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Exit, Pursued by a Crab

Posted on 29 August 2017 by Andy Skuce

This is a re-post from Critical Angle

Participating in social media creates a wide and diverse network of acquaintances. Often, these people become “friends”, even though direct personal contact may never made with them. It can be hard to establish traditional friendships without face-to-face encounters. Before the Internet, reading body language, voice inflections and facial expressions was as big a part of communication as speech itself. For many of us who spend a disproportionate amount of time in front of screens, much of our communication has become disembodied. But we still have bodies and, unfortunately, bodies break down.

I never wanted to write this post, but I feel that I owe it to the people I have come to know as online friends. They deserve to know that I’m suffering from a fatal illness. However, I hate the idea of now being treated differently because of this disclosure. I am not fishing for compliments or looking for moral support.

IMG_0811

In 2002, at age 48, I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. I had a prostatectomy, but, despite the entire removal of the gland, there were small amounts of metastatic disease detected in nearby lymph nodes. The cancer had not been cured. Progression of the disease was slowed for many years by intermittent hormone treatment. I experienced no physical symptoms of the disease for twelve years, although the consequences of surgery and hormone treatment were no fun. But life continued and it was good.

As Hemingway remarked about going bankrupt, my cancer progressed gradually at first and then suddenly. About two years ago, my body’s plumbing and scaffolding started to show signs of trouble. More aggressive hormonal drugs were prescribed, which brought me back to good health for a year. Then, as the effectiveness of those drugs failed, chemotherapy beat back the worst symptoms for most of another year. Chemotherapy side-effects can often be managed quite well these days and it is not the horror that many imagine.

You become aware that the treatment options are running out when the oncologists start talking about maximizing quality, rather than quantity, of life. That’s where I am now. My life expectancy has been reduced from years to months. There still may be a few tricks left in my doctors’ books that may help extend my life beyond current expectations, but they are long shots and may not be available.

Reasons to be thankful

I was originally given a median life expectancy of six years. I have lasted fifteen and I’m not done quite yet. The palaeontologist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould wrote an excellent essay on statistics and cancer: The Median Isn’t the Message.  He had an eight-month median life expectation after his diagnosis of mesothelioma, but Gould lasted twenty years and was eventually killed by a different kind of cancer.

Being born as a white, male baby-boomer into a good family in a prosperous country (Britain) and having made some lucky life choices means I’ve been a big winner in the human lottery. I’ve never had to live through a war, never gone hungry, never been abused. My career as an industrial scientist was challenging and rewarding. I even managed to sneak in a little publishable research along the way.

For most of my teenage and adult life I’ve been a keen—if average ability—rock-climber, back-county skier and alpinist. I’ve had several near-misses and the occasional epic outing, but never suffered any serious injury. A careless slip or an avalanche could easily have ended my life early. Only once did a climbing companion of mine need rescuing and hospitalization. He was hit by a falling rock in Bristol’s Avon Gorge. His helmet saved him from lasting injury, we lowered him to the roadside below and he was in an ambulance in minutes. I’ve indulged in many dangerous activities and never paid the price.

Living in Canada means that I have received first-class medical treatment, without once having had to worry about paying for it. I held a high-stress oil-company executive job for a few years before and after my diagnosis. I had an inkling that the long hours would have killed me if I had kept it up. My employer was understanding and eventually laid me off with a generous redundancy package. There wasn’t room in that corporate culture for employees who were not able to give their all.

I quit full-time work in 2005 and moved from Alberta to the beautiful coast of British Columbia. I became a geoscience consultant, setting my own hours and my own pace. Working mostly from home removes the stress of the daily commute, although I did have to make occasional trips to Calgary as well as to the UK, Peru, Argentina, Romania and Russia. Consultants get paid for travel time, employees often have to give up their weekends unpaid. The relationship between client and consultant is usually easier than between boss and employee.

There were no worries about losing health insurance. Had I been an American, I would likely have faced a terrible decision about whether to hang on to my stressful job, or impoverish my dependents by quitting and giving up health coverage.

Canada now permits physician-assisted suicide, so I’m reassured that I won’t have to needlessly endure a protracted death. I’m told that relatively few people follow through with it in practice, but it’s comforting to know that there is an option.

Most importantly, I have had indispensable support from loved ones. Family members can suffer as much or more than the patients. They feel obliged to stay strong and supportive whereas I’m allowed—even expected—to let go emotionally. Perhaps I’m revealing too much detail about myself in this blogpost, but I’m going to respect the privacy of my carers by saying nothing more about them.

There are plenty of younger, better people who have suffered worse diseases. The British physicist Sir David MacKay springs to mind. He died of cancer at age 48—the age at which I was diagnosed fifteen years ago—leaving behind a young family and the potential to add to his already brilliant contributions to the debate on climate solutions. MacKay wrote a detailed and fascinating account of his treatment on his blog, I’m not going to attempt to do that.

