Cognitive Dissonance and Outright Lies at the Edge of Extinction

In recent weeks and months I have been amazed at the general public and most scientists ability to ignore the blatant evidence that we are in early stage, non-linear runaway warming. From individual activists, to the donation soaked and addicted corporate NGO’s, who are literally dependent on “Business as Usual” to maintain their cash flows, they ignore the elephant in the room, squandering vital time to prepare for the already unfolding collapse.
On an individual basis the decision to deny the severity of the situation is up to each persons conscience and/or courage to accept the predicament we find ourselves in but when it comes to research universities and their tenured scientists, governments and the large NGO’s it’s a ‘Dereliction of Duty’ for them not to be ‘completely frank’. That for me is abject dishonesty, especially toward the youth. I’ve previously singled out Dr Michael E Mann, the corporate media’s ‘Go To Mann’, for this dishonesty.

Below I will lay out just a few examples showing that we are in the runaway phase of this extinction event.
This fire season alone, “Australia’s wildfires have destroyed more than a fifth of the country’s forests, making the blazes “globally unprecedented” following a years-long drought linked to climate change, researchers said Monday.” Bushfires burned a fifth of Australia’s forest: Bushfires burned a fifth of Australia’s forest: study   Remember this is not an El Nino year, the next El Nino, if we have one, will be brutal and will put this event on steroids. The double feedback from these fires is that the forests were formerly carbon sinks so that has been lost and all the carbon that has ben released will accentuate the predicament.

In August last year Professor Guy McPherson and I re-interviewed Dr Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University regarding an article he wrote titled:Beyond Climate Tipping Points: Greenhouse Gas Levels Exceed the Stability Limit of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets

“The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon emissions rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton CO₂ per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO₂–equivalent, namely when methane and nitric oxide are included. This level surpasses the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The term “climate change“ is thus no longer appropriate, since what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean system, accelerating over the last 70 years or so, is an abrupt calamity on a geological dimension threatening nature and civilization. Ignoring what the science says, the powers-that-be are presiding over the sixth mass extinction of species, including humanity.”
Links to the article and our interview with the exceptionally honest Dr Glikson can be found embedded below; Tipping Points in the Earth Climate System. Dr Andrew Glikson returns to Nature Bats Last

We are on the cusp of witnessing a sea ice free arctic ocean. The consequences of the albedo feedback loop and other side effects of the loss of sea ice like loss of habitat for algae, krill, sea lions, sea birds and polar bears. “Losing the remaining Arctic sea ice and its ability to reflect incoming solar energy back to space would be equivalent to adding one trillion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, on top of the 2.4 trillion tons emitted since the Industrial Age, according to current and former researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.”

“At current rates, this roughly equates to 25 years of global CO2 emissions.For further reference see: ”Cascading Consequences of the Loss of Arctic Sea Ice

My cohost on Nature Bats Last recently commented on this aspect of the unraveling titled: “Edge of Extinction: Scientists don’t know why !!

“To believe that our species can avoid extinction, even as non-human vertebrates and non-human mammals disappear, is classic human hubris wrapped in a warm blanket of myth-based human supremacy. The evidence indicates humans will join the annihilation of “all life on earth,” as reported in the journal literature on 13 November 2018. Even tardigrades, the go-to survivor for those who deny the impacts of abrupt climate change on life, are unlikely to survive, according to a paper in the 9 January 2020 issue of Scientific Reports. If the organisms on which we depend do not survive, if even tardigrades do not survive, then humans will not survive.” Quoted from this article published by Counterpunch titled: Extinction Foretold, Extinction Ignored.

On next weeks episode of Nature Bats Last Professor McPherson and I will be interviewing  George Tsakraklides on his recent article titled “Collapse means Collapse.”the interview can be found at the NBL archive shortly after the live broadcast on The Progressive Radio Network.
‘People believe what they want to believe. It is a striking-yet all too familiar-fact about human beings that our belief-forming processes can be so distorted by fears, desires, and prejudices that an otherwise sensible person may sincerely uphold a false claim about the world despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When we describe someone as being “in denial,” we mean that he or she is personally threatened by some set of facts and consequently fails to assess the situation properly according to the evidence, instead arguing and interpreting evidence in light of a pre-established conclusion.’
— From the ‘cover notes’ of Adrian Bardon’s book, THE TRUTH ABOUT DENIAL

As I have written before: The New Climate Denial Position is to deny Abrupt Climate Change. 

About Kevin Hester

I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.