{"id":3497300,"date":"2023-05-31T11:08:10","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T11:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3497300"},"modified":"2023-05-31T17:20:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T17:20:09","slug":"crazy-town-episode-75-near-term-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2023-05-31\/crazy-town-episode-75-near-term-extinction\/","title":{"rendered":"Crazy Town: Episode 75. How to Lose Friends and Demoralize People: The Science (sic!) of Near-Term Extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><div id=\"buzzsprout-player-12864025\"><\/div><script src=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/244372\/12864025-how-to-lose-friends-and-demoralize-people-the-science-sic-of-near-term-extinction.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-12864025&#038;player=small\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><div class=\"gb-button-wrapper gb-button-wrapper-af35d9a5\">\n<a class=\"gb-button gb-button-736fa41c gb-button-text btn res-btn-blue\" href=\"https:\/\/lnk.to\/crazytownWB\">Listen on your favorite app<\/a>\n\n<a class=\"gb-button gb-button-f8db5292 gb-button-text res-btn-yellow\" href=\"\/crazy-town-podcast\/episodes\">See all episodes<\/a>\n<\/div><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-b18365bc\">\n<p><strong><em>Show Notes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>Meet Guy McPherson, the extinction enthusiast who undermines legitimate climate concerns by predicting we\u2019re all going to die yesterday. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.<br><br>Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.<br><br>For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/RSIC-Journal\">peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis<\/a> from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD.<br><br>Sources\/Links\/Notes:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Guy McPherson, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/guymcpherson.com\/climate-chaos\/climate-change-summary-and-update\/\">Near-Term Extinction blog post<\/a>,&#8221; <em>Nature Bats Last<\/em> (last updated 2016).<\/li>\n\n<li>Scott Johnson, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/fractalplanet.wordpress.com\/2014\/02\/17\/how-guy-mcpherson-gets-it-wrong\/\">How Guy McPherson gets it wrong<\/a>,&#8221; <em>Fractal Planet<\/em>, 2014.<\/li>\n\n<li>Michael Tobis, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/planet3.org\/2014\/03\/13\/mcphersons-evidence-that-doom-doom-doom\/\">McPherson\u2019s Evidence That Doom Doom Doom<\/a>,&#8221; <em>Planet 3.0<\/em>, 2014.<\/li>\n\n<li>Nathan Curry, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/wd4egq\/near-term-extinctionists-believe-the-world-is-going-to-end-very-soon\">Humanity Is Getting Verrrrrrry Close to Extinction<\/a>,&#8221; <em>Vice<\/em>, 2013.<\/li>\n\n<li>BizNewsTV, &#8220;&#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/2AK-O5hICxE?t=1859\">Humans will be extinct by 2026<\/a>&#8216; &#8211; &#8216;doom and gloom prophet&#8217; Prof McPherson on abrupt climate change,&#8221; January 19, 2023.<\/li>\n\n<li>Shannon Osaka, &#8220;Why climate &#8216;doomers&#8217; are replacing climate &#8216;deniers&#8217;,\u201d <em>Washington Post<\/em>, March 24, 2023.<\/li>\n\n<li>Jerome Roos, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/04\/18\/opinion\/global-crisis-future.html\">We Don\u2019t Know What Will Happen Next,<\/a>&#8221; <em>New York Times<\/em>, April 18, 2023.<\/li>\n\n<li>List of <a href=\"https:\/\/rationalwiki.org\/wiki\/Guy_McPherson\">McPherson predictions<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div><p><em>How would you rate this episode\u2019s Phalse Prophet on the Insufferability Index?<\/em>&nbsp;Tell us in the comments below!<\/p><figure class=\"gb-block-image gb-block-image-eadc0d2d\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1300\" height=\"801\" class=\"gb-image gb-image-eadc0d2d\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"CT-insufferability-index-1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index-1.jpg 1300w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index-1-600x370.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index-1-304x187.jpg 304w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index-1-1024x631.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/CT-insufferability-index-1-768x473.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-804370c4\"><div class=\"gb-inside-container\">\n<div class=\"gb-grid-wrapper gb-grid-wrapper-f48fde78\">\n<div class=\"gb-grid-column gb-grid-column-629232bd\"><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-629232bd\"><div class=\"gb-inside-container\">\n<div class=\"gb-grid-wrapper gb-grid-wrapper-7f88ec35\">\n<div class=\"gb-grid-column gb-grid-column-cbd72d0c\"><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-cbd72d0c\">\n<p class=\"gb-headline gb-headline-c5808738 gb-headline-text\">It\u2019s time for the annual <em><strong>Crazy Town Hall!<\/strong><\/em> This exclusive webinar on June&nbsp;6, 2023 is our way of thanking listeners who support the show financially. We hope you&#8217;ll join us!<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"gb-button-wrapper gb-button-wrapper-b3e2e76e\">\n<a class=\"gb-button gb-button-98146f92 gb-button-text res-btn-yellow\" href=\"https:\/\/postcarbon.org\/supportcrazytown\">Register Now<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"gb-grid-column gb-grid-column-5110cafb\"><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-5110cafb\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/CT-hosts-with-tree-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3496932\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/CT-hosts-with-tree-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/CT-hosts-with-tree-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/CT-hosts-with-tree-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/CT-hosts-with-tree-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/CT-hosts-with-tree.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"gb-grid-column gb-grid-column-5e08cfe8\"><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-5e08cfe8\"><div class=\"gb-inside-container\"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-d7c3aa7a\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-pb-accordion-item c-accordion__item js-accordion-item no-js\" data-initially-open=\"false\" data-click-to-close=\"true\" data-auto-close=\"true\" data-scroll=\"false\" data-scroll-offset=\"0\"><h2 id=\"at-34973000\" class=\"c-accordion__title js-accordion-controller\" role=\"button\">Episode Sponsor<\/h2><div id=\"ac-34973000\" class=\"c-accordion__content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/share.descript.com\/embed\/AAhYcBbAIeF\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><div class=\"gb-container gb-container-ebc14cda\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-pb-accordion-item c-accordion__item js-accordion-item no-js\" data-initially-open=\"false\" data-click-to-close=\"true\" data-auto-close=\"true\" data-scroll=\"false\" data-scroll-offset=\"0\"><h2 id=\"at-34973001\" class=\"c-accordion__title js-accordion-controller\" role=\"button\">Transcript<\/h2><div id=\"ac-34973001\" class=\"c-accordion__content\"><pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">Jason Bradford  \nI'm Jason Bradford.\n\nAsher Miller  \nI'm Asher Miller.\n\nRob Dietz  \nAnd I'm Rob Dietz. Welcome to Crazy Town where the theme of the high school prom this year is, \"party like there's no tomorrow.\" Because there isn't one.\n\nMelody Allison  \nHi, this is Crazy Town producer Melody Allison. Thanks for listening. Here in Season 5, we're exploring phalse prophets and the dangerous messages they're so intent on spreading. If you like what you're hearing, please let some friends know about this episode or the podcast in general. Quick warning: Sometimes this podcast uses swear words. Now onto the show.