I have to give credit to Guy R. McPherson. He has provided me with a real change of pace from the kind of advice and observation I was getting when I was growing up.
You probably have to be of a "certain age" to remember this, but a popular song when I was growing up was titled, "Home On The Range." That song was, in fact, one of my father's favorite songs. It featured the following, rather optimistic, first verse:
Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
Look at that picture, above, provided by Mr. McPherson. He is "updating" that song. Can't you just see those deer and antelope bounding around on those great plains? Can't you just marvel at those massive and magnificent herds of buffalo, grazing peacefully in that landscape above?
The illustration at the top comes from a December 6, 2024, posting by Mr. McPherson in his "Nature Bats Last" Substack blog (you can also access it in the form of a video). Here is the "discouraging word" that Mr. McPherson provides readers, to accompany the picture he has provided:
The current Mass Extinction Event is the most severe in planetary history. It will almost certainly cause the extinction of all life on Earth. Its cause is well-known: the collective actions of too many humans for too long a time, primarily through burning fossil fuels (emphasis added).
Allow me to provide you with my personal reaction to the McPherson view of the world in which we are living today. First, I am very much convinced of the reality of "Global Warming." Second (as my father taught me), I will never stipulate to "inevitability."
McPherson is absolutely correct that our "world," our "civilization," the physical, economic, social, and political arrangements now prevailing, are ultimately dependent on the "World of Nature." I'll agree with McPherson that "Nature Bats Last." In fact, though, my thought is that by trying to prove that "WE Bat Last," we are taking the exactly wrong approach to our current situation.
Maybe we're "doomed," which I think must be Mr. McPherson's favorite word. We certainly are if we don't pay attention to the signals that "Nature" is sending us.
However, we could pay attention to those signals, and we could then "change our way of thinking," as Mr. Dylan advises. If we were to do that, we might end up surviving, but changing our "way of thinking" is just step one. After that, we need to change what we are "doing," too, based on what our thoughts are then telling us!
If we could pull that off (and I haven't given up), the deer, and the antelope, and the buffalo might still be with us. The world wouldn't be on fire, and there would still be some clear-sky days.
So, how about we give it a try? Let's pay attention to the portents, provided by Mr. McPherson, and to the possibilities, with the advice provided by Mr. Dylan:
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools
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