As I've said over and over again, I am a determinist. My views of the human prospect are based primarily my understanding and confirming observations of how humans work—we're a species, so what you see is what you get—and, secondarily, on all the science which tells us that humans are gradually and systematically destroying the Earth's biosphere. There is some uncertainty, but the science is rigorous and the trends are clear.
In a recent post called The Argument From Ignorance, I laid out those views again in the context of the publication of Elizabeth Kolbert's new book The Sixth Extinction.
I was too polite to say it in that post, but I'm saying it now—it is always the ignorant who make the argument from ignorance. I was prompted to issue this challenge by a post called Birds Of A Feather by Michael Tobis.
Tobis took some time to criticize the delusional doomer Guy McPherson and the delusional optimist Bjorn Lomborg. Tobis himself seems to be a garden-variety techno-optimist who naively believes all humans can work together to solve the global-scale environment problems they have created. Kumbaya!
In The Argument From Ignorance, I said this:
Determinism makes a mockery of activism.
Tobis argues as follows.
In the end, perfect optimism [Lomborg] and perfect pessimism [McPherson] are equally debilitating. They deny the possibility of human agency in our future. They not only both do damage, there are ways in which the damage they do is very similar.
Each provides a convenient set of excuses for inaction, with an extra added bonus of self-righteousness thrown in.
This, as Shrek said to the donkey, is the opposite of helping.
I do indeed deny the possibility of that humans will eventually solve their big environmental problems because it is "human agency" that's the ultimate cause of those problems.
That said, my determinism is not an excuse for inaction, nor was it ever intended to be.
On the contrary, I would like to be proven wrong. In order for that to happen, humans are going to have to show me that I am wrong. In order for that to happen, humans are going to have to take concerted action on a massive scale to avoid 1) dangerous climate change; 2) wholesale destruction of marine ecosystems; and 3) a mass extinction comparable to the Big Five which occurred in the Phanerozoic Eon (the last 543 million years).
In proving me wrong, humans will save themselves and millions of other species as well. Therefore—
Humans! — Take The Dave Cohen Challenge!
Show that unrepentent son-of-a-bitch Cohen that he's got it all wrong!
And in so doing, humans will be doing themselves a big favor by creating a viable, living world for their descendants. It's a win-win!
And I don't want to hear any excuses about how you humans just can't get your shit together right now, maybe you'll do it later blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... This is Dave Cohen you're talking to. Don't imagine for a second you can jerk me around.
Now just show me.
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