\n\nJason Bradford  \nGuys, is it possible I can get some help from y'all?\n\nAsher Miller  \nAre we talking about lifting something, moving something?\n\nJason Bradford  \nI want to use your minds, not your bodies.\n\nRob Dietz  \nNever happened before.  Well, we're geniuses. Self-proclaimed. So yeah. What do you need?\n\nJason Bradford  \nWell, you know how I wrote, \"The Future is Rural.\" Published by Post Carbon Institute.\n\nRob Dietz  \nExcellent report. I edited that puppy. \n\nJason Bradford  \nSuper helpful with that.\n\nAsher Miller  \nShameless plug, guys.\n\nJason Bradford  \nThank you. Anyway, I got asked to give a talk. And when I give these talks about it, I kind of worry I'm going to come off a little harsh because I basically say stuff like, you know, \"Cities are unsustainable. We're going to have a population shift, maybe back to rural areas over the course of the century.\"\n\nAsher Miller  \nYou getting your degree in like - \n\nJason Bradford  \nUrban planning. \n\nAsher Miller  \nSports marketing or something like that. \n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah, right. Well - \n\nRob Dietz  \nI do think you possibly have that chance of depressing some students, right? Because you're telling them, \"Grab a pitchfork, kid. You're gonna be shoveling cow manure for the rest of your life.\" \n\nJason Bradford  \nBasically that's what I tell them. \n\nRob Dietz  \nThat's the takeaway message. Well, I can see that being a little depressing. So you're looking for help from us? Well, I can give you some help right off the bat. Because I'm not going to tell you how to give the talk, or how to be less depressing. I'm just going to tell you that you're not anywhere close to depressing. \n\nJason Bradford  \nReally?\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. So - Jason's never had anyone say that before. \n\nJason Bradford  \nIt's nice.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, you're like a shining beacon of positivity compared to - \n\nAsher Miller  \nIt just radiates off of you. \n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. You're like the sunshine compared to the black hole that once visited my community to give a talk.\n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay. You're talking about Coho in Corvallis?\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. So this was when I lived at the cohousing eco-village. And we had just been formed, right? So this is like 10 years ago or more. The speaker came, and basically, he goes on for an hour telling us how we're all going to die. You know, climate change is in an irreversible feedback loop and everything is going to be gone. Now see, this is kind of nuts, because the ecovillage is a bunch of sustainability minded people.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. They're aware of our problems.\n\nRob Dietz  \nCommunity-minded people trying to figure out. Like, how do we live in this world in a way with a smaller footprint? How do we build communities so that we're resilient against the, you know, the likely problems or other things, \n\nJason Bradford  \nYou're doing all the right things, Rob.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, we even had this group called Resilience Network. The resilience net. Yeah. Unbelievable. And then this guy comes in, he says - \n\nAsher Miller  \nThat's all pointless. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWhy would you do that? We're all gonna die soon. So this guy, funny enough, is named Guy McPherson. And I think Jason, you just don't have to worry. You just have to put your talk next to a Guy McPherson talk.\n\nJason Bradford  \nAnd I mean, I'm not telling you you're gonna die. I'm just telling you, you gotta grow potatoes if you want to live.\n\nAsher Miller  \nSo Rob, explain who This McPherson guy is?\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. So he got a PhD in Range Science from Texas Tech University back in 1987. And he had this career as a professor at the University of Arizona. He's in the School of Renewable Natural Resources where he focused on the conservation of biological diversity. \n\nJason Bradford  \nI love that. \n\nRob Dietz  \nSo yeah, kind of up our alley, right? He goes to emeritus status in the year 2009. But he's written over 100 articles, 10 books, one is called, \"Walking Away from Empire.\" Another is called, \"Going Dark.\" Kind of about energy issues. And I don't know, the titles kind of seem up our alley as well. But then he starts writing this blog called, \"Nature Bats Last,\" and he ended up traveling all over the place, giving talks based on these writings. That's how I ended up seeing him. And then he also publishes a lot of videos on YouTube, of course, as you do.\n\nJason Bradford  \nAha, yes. So I've actually interacted with Guy, too. I've met Guy. And his shtick was very similar when I saw him to when you saw him. And it's basically, you know, for the past 20 years, he's been in the business of telling people we're gonna die. Like, if not tomorrow, you know - \n\nAsher Miller  \nVirtually tomorrow. \n\nRob Dietz  \nI gotta say, when I heard him speak, I was kinda like, I left there, and I was like, \"Okay. What do I do now? He said we're gonna die soon.\"\n\nJason Bradford  \nPretty soon.  Don't even write a will because it's not just you that's gonna die, everyone you would want to give anything to will be dead as well. \n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. Don't just dig one grave, dig a bunch of graves. \n\nJason Bradford  \nStart digging graves.\n\nAsher Miller  \nWell, I guess - I mean, I find him a frustrating figure which we're obviously going to get into. There's a reason we picked the guy for this season on false prophets, but frustrating because he's been sounding the alarm about about two crises in particular that are very near and dear to our hearts with stuff that we talked about and stuff that Post Carbon Institute focuses on. And that's peak oil and climate change. And it was through concern about those issues that we got to know Guy. Probably all of us have had interactions with him. And we actually used to publish him pretty regularly on our website resilience.org back in, I think we stopped back in around 2011, even though he's still publishing stuff today.\n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay, well, let's start talking about some of the things that he sort of uses as the reason why we're all doomed. And this one is peak oil. So that's a quick definition because you can talk about peak of a region, let's say. Or, you know, what most people talk about when they mean that is the world as a whole reaches a maximum in the rate of extraction of oil. And the concern was that economic chaos may ensue following this peak because oil is the most important input to the global economy. And if that extraction can't expand, the economy will suffer, you know, contract, and there will be high and volatile prices of everything.\n\nAsher Miller  \nYeah. And the peak oil community, which we are active parts of, I would say, had it's probably heyday, you know, in the 2000s, right? Leading up to 2008. And McPherson was one of these guys who not only saw that it was imminent, but also saw that, or believed that it would be immediately catastrophic when we actually hit that point of sort of peak production. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWell, yeah.  Let's check in with McPherson on this topic. He gave a talk, and Jason, you know, you're worried about depressing students. \n\nJason Bradford  \nYes. \n\nRob Dietz  \nObviously, McPherson is less worried. Let's give a little evidence of that. So this, I'm gonna share with you some stuff that he went over in a talk. It was a keynote address that he gave to public health students in the master's program at the University of Arizona back in 2007. \n\nAsher Miller  \nSo, I'm just trying to imagine this group of people crowding into this hall - \n\nJason Bradford  \nCollege auditorium, or whatever. Yeah. \n\nAsher Miller  \nYou know, they're all masters of public health. They want to heal people.