Dr. Guy McPherson is coming to New York in late February. Dates are still being set for speaking engagements, and if you have a venue, he will be willing to respond. There’s information on his new website, the Empire Blues Medicine Show. You can be sure we’ll talk to him on Sex and Politics, but we’re also looking for some other locales.

To those of you joining late, Guy McPherson is an environmental scientist and former Professor Emeritus from University of Arizona who has put together the pieces about climate change and habitat for humans. His theory (based on both his understanding of climate change science and his knowledge about habitat for animals) is that we’ve passed the point of no return in terms of climate and are facing near-term human extinction, possibly as early as 2030. As in 15 years from now. Here’s a short-form video where he sums up the ramifications of his predictions. there’s also information on his website, Nature bats Last.

His message is simple enough. And to be fair, he’s no longer the only person saying such things. He’s compiling the data from other sources, as are other scientists who are late to this discussion.

This is a segment from the series The Newsroom that (though fictional), lays out the facts of our dilemma pretty efficiently (courtesy HBO). Guy has a slightly different take on what poses the most problem, but you get the general idea. Unfortunately, The Newsroom is fiction–EPA guys aren’t going on TV to give apocalyptic warnings (most of them wouldn’t chance it and network control rooms would cut to a commercial until the miscreant scientist was removed).

While the message is (to say the least) dire, Guy has been trying to focus it as a time for active engagement. We can pursue lives of excellence and ‘stop competing for the last dime’. If we are in fact in a time of hospice, we need to rethink our priorities. Guy addresses this in his new book (co Written with Carolyn Baker) Extinction Dialogs.

I always need to say this–I hope Dr. McPherson is wrong. But he has assembled compelling evidence on his behalf, and his message begs the question. If he is right, why isn’t anybody talking about this? This could be the end of life on this planet, and you’d think somebody besides Dr. McPherson would be discussing it. And he is batting 1,000 on the idea that we smart apes need to recognize our mortality and perhaps take up the cause of living in planetary hospice.

By the way, you can hear Guy’s podcast Nature Bats Last on PRN radio. Here’s a link.

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