The latest from Guy McPherson

Mostly Goodbye, Redux

Guy McPherson

The great enemy of grief is hope. Hope is the four-letter word for people who are unwilling to know things for what they are. Our time requires us to be hope-free. To burn through the false choice of being hopeful and hopeless. They are two sides of the same con job. Grief is required to proceed.

~ Stephen Jenkinson

 

NatureBats Last,

22 February, 2019

I have repeatedly indicated I have done enough, most recently in June of last year. I’ve often quoted Albert Camus in this space, and this line from the French philosopher seems fitting: “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.” It is long past time for me to turn away. No, really: I’m serious this time.

Obviously, I have still been posting here since last June, as I continue my attempts to inform the disinterested masses. Yet another serious death threat last month reminds me that time is short, and that I would rather spend my limited time with those who love me than with those who don’t. I already had several posts in the queue at the time, as well as a few interviews scheduled, so I continued to post in this space after the threat.

The threat did not target me. Instead, the sender — a former friend — threatened to destroy everyone in my support network, one at a time, until it is gone. I pointed out that my support network is tiny, so it would not take long to destroy it. The following day, as if to place an exclamation mark on the death threat, a friend committed suicide. Every day, as if to rub salt in the proverbial wound, I am falsely accused of illegal acts. Every week, as if doing so is clever, my own life is threatened.

Threatening my life is one thing. After all, martyring me likely would accelerate distribution of my message. Furthermore, I know I am nearing the end of my life, and I have accepted my near-term demise. Threatening the lives of the few people who support me, on the other hand, is unconscionable. It has led me to re-evaluate my priorities.

I have tolerated abundant betrayal. I have experienced personal attacks too numerous to list. I have responded with periodically updated evidence, first and most abundantly here, then with a summary here, and finally here (I might continue to update the latter piece). Not surprisingly, in a culture dominated by the worship of celebrities rather than appreciation of evidence, confusion results.

I have thoroughly documented evidence regarding abrupt climate change. I have written and spoken at length, always at no charge. Years after the evidence has pointed to abrupt climate change and its obvious outcome for humans, my message has been co-opted by dozens of people who fail to mention my name (i.e., they plagiarize me). An additional few thousand people have called me horrible names for promulgating evidence without the obligatory, nonsensical inclusion of hope.

I have sacrificed everything except my integrity in the battle against climate change and the Sixth Mass Extinction. In response, I have been accused frequently of “giving up” and lying about my own message. I receive daily email messages criticizing my personal choices with respect to housing, generation of electricity, traveling, what I eat, and what I drink. These accusations and criticisms make no sense, yet they do not surprise me (for example, the city-based privilege of veganism is no solution, and neither is a bunker). I take actions far more radical than any other person I know, and I encourage others to do so as well. Yet the baseless accusations keep coming, without provocation, and without supporting evidence.

I have promulgated evidence. I have simplified complex topics, thereby making them accessible to the masses. I have also suggested a path forward for many years: planetary hospice (and see here, too). This idea is finally catching on well beyond my own work, and I have little left to give. More than a decade after I began this blog with its foci on abrupt climate change and global peak oil, nearly seven years after pointing out that we are finished as a species in the very near future, I am largely stepping away from the keyboard and the microphone.

  

I might write the occasional essay in this space, for no audience beyond myself. After a lifetime of writing, apparently I cannot stop, even though I agree with prolific American writer E.B. White: “Writing is hard work and bad for the health.” Changing locations inspires me to write, and otherwise I am rarely inclined. I do not write to elicit sympathy from the reader, much less empathy. My self-absorption is not that severe, and empathy is rare in a culture that worships sociopathic behavior.

I will continue to pen a monthly article for Weekly Hubris as long as my radical missives are welcome there. I will continue to release Edge of Extinction video clips, as I am inspired. I could publish “Mailbag” posts indefinitely, as misinformed hatred for me and ignorance of my message combine to provide a seemingly endless supply of nonsense. I am growing weary of pointing out the absurdity of the masses, so I will minimize or forgo these “Mailbag” posts.

My future efforts generally will focus on social criticism rather than the sciences of conservation biology and abrupt climate change. I will greatly reduce the time I spend accumulating, collating, and synthesizing evidence on the latter topic.

I will no longer serve as a personal search engine for the dozens of people who ask every week. Please perform your own due diligence.

I will continue to cohost the radio show I founded, Nature Bats Last on the Progressive Radio Network. All episodes are archived.

I will continue to post Tim Bob’s brilliantly edited YouTube clips (no, I am not Tim Bob). I appreciate his ongoing, voluntary efforts to condense and popularize my message.

I will continue to deliver presentations upon request, as fitting my schedule, in exchange for full travel expenses (if you cannot reimburse my stunningly low costs, then please do not ask me to deliver a presentation). I will continue to submit to interviews with people who seem relatively sane (while recognizing that I have overestimated some hosts). I will continue to host visitors in my home for no fee. Not one of these activities is economically profitable. At least for me, there is no money in extinction. Having not drawn a paycheck for a decade, even my ability to live frugally is no match for the rising cost of remaining alive.

I will flee most of the groups within social media inspired by my work, a process I have already begun. These groups have largely become troll farms far more interested in defaming me than in evaluating the evidence I present. I have endured hatred toward me for more than two decades. I do not need even more animus in my life.

Lest the careless reader incorrectly believe I am complaining about my personal circumstances, I am compelled to again point out the abundant joy I have discovered in my carefully examined life. My happiness is an emotional response to the supreme joy of finding my life’s purpose, as well finding as my small, loyal tribe. There is little doubt my deep and frequent thoughts of dying also contribute to my happiness.

Please do not ask me, much less tell me, to pursue interviews with the corporate media. I have been interviewed by leading media outlets in Canada (CBC), Iran (Press TV), New Zealand (The Paul Henry Show, subsequently renamed), and Russia (RT). It is no doubt a coincidence that I — but not my work — have been defamed by the leading mouthpieces of imperialism in the United States (Washington Post and New York Times) and Great Britain (The Guardian). Professional journalists know that some topics do not sell products. The abundant evidence regarding abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction is near the top of that list.

Please do not tell me that some form of geoengineering with save us. Abundant evidence indicates it will not. And despite the distracting, evidence-free stories with which I am constantly assailed, 

geoengineering in the form of “chemtrails” is a warm, welcome myth that allows people to deny their own contribution to climate change and the Sixth Mass Extinction. If you are a “chemtrail” believer, then you have no use for my evidence-rich work.

Our species is about to join the remains of the living planet in the final stage of a terminal disease. As I have long pointed out, it is past time we acknowledged hospice as an appropriate response.

In summary, I will be acting a lot like the uncompensated retiree I am during my little remaining time on Earth. For example, I will be spending ample time dancing and considerably less time responding to hateful email messages from critics of my personal life and those who insist upon “solutions” they incorrectly believe I have not thought about.

As I have indicated previously, I will be making some memories and documenting them on Instagram. People interested in my personal response to my professional work can follow my adventures here.