\n\nJason Bradford  \nThey're do-gooders. Yeah. My wife has a master's in public health. Wonderful.\n\nRob Dietz  \nSo here he is in 2007. He warned of the collapse of the U.S. economy within a decade. I bet you -  \n\nAsher Miller  \nI gotta say, for about a couple of years there, people were like, this dude was right. Because right at the end of 2007 into 2008, we actually - \n\nJason Bradford  \nSkyrocketing oil prices, financial meltdown.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, that's what I was thinking. Maybe this guy is a soothsayer. But then, with that economic collapse, he predicted unemployment approaching 100%. No jobs. That's only because he couldn't go as high as 200%. \n\nAsher Miller  \n100%.\n\nRob Dietz  \n100%. Total unemployment. And inflation running at 1,000% per year. \n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay. \n\nAsher Miller  \nCool. \n\nRob Dietz  \nThen he said this: He said, \"By 2012, the world cities will experience permanent blackouts starting a transition first to a new Dark Age, and then over time to a New Stone Age.\"\n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay, in 2012, I sat in that movie - \n\nRob Dietz  \n\"2012\"\n\nJason Bradford  \nTo see the movie, \"2012.\"\n\nAsher Miller  \nOh, yeah. That was the documentary about -\n\nRob Dietz  \nWell, that's the problem. Guy McPherson, he thought it was a documentary and they just recorded what happened in the film. Roland Emmerich, by the way, is like Hollywood's version of Guy McPherson. He makes nothing but disaster movies.\n\nJason Bradford  \nBut disaster movies where humans are possibly going to go extinct. \n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, it comes from all different sources. It could be a giant lizard like \"Godzilla,\" could be aliens like \"Independence Day.\"\n\nJason Bradford  \nSaw that. \n\nRob Dietz  \nIt could be weather and roaming packs of wolves like \"The Day After Tomorrow.\u201d \n\nJason Bradford  \nI've seen all those movies. \n\nAsher Miller  \nWell, you know, McPherson, he's got two, right. So one is the beast of peak oil, the other is the beast of climate change.\n\nRob Dietz  \nBut here's my favorite thing from that talk that he gave. He said that, \"With this combination of peak oil and climate change, within a century or two humanity will consist of quote, 'a few thousand hardy scavengers living near the poles.'\" With the elves, up in Santa Claus's workshop, I presume.\n\nAsher Miller  \nThere are no poles. I mean, there are magnetic poles, probably. But there's no -\n\nRob Dietz  \nWell, Antarctica has land. But yeah, up in the Arctic, it'll be open ocean. \n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay so, the general term for what his point of view is what's called, near term extinction. And often it might have the word \"climate\" because of climate, so near term climate extinction. But really, it could be for, you know, various reasons of catastrophes of resources and environmental breakdown. So, he's warning about both. About these resource issues with peak oil, climate risks, and, you know, he really went into overdrive on the climate side of things when the peak oil narrative didn't quite play out. \n\nRob Dietz  \nHe could do that even with oil depleting. He could go into overdrive.\n\nJason Bradford  \nWell, there was still plenty of oil. We had fracking and stuff so you could overdrive. Yeah. So he's a leading voice of the near term extinction movement, so to speak. And a lot of this is about the runaway feedback loops in the climate system, sudden collapse of industrial activity, like nuclear power plants going haywire and blowing up everywhere. It would lead to humanity going extinct in very short order.\n\nRob Dietz  \nAnd if you really want the synopsis, I shudder to call it that, but he started publishing an untitled blog post that's all about this near-term extinction. It's available on his \"Nature Bats Last\" blog. I don't know when he started writing it, but the first thing it says on there is updated most recently, likely for the last time, or for the final time, 2 August, 2016. I assume he thought he would be extinct by now. By 2017 he wouldn't be able to update it. But I don't know. I copied that blog over to Microsoft Word just so I could see how many words it was. It was 94 pages long in more than 32,000 words.\n\nAsher Miller  \nSo, this was just a running thing that he was adding to?\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. He kept updating it with sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, citing -\n\nJason Bradford  \nEven page by page.\n\nRob Dietz  \nPage by page, multiple pages, but yeah, whatever. \n\nJason Bradford  \nChapter by chapter.\n\nRob Dietz  \nVerse by - Okay, we're gonna quit now. Opinion pieces, news stories, other blog posts, all in service to that main point that climate Armageddon is upon us, and humanity is on the precipice of extinction.\n\nAsher Miller  \nAnd look, there are a lot of people who have come to be convinced by his arguments. And you know, when you think about near term extinction, right, there's probably a spectrum of beliefs out there. And we're gonna get into some of Guy McPherson's specific predictions later.\n\nRob Dietz  \nOh, we're gonna get into them really shortly. \n\nJason Bradford  \nWe don't have much time. We've got to get on with it.\n\nAsher Miller  \nI would say, look, when you look at the ecosystem of people that are concerned about the climate crisis, you've got, on one hand, obviously, the climate deniers. And then you've got people who are gradually maybe more and more concerned about the crisis. The near-term extinction, people are basically at the furthest edge in terms of what they anticipate is going to happen. And, you know, I think one of the key things here is basically an argument that there's nothing we could do effectively. So, people who've come to this conclusion, whether they've been convinced by Guy McPherson, or otherwise, there have been support groups, I guess, that have been formed. Or kind of communities of people who are are sharing this perception with one another. Facebook has a Near Term Extinction support group which has several thousand members.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, the motto is, \"Dig my grave and I'll dig yours.\" \n\nAsher Miller  \nDoes that work?\n\nRob Dietz  \nI don't know. \n\nJason Bradford  \nHey, if you do it ahead of time.\n\nRob Dietz  \nWell, look, you mentioned his predictions, and I'm not waiting around. We gotta jump on these things. \n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah, we gotta do this fast.\n\nAsher Miller  \nBecause we're gonna run out of time. \n\nRob Dietz  \nI know. \n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah, I know. We've gotta hurry up.\n\nRob Dietz  \nI call this the happy fun list, okay? I'm gonna go two of these. Jason, why don't you read two these. And Asher, you've got the next two.  \n\nAsher Miller  \nThis is just a snapshot. \n\nJason Bradford  \nIt's a sampling. Tiny sampling.\n\nRob Dietz  \nIt's like a poopoo platter of them. And we're gonna go chronologically here. So in 2007, McPherson predicted the U.S.A.'s trucking industry would collapse by 2012 due to peak oil, quickly followed by the interstate highway system.\n\nAsher Miller  \nHow'd you get here today, Rob?\n\nRob Dietz  \nI flew in my flying car. No, the highway wasn't there anymore so how was I going to do it? In 2008, he predicted the end of civilization by 2018 due to peak oil. If you're alive in a decade, it will be because you figured out how to forage locally.\n\nJason Bradford  \nSounds a lot like what I talk about sometimes. But I didn't say it like that. I just say, \"Over time, slowly we need to adapt to more local food.\"\n\nAsher Miller  \nAnd it's not just foraging. \n\nJason Bradford  \nNo, it's not just foraging.