18
embarrassed, and certainly ashamed, before the vague horizon lines of what could
be our own species’ extinction. Whether thinking about any of the relevant verses,
from Micah 4:1–3 to 2 Peter 3:10,
14
or simply judging by the collective bad news—
glaring headlines devolving into hackneyed everyday life—our frenetic worries
track with an ever-increasing human population size, and those desperately plodding conservation gains and even greater losses that have become so many new
norms. With them has arisen a philosophical category of deniers, cynics, peer skepticism, and outright protests erupting over everything but biodiversity loss. These
costly if morally necessary civic distractions have been highlighted by such rounds
of punch and counterpunch as in the case of one esteemed University of Arizona
evolutionary biologist, Guy McPherson. He is noted for coining the phrase “Near
Term Human Extinction,” possibly coming as early as 2030, which has had the
effect, in some, of inciting philosophical havoc and name-calling (“doomist cult
hero,” “fringe characters”) with regard to such ultra-realists in the science community; accused of potentially leading society toward a road of apathy and inaction, an
alleged infraction deemed by the op-ed world to be as grave as many in the US
Republican Party calling climate change a hoax. But at the same time, how dare
optimism, as a general category, be challenged? To question hope has been likened
to a kind of sick heresy, anti-intellectualism, like mounting an uncomfortable
inquiry into carbon offset schemes and their mere alleviation of guilt in sync with
the escalation of corporate greenwashing.
15
Just as the individual is hard-pressed to concede his/her own death, so we, the
collective, prefer to imagine extinction-level events in museums where dinosaur
skeletons are hailed; or Armageddon is tailored for audiences on enormous movie
screens, in epic digital smithereens. Many will put themselves to sleep reading
charming and somehow comforting British countryside murder mysteries. Is it the
murder, murder’s easy surrogacy, the countryside, or some weird combination in the
blood? Indeed, “countryside”—said to occupy 98% of the planet, by human reckoning—has become the very focus of a softened, mellowing ecological interest, the
February 20, 2020, premiere of the (short-lived) Guggenheim Museum in New York
exhibition on countryside
16
which described it as, “the modern conception of leisure, large-scale planning by political forces, climate change, migration, human and
nonhuman ecosystems, market-driven preservation, artificial and organic coexistence, and other forms of radical experimentation that are altering landscapes across
the world” (Fig. 2.2). One can’t help reading into that a distinct, if inevitable,
anthropocentric accommodation, which of course is the point of it all. Of course,
throughout all of that planning and experimentation, there is also murder, murder in
14 See https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Last-Days
15 See Michael E. Mann, ”Doomsday scenarios are as harmful as climate change denial, The
Washington Post, July 12, 2017. For distractions hampering global efforts to accelerate work to
save endangered species, see, “Coronavirus disrupts global fight to save endangered species,” by
Christina Larson, June 6, 2020, Associated Press, https://apnews.com/e3cddd53e453a22158663f0eeb116194, Accessed June 8, 2020.
16 See https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/countryside
2 On the Nature of Paradox
embarrassed, and certainly ashamed, before the vague horizon lines of what could
be our own species’ extinction. Whether thinking about any of the relevant verses,
from Micah 4:1–3 to 2 Peter 3:10,
14
or simply judging by the collective bad news—
glaring headlines devolving into hackneyed everyday life—our frenetic worries
track with an ever-increasing human population size, and those desperately plodding conservation gains and even greater losses that have become so many new
norms. With them has arisen a philosophical category of deniers, cynics, peer skepticism, and outright protests erupting over everything but biodiversity loss. These
costly if morally necessary civic distractions have been highlighted by such rounds
of punch and counterpunch as in the case of one esteemed University of Arizona
evolutionary biologist, Guy McPherson. He is noted for coining the phrase “Near
Term Human Extinction,” possibly coming as early as 2030, which has had the
effect, in some, of inciting philosophical havoc and name-calling (“doomist cult
hero,” “fringe characters”) with regard to such ultra-realists in the science community; accused of potentially leading society toward a road of apathy and inaction, an
alleged infraction deemed by the op-ed world to be as grave as many in the US
Republican Party calling climate change a hoax. But at the same time, how dare
optimism, as a general category, be challenged? To question hope has been likened
to a kind of sick heresy, anti-intellectualism, like mounting an uncomfortable
inquiry into carbon offset schemes and their mere alleviation of guilt in sync with
the escalation of corporate greenwashing.
15
Just as the individual is hard-pressed to concede his/her own death, so we, the
collective, prefer to imagine extinction-level events in museums where dinosaur
skeletons are hailed; or Armageddon is tailored for audiences on enormous movie
screens, in epic digital smithereens. Many will put themselves to sleep reading
charming and somehow comforting British countryside murder mysteries. Is it the
murder, murder’s easy surrogacy, the countryside, or some weird combination in the
blood? Indeed, “countryside”—said to occupy 98% of the planet, by human reckoning—has become the very focus of a softened, mellowing ecological interest, the
February 20, 2020, premiere of the (short-lived) Guggenheim Museum in New York
exhibition on countryside
16
which described it as, “the modern conception of leisure, large-scale planning by political forces, climate change, migration, human and
nonhuman ecosystems, market-driven preservation, artificial and organic coexistence, and other forms of radical experimentation that are altering landscapes across
the world” (Fig. 2.2). One can’t help reading into that a distinct, if inevitable,
anthropocentric accommodation, which of course is the point of it all. Of course,
throughout all of that planning and experimentation, there is also murder, murder in
14 See https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Last-Days
15 See Michael E. Mann, ”Doomsday scenarios are as harmful as climate change denial, The
Washington Post, July 12, 2017. For distractions hampering global efforts to accelerate work to
save endangered species, see, “Coronavirus disrupts global fight to save endangered species,” by
Christina Larson, June 6, 2020, Associated Press, https://apnews.com/e3cddd53e453a22158663f0eeb116194, Accessed June 8, 2020.
16 See https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/countryside
2 On the Nature of Paradox