Guy McPherson, Dahr Jamail and friends on NBL on PRN

The “last” Nature Bats Last broadcast

Make sure you tune into Kevin Hester next month

Seemorerocks

The gods smiled on me yesterday as I not only got the time zone difference right but the reception from Belize was excellent and my internet connection was functional – so I got to hear, uninterrupted what may mark the end of a short era – the last Nature Bats Last broadcast hosted by Guy McPherson, solo this time with Pauline Schneider and supportive friends

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Next month the reins will transferred to Kevin Hester and Guy is planning to appear as co-host or guest.

Not that we can plan very much in these apocalyptic days.

It was special for me because the featured guest was Dahr Jamail, of whom I have been aware, and have deeply admired since his broadcasts from Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.

One thing that stood for me after listening that first time was a quote from legendary war correspondent, Robert Fisk. When asked why he does it – all the wars, the blood and guts – he said he had no hope of changing anything. It was because future historians (if there are any) would not be able to say that no one had spoken up about the outrages of war.

That is sort of how I see my role.

There has likewise never been, in my mind, any chance of changing anything.

I have been watching this tragi-comedy unfold for almost 30 years so have lost any hope for humanity and “solutions” to any of the innumerable crises (or rather predicaments) created by this species of smart ape – not least the runaway train of abrupt climate change (or, disruption, as Dahr Jamail calls it).

My role has been to record it all – put it all in one place – and always, where I can, to join dots where they can be drawn.

I have had numerous people during that time who have influenced my thinking – from founder of the Ecologist, Teddy Goldsmith, right through to Michael Ruppert, who shattered my illusions about how the world works. Last, and certainly not least Guy McPherson, who confirmed everything (and more) that I already felt and gave me the tools to realise why.

I quickly came to admire Guy for his intellectual honesty and ability to look the unpalatable in the eye. Still more so, as he struggled to deal with his own inner demons and started to search for ways to come to terms with our own (and our species’) demise and to share his own experience with others through grief counselling.

Anyone who speaks out with truths that are unpalatable to the insouciant and unthinking masses, and done the hard yards, deserves our respect and support.

I have never met anyone who has met such pushback, denial, vitriol and backstabbing as Guy, especially in recent times, when people have turned his “I would be surprised if any one of us is around in 10 years” to a fixed position: “we’re all going to be dead in a month”. In fact, I’ve never met anyone else who accompanies every statement with a citation from the scientific literature in quite the way Guy does

But then most of these people are willing to loudly voice opinions formed as quickly as their fingers can move across the keyboard, mostly without any credible evidence.

I have no doubt that the Masters of the Universe are conspiring to ensure that the truth doesn’t go far and are actively trying to destroy Guy and his reputation. Recent events bear that out.

There is a whole army of people out there who, having heard the evidence, are more than willing to be distracted by any sort of concocted scandal.

Guy, since I first met him in New Zealand in 2012 has become a trusted friend and I will defend his right to keep his public life quite quite separate from his private life, which has nothing to do with me or anyone else, and especially those who inhabit Facebook.

The ‘last’ NBL (it is not the last; it may seem that way) is especially meaningful as it comes at a time when apocalypse is not far from the minds of most thinking people.

As I write, the entire American West Is on fire and a large part of the country is covered by smoke; there have been alarming earthquake swarms in Wyoming and Idaho; and straight on the heels of Harvey, Irene is carving a destructive path through the islands of the Caribbean, projected to hit low-lying Florida, that already floods every time it rains.

And then there are those “first-ever” journeys into the Arctic Basin – and the melting ice which people will ignore or deny with everything at their disposal.

And North Korea. Vladimir Putin warned us yesterday of apocalypse. Will it take any more than for Kim to launch a missile vaguely in the direction of Guam for Trump to unleash the destructive forces of hell on North, and consequently, South Korea?

I ask myself – and I am far from the only one – if we will all still be here in a month’s time, in six months, a year? Like Guy, I will say I can’t imagine that we will be around for too long, but I also have to face the other nightmarish scenario that things will just continue getting worse and worse for more and more people, and we will have to wait for some other black swan in the future.

At some stage some of us are going to cry: “bring it on!”

In part, what allows me to say this is my own situation, in which I am looking down the tube at declining health - plus the fact I don’t have children, and the only ones remotely dependent on me are my loving partner, Pam, my dog and a couple of horses.

After at least six years of declining health and a traumatic history of denial from much of the medical fraternity I have finally, after a year of appointments and tests, received the results of neuropsychological testing at Wellington Hospital.

The tests showed that my use of language and verbal reasoning are above average (demonstrated, I hope, by this work). However, my ability to do mental arithmetic calculations, to put things into and take things out of my memory bank, as well as being able to problem solve or deal with minor stresses, are moderately compromised.

Learning this has come as somewhat of a relief rather than a shock, given my history, even though the medics, who have a narrower field of vision than I do, are bouncing the label of “Alzheimer’s” around as a working hypothesis (not diagnosis) – something that I’m less convinced of.

But at least I have official recognition of what I have known about myself for some time.

Although I am able to write this and to reason perfectly well, my memory is shot and I have difficulty concentrating, other than for short periods, on books and articles.

All of this raises the spectre that not only are we looking down the barrel at great suffering and ultimate death through planetary extinction, but I am looking at limits to my ability to act as the ‘postman’ who brings all the world’s worst news together in one place.

Is that an arse-about-face, narcissistic way of expressing things? I shall continue this for as long as I possibly can because this gives my life real meaning.

Once I lose that (to misquote a friend) I would be surprised if I don’t head for the exit door just at the moment when the world and all the creatures that inhabit it, goes dark.