\n\nRob Dietz  \nI was out trying to get acorns from under your tree here when I got here.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. Okay in 2012, my favorite year because the movie was awesome, he predicted that global warming will kill much of humanity by 2020. And in 2016, he predicted that humanity and most life forms will be extinct due to global warming by mid-2026. Now, I love that it's like, \"mid.\" \n\nRob Dietz  \nThat's getting exact. . . May 13th. I mean, given his track record, we better be scared for 2026. He just nails it every time. \n\nAsher Miller  \nI feel like a total asshole for making fun of this dude, but then again, you read some of these things and they're just really breathtaking. Like this one. \n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay, keep going. \n\nAsher Miller  \nIn 2017, he predicted that global temperatures would be six degrees Celsius above baseline in mid-2018.  Oh my god.  So we're talking about like, at the most, 18 months. Six degrees C above baseline. We're about one degree right now - 1.2, maybe? And that the Earth would have no atmosphere by 2050. So you know, time will tell on that one.\n\nRob Dietz  \nEven Venus has an atmosphere, right.\n\nAsher Miller  \nWell, we'll have no atmosphere. I don't understand how that works exactly.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, I don't know either. \n\nAsher Miller  \nYeah. And then June 2018, he implied that industrial civilization was about to collapse in September 2018. So it's like, not only is he getting more and more exact, but the timeline between his point of prediction and the thing he's predicting, they're shrinking. So industrial civilization was about to collapse in three months, followed by a degree C immediate additional temperature jump due to the end of the aerosol production. Which actually, I don't know if it would be a full one degree. And I think it was a half a degree when we shut down all the planes for September 11. So maybe he's not worrying about that one. And anyways, that would rapidly somehow end all complex multicellular organisms on Earth.\n\nJason Bradford  \nI mean, yeah, the deep-sea organisms I think would take a while.\n\nAsher Miller  \nNot according to him. \n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay. Okay.\n\nRob Dietz  \nWell, he's still doing this, right? It's not like only 2007 to 2018. We just found a video of him being interviewed by an outfit called BizNews TV. With the \"Z\" of course.\n\nJason Bradford  \nOf course, yeah. It's a pretty bizarre - \n\nRob Dietz  \nBut they spelled the news with an \"S,\" so it's a combo. \n\nAsher Miller  \nOh, good for them.\n\nRob Dietz  \nThe interviewer says to McPherson, \"In 2012, you predicted the likely extinction of humanity by 2030. In 2018, you adjusted it and said that it would be by 2026.\" He's making it sooner. \"And It's highly unlikely that humans will still be on planet Earth.\" And of course, McPherson's obvious response to that is, \"Well, I published two papers and they were peer reviewed. And I had co-authors. So with the peer review and the co-authors, you know that's a conservative estimate.\"\n\nAsher Miller  \nSo it can happen sooner than 2 years from now.\n\nJason Bradford  \nThis was an astonishing interview. It was a little bit painful. I didn't watch everything because it's a little long, but I watched snippets. It's hard to watch. But there was a favorite part of mine. It's the sixth section. Because he tries to explain to the poor reporter - bizarre, bizarre interview.  Yeah, her facial expressions. \n\nAsher Miller  \nIs she a poor reporter?\n\nJason Bradford  \nI feel sorry for her having to do this.\n\nRob Dietz  \nI don't know. I was kind of laughing because she was like trying to, I don't know, like her mind was kind of exploding in a way.\n\nJason Bradford  \nI don't know because I haven't seen her other interviews, but this was weird. Okay? Anyway, he basically tries to explain her like, let me tell you the story about the San Benedicto rock wren. And basically the story is that there's this wren, this rock wren. It's a subspecies of the rock wren. Beautiful birds. I've seen them in the desert Southwest. But this is in Mexico on this island off the coast of Mexico. A few 100 miles off the coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean. And it's volcanic. And the whole thing explodes, and it's covered by feet of ash. And the little birdie goes extinct. Pretty quickly, probably. And he basically says, you know, that that the rock wren can fly, but we can't fly. And it would be basically hubris to imagine that we could survive where this wren could not.\n\nAsher Miller  \nRight. He actually said that the wren is better adapted than we are as humans.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYes. I'm just like, how do you take this little tiny population, this tiny island that frickin explodes, and make an analogy to like 8 billion people spread around the planet. Like what is he talking about?\n\nRob Dietz  \nWings, Jason, wings. You're a biologist. You should get this. \n\nJason Bradford  \nI should. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWe do not have wings, and we don't have the peer review that McPherson has. So maybe we just need to shut up and watch more videos. \n\nAsher Miller  \nWe just need 8 billion cans of Red Bull because then we will have wings.\n\nRob Dietz  \nWay to bring in one of our non-sponsors. \n\nAsher Miller  \nOne of our sponsors for today's episode.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYou wish.\n\nAsher Miller  \nThey were so clamoring to sponsor the podcast about Guy McPherson.\n\nRob Dietz  \nThey didn't because -\n\nAsher Miller  \nWe're beating off all of the sponsors.\n\nRob Dietz  \nNo, he said we don't have wings. They're never going to sponsor him.\n\nAsher Miller  \nThat's true. Okay, so here we are, I guess mocking this guy for - \n\nJason Bradford  \nI mean, we kind of laid into him pretty hard. We try to be nicer to our guests.  He's not a guest.  Okay, sorry. Our targets, Our, I don't know. We couldn't get here. The highway don't exist.\n\nRob Dietz  \nWe should try to be nicer to our punching bag? Is that what you're trying to say?\n\nAsher Miller  \nLook, we're gonna get into why it's important to even talk about Guy McPherson. This is not just like, punching down on an easy target, although he makes it kind of easy on himself, I've got to be honest. Part of it is, for me, just thinking about him is just the frustration of, not only is he talking about issues that are very real concerns, they're core things that we, the three of us, obviously, care deeply about. Post Carbon Institute, the organization with which we're all involved, obviously, is really dedicated to trying to address these. So real issues. Not only is he talking about these in a way that's highly problematic, right? But, you know, he also puts out good observations in some cases. He's saying things that we would agree with. It's just wrapped in a cocoon of bullshit that is, I don't know. But so like an example, right, he's talked about the moment that Ronald Reagan basically pulled the solar panels off of the White House, which is obviously a very symbolic emblematic moment.\n\nJason Bradford  \nWhat a jackass.\n\nRob Dietz  \nAt a time when we could have had real progress too. This is a right at 1980. With a lot more time - \n\nAsher Miller  \nWe're coming out of all these oil shocks. And you know, like, whatever. So he's brought that up. He talks about the choices that we make every day, choosing dams over salmon, oil over whales, cars over polar bears, death over life. He talks a lot about politicians and CEOs and the kind of pathology of them. He offers good ideas for taking action.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, yeah. One of the reasons I'm so ready to make fun is because I'm pretty angry and frustrated because he actually had some good ideas to take action. But it's all wrapped in a message of, well, we're going extinct in three years\u2019 time. So I mean, one really good idea that he's promoted is stop fixating on cars.