reality that there is no more “weather”
as it was once known, except for the awful extremes of hurricanes and
other nightmares, that is, the ultimate and only reality of Nature,
the usual response is a shrug and a nod, or if you don’t accept
that conversation-closer and refuse to shut the hell up, raised
eye-brows and subtle intimations that you are an “elitist” or “a
fringe element” etc.
My
initial response, as in most cases, is a simple fact: Earth has not
experienced a month of below-average temperature since February 1985.
We would expect the monthly average temperature to be slightly below
average about every second month. Yet we’ve “missed” those
expected months 337 times in a row. I’m no statistician, but I
think the pattern is noteworthy.
The
weirding of the weather has become common, but there’s no mention
on the nightly weather forecast. There’s little mention of climate
change from politicians or heads of corporations, either. And, as
nearly as I can distinguish, non-profit organizations are pursuing
the money in similar manner to businesses and politicians. It’s
small wonder the majority of people in this country are concerned
about celebrities and sporting events to a greater extent than they
are concerned about environmental issues, including runaway climate
change.
The
few people who write and talk about the issues I consider primary are
relegated to the back of the proverbial bus. Our two-party,
one-ideology system of government worships economic growth as our
only god. Voices of reason are drowned out by the cries for cash.
Without money, we’d all be rich. But with money, a few individuals
possess and exert extraordinary power.
As
John Steinbeck pointed out while speaking of the failure of socialism
to take root in America, “the poor see themselves not as an
exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
Poor and middle-class Americans believe they are one step from the
one percent, so they join the one percent in cheering for a system
that destroys the living planet in exchange for fiat currency. The
results are wholly expected.
The
ruling elites must know how much oil is left, and one can only assume
if any rationing is to be done, it will be to the military. There
can be no military without fuel, but wouldn’t Power make sure
there’s enough to fuel a “hostile takeover” of whatever arable
land, water and transportation facilities they themselves would need
while the rest of the population dies out? If anyone can become
self-sustaining, it’s the owner of huge tacts of land with
irrigation etc. and a security force to keep it safe. Hell, I’d
rather see a nuclear war than that…
I’m
certain people with money and power know what we know, and a lot
more. But that’s no insurance against collapse of civilization. As
Van Jones said in a speech more than five years ago, long before he
attained and then lost his job as Obama’s “green” jobs czar
(http://hopedance.org/component/content/article/53-soul/337):
“I
have been to Davos, and I’ve sat with Bill Clinton and I’ve sat
with Bill Gates and I’ve sat with Tony Blair and I’ve sat with
Nancy Pelosi. I’ve sat with all these people who we think are in
charge, and they don’t know what to do. Take that in: they don’t
know what to do! You think you’re scared? You think you’re
terrified? They have the Pentagon’s intelligence, they have every
major corporation’s input; Shell Oil that has done this survey and
study around the peak oil problem. You think we’ve got to get on
the Internet and say, “Peak oil!” because the system doesn’t
know about it? They know, and they don’t know what to do. And they
are terrified that if they do anything they’ll lose their
positions. So they keep juggling chickens and chainsaws and hope it
works out just like most of us everyday at work.”
I
think Jones was employing honesty. The so-called “powers that be”
have become the “powers that were.” They are no longer in charge.
Nature has taken the reins.
Perhaps
my trademark optimism is clouding my judgment. I’m not interested
in a neo-feudal future in which the same types of people as today
wind up ruining every aspect of the living planet to make themselves
comfortable. There are some futures I’d rather not survive.
Tribal
cultures developed over thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years
of accumulated experience and wisdom passed own through art, song,
oral tradition, sometimes writing (i.e. Druids). Post-Civilization
“tribes” will inherit the attic of nightmares that is Western
Consciousness. Won’t it be more like “Road Warrior” than Sioux,
Navajo and other cultures might have been before European/Americans
destroyed them?
We’re
certainly in for a long, rough ride regardless of future events.
