Guy McPherson and Paul Beckwith

I would like to acknowledge Pauline Panagiotou Schneider who was responsible for filming Guy and Paul and was responsible for making possible the live link.

She is making a film about Guy that still needs finance. Hopefully it will be out later this year.

Watch the whole conversation between Paul and Guy HERE

Paul Beckwith & Guy McPherson talk climate change
Seemorerocks

It was the best 2 hours I have spent for some time seeing Guy McPherson and Paul Beckwith together in conversation - proof of the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of the two parts.

They really complemented each other. The engineer-physicist and his rock-solid science (and never wavering from it) counterbalancing the conservation biologist, joiner-of-dots and communicator of the worst news.

I have been waiting for this chance for some time now.

Paul said that they disagree on near-term extinction - he doesn't see that it could come about in 2-30 years and asked the question what really is near-term extinction - is 100 years near term extinction?  If one half (or more) of the population dies then that would provide a powerful negative feedback.  Surely pockets of humanity will survive?

They didn't really debate at all but elsewhere the biologist responded to a question about habitat.  If there is an increase of 2-4 C there will be extremes of temperature that will lead to extreme heat which denatures protein. Other frequent extremes of heat and cold will make modern agriculture impossible while acidification of the ocean will destroy phytoplankton (already half gone) which ocean life (and ultimately humans) depend on for life.

Another really important point that was confirmed was that there is a delay between the release of greenhouse gasses and their manifestation as temperature increase and climate change. Put simply, what we are seeing now is largely the result of pollutants from when I started university 40 years ago. This was largely confirmed by Paul, not as an affirmation, but by a scientific explanation of how complex the process is.

One of the best analogies given by Paul was that of the chess board.  There are many characters, each occupying their own squares (pawns, rooks, bishops, king and queen etc).  Each is occupied with his/her own narrow area of interest and knows more and more about  their area of speciality.  What is needed, with rapid climate change is not just the pieces, but also the chess player who is bringing all the parts together.

The whole tradition of a gradual process where theories are published and then subject to peer review is obsolete. Something more is called for and some initial propositions were put forward.

Paul has argued for that strongly in his recent video - 

The point is that there needs to be much more discussion and it can be done in they same way as this - by meeting electronically.

Paul repeated his offer to discuss privately with the doubting thomases, and has given his phone number.

The problem is that much of the 'argument' on social media has been very aggressive - such as assertions that there is no proof of a 'clathrate gun'. Guy McPherson is an 'extremist' or a 'traitor', AMEG is a fringe group and David Wadhams is 'just' a member of a fringe group, the observations of Semiletov, Shakhova and others are not 'peer-reviewed'. 

Many of the people on Facebook engage in sophistry of the following kind

- There is no such thing as the clathrate gun.
- is it a phenomenon
- No, it is not
-Would it be a phenomenon if it turned out to be fact
-Yes, it would be (but it's not true) - and so on.....

This is what Paul Beckwith had to say the other day on the subject - just his 'first salvo'

The problem is that the people who are saying that Guy McPherson's position is 'defeatist' or even, as 'anti-scientific', or 'traitorous to our collective interests' are displaying, not climate change denial, but a denial of scientific findings that will undermine their cherished beliefs about civilisation.

The very mention of NTHE (or the very possibility of it) is enough to set them off.

They therefore cannot admit any findings that indicate the the process is direr than hitherto thought, or exponential rather than linear.

Just look at the IPCC report which  does not even mention methane (and allegedly has removed some measurement which would prove the case from the records).

It will be interesting to see what dialog ensues in the near future!

Reflecting on the whole question of near-term human extinction I came to the conclusion for myself that it doesn't matter overly much who is right over the timescale.

Guy's prediction of a 2030 end game does depend largely on the work of Malcolm Light.  

There is no guarantee that one person is right.

But following the herd (like the GWFOTD folk want) is just sheer stupidity.

The science is there - the melting ice in the Arctic, the release of methane from the Arctic, the darkening of the ice - in short, all the positive feedbacks that have been identified.

Then take into account the 400+ ageing nuclear plants, a world that is growing more insane by the day - it is not at all improbable in my mind that a declining super-power might resort to thermonuclear weapons.

The timing is unimportant. The outcome (whether in 2030 or 2100) is almost beyond dispute.

If what Guy has to say sends people into passivity or hedonism that is not his responsibility, but that of each individual. 

It is not what he is advocating.

Talking for myself, it hasn't led to terminal depression (or its opposite), but to greater engagement and a determination to make whatever time I have left in this body meaningful - something that each of us should be doing in any case, NTHE or no NTHE.

The truth that everyone in this death-denying culture wants to avoid is simply this" we're all going to die at some point or other.

I know I'm probably singing to the converted, but I invite you to listen to what Guy and Paul have to say (as well as other material that is going to come out in due course) and to engage with the science, and most of all, open your mind and hearts and engage with yourselves.

I will leave the final word to Guy in a recent interview with Peak Moments

You can watch the whole conversation between Paul and Guy HERE