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah, and I mean, the speech to the public health students had a whole list. A great list of like, you know, the 10 wonderful things we could do. And it included stuff like produce food differently, you know, moving away from industrial agriculture, and localize our entire socio-economic system. And if you just isolated that part, you'd be like, oh, this could slot into something Richard Heinberg might say. But you come away going like, it was so painful to read this whole talk. You can read the damn thing, and it's this rambling thing about how close we are to just dying off completely. All of us. But here's what you should be working on. It just made absolutely no sense.\n\nAsher Miller  \nIt's so incoherent. \n\nJason Bradford  \nCompletely incoherent. \n\nAsher Miller  \nTotal dissonance there.\n\nJason Bradford  \nI have no idea why he would ever talk to anybody about this. And if you're gonna say all this, why take any action?\n\nRob Dietz  \nI don't know, man. But whatever it is we're gonna do, we better do it quick.\n\nMelody Allison  \nHow would you like to hang out with Asher, Rob, and Jason? Well, your chance is coming up at the 4th annual Crazy Town Hall. The town hall is our most fun event of the year where you can ask questions, play games, get insider information on the podcast, and share plenty of laughs\/ It's a special online event for the most dedicated Crazy Townies. And It's coming up on June 6, 2023 from 10 to 11:15am US Pacific Time. To get an invite, make a donation of any size. Go to postcarbon.org\/supportcrazytown. When you make a donation, we'll email you an exclusive link to join the Crazy Town Hall. If we get enough donations, maybe we can finally hire some decent hosts. Join us at the Crazy Town Hall on June 6, 2023. Again, to get your invitation go to postcarbon.org\/supportcrazytown.\n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay, Let's get into what species Guy McPherson is. It's pretty straightforward. The taxonomy is absolutely clear. You know, there's a whole section of the taxonomy that keys out if you're trying to really hold the system together, you're really working hard. These are the double downers and . .  .\n\nRob Dietz  \nHe's probably not going to land in that part of the taxonomy.\n\nJason Bradford  \nNo. So then you go into the other side of the taxonomy. And it' basically if you've kind of given up, or you're trying to blow it up, or whatever. And so the couplet here is, \"fatalistic about near term human extinction so tries to have fun.\"  And that's the species Hospice Hedonist. Or the Latin is, Homo hospitium-hedonistico. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWoah, good pronunciation that time. I'm impressed.\n\nJason Bradford  \nThank you. Basically, his message of this species to all other in the genus Homo is not a happy one: The end is very near, and we are helpless to do anything about it. However, while telling everyone they and their children are about to die isn't fun, they are stoic about the final days, find joy in the moment, and truly appreciate the little time they have left with their loved ones. Maybe even party hard. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWow. \n\nJason Bradford  \nAnd this is actually an amazing quote I found because when you read his speeches, it is this really bizarre combination of sort of philosophizing about the end, explaining to you why it's the end. But then also, a lot of this sort of philosophy about how this creates meaning, and we should find joy, and we can do all these wonderful things together. So here's an amazing quote: \"I'm often asked for advice about how to live during these tenuous times. In response, I recommend living fully. I recommend living with intention. I recommend living urgently with death in mind. I recommend the pursuit of excellence. I recommend the pursuit of love. In light of the short time remaining in your life, and my own, I recommend all of the above, louder than before, more fully than you can imagine. To the limits of this restrictive culture and beyond, live like you are dying. The day draws near.\n\nRob Dietz  \nSo we've made fun of Guy McPherson a fair bit about his predictions, the timing of those predictions, and based on the quote you just laid on us, Jason, and the taxonomy, we can make fun of him as someone who's clearly able to say a bunch of stuff without saying anything. What was that? I recommend pursuit of excellence?\n\nAsher Miller  \nThat's the Raiders football team.\n\nRob Dietz  \nThat's their slogan? They're pursuing excellence?\n\nAsher Miller  \nI think he's just a Raider's fan.\n\nRob Dietz  \nIt is right in front of you, excellence. Go get it. But there's a lot more to critique here. It's actually the substance and the basis that he's basing all these predictions on. A lot of people have looked into his work. Multiple Earth scientists have scoured through McPherson's analysis, and they've found major issues with the sources that he uses. You know, relying on a lot of sort of grey literature and soft sources. And the way he uses data, cherry picks. And also, his interpretation of feedback loops. So one of these folks that's looked at his work is a hydrogeologist named Scott Johnson. And he points out the danger in McPherson's approach where, you know, McPherson, he kind of claims to just be passing along scientific data. It's like, I'm just looking at the data. I'm looking at the science.\n\nJason Bradford  \nI have the guts to tell you the truth. Yeah, that kind of thing.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. And it makes it seem like all of his predictions have this weight of science behind them, when, in fact, it's based largely on unscientific sources. He often cites blog posts, news articles, and when he does cite peer reviewed journal articles, he picks pieces out of it often misinterpreted it, and gets conclusions that are actually from news stories that were written about that journal article.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. So Scott Johnson summarizes the problem with McPherson in this quote very well. In many ways, McPherson is a photo negative of the self-proclaimed climate skeptics who reject the conclusions of climate science. He maybe advocated the opposite conclusion, but he argues his case in the same way. The skeptics often quote snippets of science that on full examination doesn't actually support their claims. And this is Macpherson's modus operandi.\n\nAsher Miller  \nOkay, so if we say, look at this guy, the substance of his arguments are not grounded in solid scientific foundations, or whatever. \n\nJason Bradford  \nHe's clearly been off. \n\nAsher Miller  \nHis predictions are completely way off. Then why are we bothering talking about this guy?\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. Well, first of all, I think it stems from the fact that he's talking a lot about the same stuff we talk about. But the way he goes about it, and the way he's obviously sort of outlandish and making these statements about timing and severity, it makes us look stupid in some ways.\n\nRob Dietz  \nAnd look, we don't need anybody's help or outside help to make us look stupid.\n\nAsher Miller  \nWe don't want to outsource that. That's our job. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWe can make ourselves look dumber than anyone. Okay? I hope you listeners are aware of how stupid - \n\nJason Bradford  \nWe don't need his help. Okay. Well, thank you, Rob. Thank you for clarifying.\n\nAsher Miller  \nOur we just being honest that a part of our thing here that there's a real reaction and a frustration that we have. Because this is hits close to home, right, with a lot of the issues that we're concerned about and talk about.