Okay, that's it. I've finally cracked: I'm buying some camo pants, boots, a flak jacket and a crossbow and I'm heading bush. I've decided to become a doomsday prepper.
That means buying a lot of canned beans and learning how to get lunch by jumping out of a tree, knife between teeth, onto a passing feral pig. Armageddon me some end-of-days bacon.
If you can't beat them...
It is difficult to admit I've been so horribly wrong. For most of my adult life I've championed critical thinking, scoffing at all manner of nutters who believe in anti-science stuff, like astrology, homeopathy, ghosts, auras, crystals, spirits guides, psychics, dead Aunty Joan starting clocks – I could go on.
But now I want to join in. I hope they'll have me.
We've been warned. Apparently.
Your average doomsday prepper believes the end of the world is, well, nigh. Apparently a "great tribulation" is on the way, a seven-year period where god pours his wrath on the wicked in a world-wide apocalypse of hardship, natural disaster, famine, war, pain and suffering which will wipe out more than 75 per cent of life on the planet.
There's going to be plagues of locusts the size of horses, blood in the air, sulphur in the oceans. It's going to be so bad people will want rocks to fall on them, apparently. The Bible advises men will "seek death but will not find it." Good grief!
Normally, the boils and pestilence and horsemen and harlots and Antichrists and 666s and things duly noted in the Bible's Book of Revelation wouldn't bother me.
Science says
But now scientists are joining in and it's got me rattled. Professor Michael Mann, bitter enemy of the climate change deniers and Professor at Penn State University, lectured to a sell-out crowd in Sydney last week.
Basically, he says, Donald Trump isn't just responsible for the world's dumbest tweets, he could also be responsible for the end of the world.
And his reasoning is sound
True lies
Trump panders to a conservative voter base and is regularly lobbied by fossil fuel companies. His strategy of calling real facts "fake", of calling global warming a "hoax", his threats to pull out of the Paris accord on climate change, his very engagement in the debate, is slowing intelligent discussion on real, urgent topics, like renewable energy and carbon pricing.
Simply, he's confusing people and they don't know what to believe.
And we just don't have time for it. The time for international co-operation is right now, yet walls are being built. Trump is busy creating an environment where one-third of Americans didn't believe in global warming caused by human activity.
A new dark age
The four years of the Trump anti-science Presidency will significantly interfere with the urgent, co-operative international efforts to find a solution.
Australia's Chief Scientist, Alan Finkell, recently railed against the Trump administration, comparing it to Stalin's regime. Let's be clear. Data collected and analysed by the Environmental Protection Authority must now be reviewed by a political appointee (IE: Trump stooge) before it can before it can be published on the EPA website or elsewhere. That's what Stalin did too, setting Russia's scientific progress back by decades.
It's so urgent that just four years of Trumpiness could make it impossible to meet critical targets. The chance to stop it will be gone, our future slipping through our fingers as we were distracted by something weird and orange.
Twitter wars
Think about it. The moment to save the world could be lost because Trump is too busy getting mad at Alec Baldwin on TV. That would be funny if it wasn't true.
Science tells us the West Antarctic ice sheet – very close to us – is close to collapse. If it goes, sea levels will rise by metres. That's metres! Think what that will do to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost. It'll be like the end of the world.
But I'll be fine because me and my bearded mates will be up a tree.
What are you going to do? Tell us in the comments section below.
With more than 25 years in Australian media, Phil Barker has edited NW and Woman's Day magazines, and published such titles as Vogue, GQ, Delicious, InsideOut and Donna Hay. He is owner of a creative events and activations agency and is a regular commentator on the life and style of Australian men.
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