Industrial civilization is destroying every aspect of the living
planet in exchange for lives of comfort for a few people. Nearly
everybody I know is loving it, and is ecstatic about the trade.
The
primary strength of pre-civilization societies is their durability.
Tribal living works. It worked for a few million years before
civilization arose, and it continues to work in certain locales and
situations. In contrast, civilization is an utter disaster. It does
not work, except to the extreme benefit of a few in the short term.
Unfortunately,
evolution by natural selection pushes us toward the short term. We’re
“flight or fight” organisms, like other animals. If we survive to
reproductive maturity, natural selection pushes us toward
reproduction. Culture piles on. While we’re surviving and
procreating as if there is no tomorrow, natural selection encourages
us to acquire material possessions. These three outcomes of natural
selection — short-term focus on survival, procreation, and
accumulation of possessions — are disastrous for the common good.
Not surprisingly, civilization encourages each of these behaviors.
A
few societies experienced civilization, collapsed, and returned to
tribal living. The relatively few survivors from survivors from the
Olmec, Chaco, and Mimbres cultures demonstrate that we are
cognitively and behaviorally capable of this radical shift after the
experiment fails. I suspect that, because of runaway climate change,
it’s too late for the survivors of industrial civilization to live
tribally for an extended period when industrial civilization
completes its ongoing collapse. But we can dream.
While
it would be great if the wild returned, and wild life, so there could
be animals and plants for tribes to hunt and gather, I read in 1491,
by Charles C. Mann, that the majority of the eastern seaboard —
prior to the arrival John Smith, Miles Standish and other ne’er
do-wells, who wiped out 90 percent of the population with measles,
small-pox and similar “exotic” viruses — lived off multi-crop,
cultivated gardens of regional plant-foods such as starchy,
calorie-and-vitamin-rich yams, squash and maize
I
agree, absolutely, about multi-crop gardening (cf. farming). This
approach, in association with wildcrafting and small communities,
worked for millennia.
Wildcrafting
is the contemporary version of hunting and gathering, but it extends
beyond food to include harvesting plants for medicinal purposes,
mats, and simple shelter.
Civilization
is defined by the existence of cities, aka people concentrated into
an area that cannot support those people. So they strip the nearby
land-base for food, water, and building materials, thereby going
further into human-population overshoot while reducing the carrying
capacity for humans. Grains are particularly problematic, including
maize, because they allow people to be fed through the “tough”
times, further exacerbating overshoot while facilitating the control
of people.
I
strongly promoted agrarian anarchy, which I practice here, until I
realized we are headed for human extinction in the relatively near
future. I will continue to practice and promote agrarian anarchy in
this place, knowing it will be among the first places on Earth to
lose habitat for humans. At this point, I suspect my own death will
be triggered by climate chaos, not collapse. I’d love to live long
enough to see industrial civilization’s final demise, and therefore
the living planet’s great comeback.
Why
wouldn’t you promote agrarian anarchy, especially since you
practice it in your community and especially since the writing on the
TelePrompTers already spells “Tilt?”
Until
last year, I believed humans would persist a long time on this
planet. I no longer believe that, so I am less adamant about collapse
and living outside the mainstream.
In
2002, as I was working on a book about climate change, I concluded we
were headed for human extinction by 2030 or so. I mourned for several
months, to the bemused curiosity of the three people who noticed.
Shortly thereafter, while working on another book, I discovered the
notion of global peak oil and, consequently, the demise of industrial
civilization. I thought it was the hail-Mary pass for human
existence.
Since
then, we’ve triggered our own demise, as assured by 10
self-reinforcing feedback loops. We’re done, and a lot sooner than
most people are willing to admit. So I’m much less judgmental than
I used to be.
How
much more time do you think we have?
How much time? That’s the
big question. How much time for industrial civilization? Months, I’d
guess. Not years. But I’ve been wrong about that before.