\n\nRob Dietz  \nIt's like you said, Asher, he makes observations that we would agree with and then he predicts we're all gonna die tomorrow right after that.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. So there's been a history of backlash from folks that maybe don't want to hear these stories, don't want to hear these ideas, don't want to hear these critiques. And these backlash sort of empowered denialists, right, and power the status quo. I mean, the famous one, of course, was the Ehrlich Simon bet, right? Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University and Julian Simon, sort of a business guy, popularizing the idea that there are no limits. We've talked about him in past episodes.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. Like Ehrlich is talking about, there are limits based on population, based on consumption, ecology. And then Simon is saying, no, there are no limits. The human mind will solve all problems, and the more the merrier. \n\nJason Bradford  \nAnd there's trillions of years of growth in front of us. Just absurd stuff. But Ehrlich made a bet and he lost. And of course, if Ehrlich had just like - \n\nRob Dietz  \nThis was like to predict the future. \n\nJason Bradford  \nOf the price of commodities. And he lost And I'm sorry he lost. I mean, if the bet had been for 10 years later, or whatever, he might have won it. So it was, again, being too specific about timing, And not understanding that the system is hard to understand exactly what's going to happen.\n\nAsher Miller  \nWell, can I just interject and say, I think there's a looking in the mirror as well for all of us, because I think there's a tendency to want to have, you know, people are looking for answers. When you present them with a challenge, with the problem that we're facing - And we've seen that in the sort of peak oil community. I think we at Post Carbon Institute have encountered that a lot. Which is, people are like, give me some certainty. Tell me how things are gonna happen. You know, when is this gonna happen if you're talking about the economy no longer growing? Do you know what I mean? Or we're going to hit issues with with peak oil production, you know. When is that gonna happen? What that's gonna look like. \n\nJason Bradford  \nPeople love that. \n\nAsher Miller  \nAnd in it, you know, there's a tendency, a desire, I think we all want to have that certainty. But there's also, you're sort of in a situation where you feel pressed in a sense to give people that certainty And I think though, we've been guilty of that as well. It's an understandable tendency. Like, I don't necessarily blame Ehrlich, for having done it, but it can be a mistake. The more specific and the larger lesson gets lost. The larger argument, which is still fundamentally true, gets lost. Ehrlich is right in the fundamentals.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYes. And so actually, there's a whole species called the Premature Cassandralator in the taxonomy. Which, Ehrlich is a member of that species And the idea is that Cassandra was actually right. Like the Cassandra Greek myth. Cassandra was right. But if you prematurely Cassandralate then people basically can dismiss anything you say later, right? Or anything anyone else says when they're talking about the same thing.\n\nRob Dietz  \nRight. And that's the problem here with McPherson. People lump him with climate scientists even though he's not one. And when his predictions inevitably are off, they're like, well, now you're all discredited. It's just a big hoax. This isn't something to worry about.\n\nJason Bradford  \nIt's a boy who cried wolf kind of problem. But there are real problems. There are problems with tipping points and feedback loops. And we should be thinking about that and knowing about that. But when he overstates this by such a degree, it leads to dismissal.\n\nAsher Miller  \nWell yeah. And when you think about it, you say, we're all going to die in three years, or in 18 months the planet is going to warm by the equivalent of five degrees C in a short period of time, and that doesn't happen. Then, it's like, well maybe there's no warming happening. Or, if we're not all going to go extinct, that means no one's going to die. I mean, we're obviously facing a situation where there's going to be a huge number of human and more than human lives lost as a result of climate change. \n\nRob Dietz  \nWell, let's look at another side of that. If you're somebody who happens upon McPherson's work and others like him, you can get into this place of disempowerment where you kind of end up saying, \"Oh, I have no agency. There's no point taking action. You get to this fatalist state. And there was a recent article in the Washington Post that talked about this 26-year-old engineer who became a climate doomer from reading that kind of stuff and watching YouTube videos. And there's a quote in there where this engineer says, \"It all compounded and just led me down a very dark path. I became very detached and felt like giving up on everything.\" So I think that's emblematic of the kind of toll on your mental health and on the way it can paralyze you when you fall into this doomerism trap. And we talked about scientists critiquing McPherson's work, there was another guy, Michael Tobis, who is an atmosphere and ocean scientist. And he's done some debunking of some of the work that McPherson did, especially around the feedback loops and stuff. And he has a quote that I think kind of summarizes this really well. Or at least is kind of wondering, what's the point of this sort of fatalistic doomerism, And he says, \"Why McPherson wants to scare the daylights out of people escapes me. It's not clear to me what his motivation is. I doubt he's in the employ of the Koch brothers, but he certainly demoralizes people who might otherwise have been active, so he's not doing us any favors. He may have more cultural affinity with environmentalists than with oil oligarchs, but he's doing them a lot more good than he's doing us.\"\n\nAsher Miller  \nActually, I think this, McPherson is obviously an extreme case, but there's a debate within the climate community really around this issue. Which is, you know, everyone's alarmed, right. But I would say some that are really anticipating the worst outcomes, even if they're not predicting, you know, near term extinction of humans. \n\nJason Bradford  \nRight, but by the end of the century, or whatever. Yeah. \n\nAsher Miller  \nYou know, just really, really significant risks. And maybe they're taking some of the RCP models, the more sort of dire climate models, to heart, and saying that that's what our future is going to be. And others in the community who are also concerned, but what they're worried about is putting out such negative messages about, in a sense, the inevitable warming of the planet in the case of climate, that people are not going to act, right. So there's a lot of, I don't want to call it a circular firing squad, but a lot of consternation and debate happening within the climate space. You know, Michael Mann, who's a well-known climate scientist has been quite outspoken on this. On the side of basically saying, when you put out really dire predictions about the future, it basically is doing more service towards the fossil fuel interests, in fact, than supporting people to take climate action. I don't fully agree with that position at all. In fact, it's something I think it would be worth talking about. But you could see that that is a debate. It's not just on the extreme edges like with McPherson.