The Worst Case Scenario

FIFTY? Fifty self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms are now active? University of Arizona professor emeritus, natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology, Guy McPherson no longer pursues pure science, environmental research. He can't. He's too busy digesting the mountains of research pouring in from other scientists and connecting the dots.

There's really no nice way to put this.  McPherson has now logged 50 self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms underway.  That's another way of saying "runaway global warming."  At the time of the interview below, back in March, he'd only identified 39.  Apparently eleven more have turned up since then.

In Dr. McPherson's assessment, we're screwed, it's done, over.  He believes it will claim the lives of most of us alive today.  Here it is, the Worst Case Scenario:



For several years I've been following the major feedback mechanisms at work today - the melting seabed methane clathrates, the tundra fires, the thawing permafrost, the vanishing Arctic sea ice, the retreat of glaciers and the astonishingly rapid acceleration in the melting of the Greenland ice cap.

We may have flipped the switch on these feedback loops but they're progressing on their own now and we have no idea how to make them stop much less turn the clock back.  If the YouTube video wasn't convincing, you might read this July 7th article from Esquire.

Ah, forget all that 'doom and gloom'  Look on the bright side.  Aussie PM Tony Abbott is doubling down on his country's coal exports.  Tony knows it's "the very foundation of prosperity."  So there, Cobber, turn that frown upside down.