How
much time for humans on Earth? A few decades, I’d say. Ten or
fifteen years longer in the southern hemisphere than in the northern
hemisphere, suggesting we have until 2020 or so up here. Where I
live, in the southwestern interior of North America, I doubt we have
three years, and certainly not five.
I’ve
had a good run. I’m more than 50 years old, and I’ve known birth
is lethal for a long time. Nobody gets out alive, so I invoke
Nietzsche: “Live as though the day were here.” I have an
addendum: Protect what you love, until you can’t. I love the living
planet. I doubt my actions will save any part of it. But I’ll not
give up.
People
will willingly fight and risk their lives to protect their
environment. But if their environment is urban, no matter what they
hear about or even believe they value in “the environment” as
trees, rivers and the noble Indian weeping over litter at the side
of the road, what they really value is the environment they actually
know.
There’s
little question we are in dire straits because most of us have come
to depend upon industrial civilization for our very lives. According
to the 2010 census, 84% of Americans live in cities. That’s a lot
of people who have come to depend upon just-in-time delivery of food
at the grocery stores, fossil fuels for heating and cooling, and
water pouring from the municipal taps.
As
Derrick Jensen points out in his book Endgame, when we believe our
water comes from the tap we will defend to the death the system that
keeps water coming out the tap. When we realize water comes from
ecosystems beyond cities, we will defend to the death the (eco)system
that provides our water.
The
transformation from rural to city was gradual, and it coincided with
globalization. When globalization and the world’s most lethal
killing force allowed the United States to colonize other countries,
often via soft power such as possession of the world’s reserve
currency, we no longer had to extract coal, oil, or timber from our
own country. In addition, we could outsource menial jobs to other
countries in exchange for a system of fiat currency we controlled.
Reversing that process, hence returning to a re-localized set of
living arrangements, is not possible at the scale of this country. In
addition, I doubt 10% of the people in this country think it would be
a good idea.
And
that’s merely the idea of scaling back to a simpler life with less
consumption. Never mind tribalism and living without the hierarchy of
civilization: Returning to a set of living arrangements based on
production and distribution of food is conceptually beyond the realm
of possibility for most Americans. We’ve come to view the process
of chasing electrons around our computer screens as hard work.
On
the other hand, my own example indicates almost anybody can take a
path similar to mine. A lifelong academic, I could barely distinguish
between and screwdriver and a zucchini when I began this project. I
have relevant skills only because I beat my fingers with a hammer for
several years. Although I grew up in a small town, and was therefore
acquainted with small-town life, it’s a long road from the ivory
tower to building structures, growing gardens, and animal husbandry.
We’re
not really talking about “saving Americans” so much as life
itself, in particular, the species homo sapiens. What about the rest
of the planet, particularly the least developed “third world”
countries whose U.S.-multinational corporate/military imposed poverty
might be an ultimate advantage?
I
think the (global) south will rise again. When American Empire falls,
and by extension the global empire headed by the United States, the
oppression we exert is lifted. About half the people in the world
will notice only because the slaughter stops. That is, they’ll
notice only the absence of impacts (for example, no drones breaking
up the family wedding).
Many
of these communities live without the luxuries we take for granted.
They grow their own food and obtain water from a common well. They do
not rely on fossil fuels, and yet they thrive. They will thrive even
more when industrial civilization comes to its overdue close.
Of
course, the reprieve will be temporary. Already, many of these
so-called “third world” countries are on the leading edge of
climate change. Climate change accounts for the early death of about
400,000 people, primarily in “lesser-developed” countries. In
light of the ongoing acceleration of climate change, that lethal
number will undoubtedly increase.
But
if many communities in these countries do not rely on fossil fuels
and the machinery of artificial light, heat, air-conditioning,
tap-water, sewage systems, etc., why would the reprieve be temporary?