\n\nJason Bradford  \nRight. Yeah. Okay. So this is something that I also think might happen is that as we go deeper into this unraveling of society, to some extent, like we talk about polycrisis, that more and more people are going to try to find resolution in one extreme or the other. And this is a challenge of where we are right now. Where we sit. It's holding kind of this dissonance of not being sure, and understanding the nuance and the uncertainty. And accepting that we do have some agency. That what we're trying to do is optimize for better outcomes. Maybe not the world that we wished we had, but a world that could be worse if we don't do something, right? So how do you maintain this sort of sense of agency? And there was actually a really recent article in The New York Times by Jerome Roos. Is that how we would say it? \n\nAsher Miller  \nYeah. \n\nJason Bradford  \nR-o-o-s. A fellow at the London School of Economics. And he says, quote, \"Ours is clearly an age of upheaval. Humanity now faces a confluence of challenges unlike any other in its history.\"\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, and the point that he's trying to make around this upheaval is that we need a new perspective to make sense of it. We've got these rapidly shifting conditions, and we need to view it with new eyes. But instead, and this is a quote from the article. He says, \"Instead, we're presented with two familiar but very different visions of the future. A doomsday narrative, which sees apocalypse everywhere, and a progress narrative, which maintains that this is the best of all possible worlds. Both views are equally forceful in their claims and equally misleading in their analysis. The truth is that none of us can really know where things are headed. The crisis of our times has blown the future right open.\" And I think he's really hitting the nail on the head. We talked about this way back, I don't know if it's season one or season two, but it's these two ends of the spectrum. Apocalypse versus infinite progress. Neither one is right. \n\nAsher Miller  \nI think this has been a consistent theme for us, not only in almost all the seasons of the podcasts that we've done, but in the larger work that the we at Post Carbon Institute do, which is trying to help people stay in that space of holding two truths simultaneously in a sense. In this case, there is a climate reckoning that's coming. That's inevitable. There's a reckoning of industrialization and a whole bunch of other issues that we're facing. It's not just climate. But in the case of McPherson, we're talking about near term climate extinction. So there is that. Even if we mobilize and did a tremendous amount of rapid mitigation and other strategies, there's a reckoning baked in the system. And yet, at the same time, it's not at this point runaway. It doesn't lead to us all dying in three years. There is still agency. There's a lot that we could do, whether it's a softer landing, better outcomes, whatever goals you want to put out there. But you have to hold both of those things true at the same time. And I think people tend to revert to the sort of false narrative or simple narratives because it takes them out of that dissonance, right? It takes them out of that place of that angst or feeling like I don't know what to do. I have to face this. There's something I have to do. It\u2019s just easier in a sense. Fatalism and techno-optimism, to me, are almost the same thing. Right? They're the flipped sides of the same coin. And it's interesting too, because in that article, he actually used a word that we've actually adopted as well at Post Carbon Institute, which is talking about living in a liminal space. You know, the liminality, which is a term that is used to represent different things. Sometimes it's used to represent kind of like a coming-of-age moment. It could be you're on a threshold of a change and you're not really sure what is in the next room or the next step forward. It's a moment of a lot of uncertainty and fear, but also a lot of possibility, right? And we know that this system that we built, even if we didn't have a climate crisis that was forcing us to change, has had a huge, tremendous cost on people, on nature, and on other things. It has to change. And there's opportunity in that as well. One of the things I have to say that I'm concerned about, and one of the reasons I wanted to talk about McPherson is that I do think as we get deeper into the teeth of this unraveling of social environmental systems, I think we're going to see more and more people who are going to step forward offering some kind of clarity. And that's what McPherson has been doing. He's been offering people a clarity of basically, we're all gonna die and it's gonna be tomorrow. Other people are offering different forms of clarity. And maybe some of them are based on technology or they're based on something else religious.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah.\n\nAsher Miller  \nThe singu-clarity.\n\nJason Bradford  \nSingularity. Yeah,\n\nRob Dietz  \nI am glad to have this clarity, honestly. Given that we're all going to be dead in 2026 - My daughter wanted to go to the World Cup soccer tournament, which is being held in the U.S. And Mexico in 2026. Well, I don't have to buy her tickets anymore.\n\nJason Bradford  \nAlright. Here we go, folks. The insufferability index. Where does Guy McPherson land? How are you guys feeling about him? Remember, 0 to 10. 10 is really bad. No one has gotten a 10 yet. Zero is awesome. We have no angels on the Phalse Prophets season. \n\nRob Dietz  \nSurprise, surprise.\n\nJason Bradford  \nAlright. We're running through their intentions, you know, from wonderful Mother Teresa type people to evil doers. Personality, quality of ideas. And then you know, scores' bias. \n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, yeah. Let me let me start. But a couple of notes before I actually slap some numbers on the guy - On Guy. First, he's kind of a complex person. He seems to understand that we're in this severe predicament. He understands much of what's going on. But he seems so frickin' susceptible to confirmation bias. It just backs up his outlandish timelines for human extinction. But a cool thing about him is that he lives in an off-grid straw bale house where he practices organic gardening, he raises small animals for eggs and milk, and he works with members that live in his community. \n\nJason Bradford  \nIt's fascinating, yes. \n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, so just take these things into account. Alright? But okay, I say that - I've been so frickin' mad just like going through his stuff. And it must be because that first thing I said, he understands so much and then takes away people's agency. It's so frustrating. \n\nJason Bradford  \nIt is frustrating.\n\nAsher Miller  \nDo you remember the episode that we did on the two oxen were there were basically these animal rights groups who went after this very progressive college because they were not only we're putting these two old oxen down that worked on the farm at the school, but they actually served them.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. They were going to eat them because what's more sustainable - \n\nAsher Miller  \nAnd these guys went after them? I mean, they did denial service on their website. They were like harassing them. They called basically all the meat processors around. It's just, sometimes we get most mad at the ones that are closest to us. It's like a proximity thing.\n\nRob Dietz  \nOkay, so let's put some numbers down. I think his intentions are, I want to say pretty good. So I'm not going to give him a big high score there. Maybe a one or so. Personality? Yeah, I don't know. One to two maybe. And then quality of ideas is where I'll probably ding him the most. So I think he's getting about a five from me. Get a mid-scale. \n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. \n\nRob Dietz  \nEven though I'm angry.\n\nAsher Miller  \nI think we go a little higher. I think I'm gonna give the guy a six.\n\nJason Bradford  \nI think - I mean, this is the thing. How much of this intention is also about the power of being this special person who's the go to guy for near term human extinction? I feel like there's so much ego there actually that it frustrates me. I'm gonna go with -  But he's not, like you're saying . . . I go with a six as well. It's not over the top.\n\nGeorge  Costanza  \nEvery decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.\n\nJason Bradford  \nOkay, let's go about this by instead of saying doing the opposite, let's talk about thinking the opposite first. Okay, so how about avoiding the temptation to exaggerate and making your point all. You know, that sort of thing would be great not to do.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. I hope Guy is listening to this episode. Although, he probably wouldn't have made it to this point. Yeah, another way to think in an opposite way would be to watch out for confirmation bias. Again, you can go back in our catalog. We talked about problems with human behavior and confirmation bias is a big one, where we tend to look for things out there that confirm already deeply held beliefs\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah, cognitive biases. We had a whole episode on that. \n\nRob Dietz  \nAnd part of that gets to kind of what you started talking about earlier, Jason with the Ehrlich Simon bet. It is to avoid overly specific predictions. When you're analyzing especially complex systems, this intersection between the human economy and the climate, you're just not going to get it right. Or if you do, you're probably pretty lucky. Right?\n\nAsher Miller  \nYeah. And then as we talked about earlier, putting yourself in that liminal space of acceptance and agency, right? So it's accepting that we're entering into what we've been calling the great unraveling at Post Carbon Institute. You know, this unraveling of social environmental systems. So accepting that we're facing that. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle. But still feeling that we have agency, which we do. It's interesting that that article in the Washington Post, the young engineer says, quote, \"Stop engaging excessively with negative climate change content online and start engaging in your community. You can be one of those voices showing their support for the solutions.\" Now, we talked about having responses, not solutions because we're faced with a predicament or problem that we can easily solve. But yes. I mean, I think it's easy to get into doom loop stuff, certainly online. So it's important to be aware and to be cognizant of what's going on out there. To understand the science of what we face in the case of climate and other things. But avoid falling into the trap of just scrolling all day long reading bad news. And get out there and connect with people. And part of what I think helps people stay at a place of acceptance and agency is doing it with other people. So not feeling alone with that. I think it\u2019s a really, really key thing. And very important for kind of emotional well being as well.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. Kind of taking it from the realm of thinking to doing, we've got a friend of PCI and advisor, actually, Peter Kalmus. You guys know, the climate scientist, And I've interviewed him twice as bonus episodes of Crazy Town. And he knows the situation is dire. He's scared for the future. He's scared for what kind of planet his children are inheriting. But he also knows that extinction is not tomorrow. And so he's out there taking action, taking real courageous action. He's, remember he chained himself up to the JP Morgan in Los Angeles to protest how much money they're investing into the fossil fuel industry? He's handcuffed himself to the airport terminal for private jets, realizing that this is a luxury that we don't need to be spending fuel on. And so he's out there trying to make a difference, trying to raise awareness, but doing so not by fear mongering, but by protesting that which we can't continue to do.\n\nJason Bradford  \nYeah. So I think taking action, and whatever action that makes sense for you, that is congruent with ecological and pro social values is always great. It's always a positive thing to do. And it's a powerful counter agent to this drumbeat of doomerism. And it's not just hopium, alright.  God, I hate that word. I know. I hate that word too. McPherson doesn't like that word. He calls it hopium. If you do something, quote, unquote, \"hopeful.\" But I don't think he's right about near term extinction. So there are things we can do to create more benign outcomes. And that's what I think we should be working for.\n\nRob Dietz  \nBut do them fast. Within three years\u2019 time.\n\nAsher Miller  \nWell, thanks for listening. If you made it this far, then maybe you actually liked the show.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah. And maybe you even consider yourself a real inhabitant of Crazy Town, someone like us who we affectionately call a Crazy Townie.\n\nJason Bradford  \nIf that's the case, then there's one very simple thing you can do to help us out. Share the podcast, or even just this episode.\n\nAsher Miller  \nYeah. Text three people you know who you think would get a kick out of hearing from us bozos.\n\nRob Dietz  \nOr, if you want to go away old school, then tell them about the podcast face to face.\n\nJason Bradford  \nPlease, for the love of God. If enough people listen to this podcast, maybe one day we can all escape from Crazy Town. We're just asking for three people, a little bit of sharing. We can do this.\n\nJason Bradford\nHow does an ecologically aware human navigate the madness of high energy modernity and survive without going insane? How do you manage painful compromises without provoking crippling anxiety? Well, I'll tell you what I do. I medicate with an enabling dose of \"Ah, Fuck It.\" Just the other day, I had to run into a Costco to fetch a case of diapers for a relative I was visiting. As I approached the store, a paralyzing tension struck, so I took out my bottle of Fast Fuck, inserted it into my nostril, and released the mist. I soon had an out of body experience where I was positioned somewhere beyond the moon's orbit and could see the Earth as just a tiny planet in vast blackness speckled with stars. Diapers purchased in a warehouse of consumer hell became insignificant on the scale of the galaxy and I was able to maintain good relations with my family.\n\nAsher Miller  \nFast Fuck is great for a quick fix, but I understand Long Fuck has been helpful for you, Rob.\n\nRob Dietz  \nYeah, I got invited to be the best man at a destination wedding in Bali. So how was I going to handle not only the knowledge of my flight, but that of the 120 other guests and our extravagant party on the other side of the planet? I needed something long acting, and Long Fuck, which comes in these . . . I can't believe you gave me this copy, Jason. Long Fuck, which comes in an easy to swallow pill form did the trick. Not once did I call out our collective hypocrisy or feel cognitive dissonance. I was attentive and charming, with a carefree and in the moment attitude. The only side effects were mild constipation and acne on my back.\n\nJason Bradford  \nWell, that's great. Rob. I'm glad you had a good time in Bali. \"Ah, Fuck It,\" available in fast and long fuck forms, giving you cosmic perspective and equanimity to live in Crazy Town.\n<\/pre><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet Guy McPherson, the extinction enthusiast who undermines legitimate climate concerns by predicting we\u2019re all going to die yesterday. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3497301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251744,79717,79718,213530,251746,79720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3497300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crazy-town","category-economy","category-environment","category-environment-featured","category-podcasts","category-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3497300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3497301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3497300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3497300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3497300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}