The
reprieve will be temporary because of climate chaos, environmental
decay, and ionizing radiation as the world’s 400+ nuclear power
plants melt down catastrophically. Climate change increases the
spread of many diseases (e.g., by increasing temperature, hence
biological activity). Collapse, however, will reduce the spread of
many diseases (via reduced ability to make contact with people far
away).
The
military might be as obedient to the plutocracy as the politicians,
but once money ceases to matter, merely force, I would think, based
on their history of absolutely insane, murderous, and reckless
behavior, that they would attempt to “seize the day” by any means
necessary. Or go out with a very very big bang, rather than a
whimper?
I
strongly suspect our military is stretched to the breaking point
specifically because we’re reaching for the last drops of oil on
the planet. We kill everybody that gets in the way of “our” oil
(Carter Doctrine). Will we continue, as long as we can? I’ve no
doubt about it.
Will
it lead to nuclear war, hence nuclear winter? Could be, but I have no
control over that outcome, so I try not to dwell on it.
I
suspect we’re in a race between collapse and the military prowess
necessary to maintain this set of living arrangements through brutal
lethality. If collapse carries the day, the U.S. dollar will be
worthless and, as a result, we need not worry about soldiers carrying
out their orders to continue killing for oil. If the most lethal
force in the history of the world continues to “win”, then we all
lose.
Some
proposed solutions involve a Marxist model that puts workers in
charge of production so that all 7 billion people cramming every inch
of the planet can be fed, housed, and medically attended so they can
produce more food, clothing and other essentials — as well as
reproduce more workers. Isn’t this almost as destructive,
regardless of intent, as the insanity of endless growth Capitalism?
Human-population
overshoot is the elephant in the room. It’s among the last taboos
in the civilized world. There is no politically viable approach to
deal with overshoot — seeking volunteers for suicide isn’t
politically viable — just as there is no politically viable
solution to deal with climate change, cancer clusters, or economic
decline driven by peak oil. There is no political leadership on any
of these issues, and there never will be. Many truths will remain
unspoken, except by those who value truth as much as life itself.
In
this case, the “radicals” are not radical. They are not getting
to the root of the issue.
Couldn’t
the example of leaving “civilized life” to create small,
sustainable communities in remote, rural areas be compared to the
“bomb shelter craze” that erupted in the late 50s, that is, “The
hell with it. I’d rather not survive to live in a wasted world.”
Couldn’t the same be said for the situation we’re facing now
(which might include nuclear war anyway)?
I
can imagine a few scenarios not worth living through. Nuclear
Armageddon is one. Slavery in any form, including additional
increases in the inverted totalitarian, surveillance, fascist, police
state in which we’re now immersed is another. My primary motivation
for surviving through completion of the ongoing economic collapse is
to see the living planet make a comeback, however brief.
Guy
McPherson was born and raised in the heart of the Aryan Nation,
small-town northern Idaho. He first experienced the hair-raising
incident of a rifle pointed at the base of his neck when he was ten
years old. The person behind the trigger was thirteen. This episode
was so ordinary he didn’t bother to tell his parents for two
decades. It simply never came up.
The
escape from the benighted village came in the form of education, in
large part because McPherson’s parents were lifelong educators. To
pay for his undergraduate education, which led to a degree in
forestry, McPherson spent summers working on a helitack crew. Staring
down a large wildfire at the age of nineteen, he realized some forces
of nature are beyond the human ability to manage.
More
than ten years into a career in the academic ivory tower, McPherson
began focusing his efforts on social criticism, with topics ranging
from education and evolution to the twin sides of the fossil-fuel
coin: (1) global climate change and (2) energy decline and the
attendant economic consequences. His public appearances stress these
two predicaments because each of them informs and impacts every
aspect of life on Earth.
McPherson’s
latest chapter includes abandoning his tenured position as full
professor at a major research university for ethical reasons. His
story is described in his memoir, “Walking Away from Empire.” You
can read about that book and his many others at his website:
http://guymcpherson.com/my-books/
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