Seeing young children in cancer centres and the horror in the faces of their parents, provides a sense of perspective for those of us who face a perhaps untimely death after decades of happy lives.

Nothing more terrible, nothing more true

Philip Larkin, in his masterpiece poem Aubade, expresses the deep fear of death that most of us have felt. An extract:

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, 
not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

He writes later:

…Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Perhaps it’s understandable that a young man like Dylan Thomas (who died at 39) should urge his elders to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”, but older folk might be better advised instead try to find the wisdom to be grateful for a long life, well-lived, and accept the inevitable with as much grace as they can muster.

A recent, brilliantly written piece in the New Yorker by Cory Taylor expresses my current attitude about dying almost exactly.

Lessons learned

Initial reactions to a dire diagnosis vary, but most of us initially suffer denial. People like me who are used to having technical control instinctively try to find out everything we can about the disease. Almost everyone I know who has been given a cancer diagnosis has looked for an unconventional cure at first. They try a drastic change of diet or concoctions of herbal infusions. I did too. But I’ve given up trying to pretend that I can find out anything that the specialists don’t already know. I’ve learned to try to focus on living well and leave the treatment choices to the consensus of the experts.

Many people become uncomfortable around cancer sufferers. There’s a natural tendency to look for reasons for the disease—why them, why not me?—and to resist the notion that in most cases getting cancer is just lousy luck. Humans instinctively  try to find underlying reasons for outcomes. Good health can sometimes be attributed to having lived a virtuous life, with illness blamed on bad lifestyle choices. This can be partly true, of course, but more often than not, shit just happens.

With good intentions, friends will sometimes urge sufferers to adopt a more positive attitude. Certainly, if cancer patients are unduly stressed it may not be helpful for the progression of their disease—perhaps misery depresses immune systems and it certainly makes lives less bearable. But there’s scant evidence that urging sufferers to buck-up and look on the bright side helps outcomes at all. On the contrary, this can place an extra burden on the victims by making them feel they are not doing enough to help themselves. If you know someone with cancer, please put aside any advice and judgment. Just be nice.

Importantly, the family members on the front line of providing care can suffer even greater mental anguish than the patients. Their pain and grief will endure long after the patient has died. Help them, sympathize with them, never tell them they are not doing enough.

The certainty of a premature death focuses the mind. Strangely, at moments of acute stress, one sometimes feels the exhilarating sensation of living in the present moment—experiencing a beautiful, perfect, harmonic world—instant Zen mastery. But it is fleeting. Familiar mental attitudes reassert themselves. At least that’s what happens to me.

But one unexpected change is acquiring a lasting and enhanced appreciation for the humdrum, the everyday stuff of living, rather than the extraordinary experiences that we sometimes think ought to define our lives. As he died of cancer, the singer Warren Zevon advised: “Enjoy every sandwich.” It sounds trite, but it’s true.

Forget about bucket lists. Get used to replacing the thrill of new experiences with the intensity of doing ordinary things for perhaps the last time.

Climate change and me

It may seem a little odd to end this disclosure about my looming demise with a technical commentary on climate change. However, concern about what happens to the planet after my death—whenever that date might be—has been important to me over the past few years. Having the fatal moment moved forward doesn’t change anything.

For the past ten years, I’ve become obsessive about learning and writing about climate change. I’ve done my best to provide my own perspective as an ex-oilman and geoscientist. Most of my contributions are recorded on this blog. I’ve lately found it hard to apply the sustained effort to research and write in-depth pieces that add anything coherent and novel enough to be worth publishing. I would love, for example, to dig deeper into the means and benefits of mitigation technologies and the costs of inaction.

I have become reluctantly pessimistic about our ability to avoid dangerous global change. If the best mitigation efforts are made and we get lucky with climate sensitivity and carbon-cycle feedbacks, we might succeed in limiting surface warming to 2-3°C. If we are mitigation laggards and the response of the Earth System to the abrupt chemical changes we are delivering to the atmosphere turns out to be severe, the consequences could be dire. Even in the best imaginable case, we are in for some nasty, disruptive shocks, unfairly focussed on the poorest people: those who have done the least to cause the problem.

A recent paper by Mora et al. predicts that parts of Brazil, W Africa and SE Asia will experience, by 2100, “deadly” outdoor conditions of heat and humidity for humans for most of the year, even under a middling emissions  scenario like RCP4.5.

The very worst cases—much more than 4° C of average surface warming—may have only low chances of happening. Nevertheless, such outcomes would force such drastic transformations in the world order that conventional economic cost-benefit analysis and discount-rate considerations would no longer apply. When it becomes a matter of survival—war, disease, disaster—money becomes no object. Rates of return on investment and enhancing economic growth take a back seat when the future of civilization itself is threatened. Admittedly, finite resources would still need to be optimally allocated: I wouldn’t argue for throwing the entire discipline of economics out of the window.

Geoengineering as a remedy

I fear that the defining issue of the latter part of the twenty-first century will be the application of geoengineering, particularly albedo modification. The technical uncertainties and political implications are staggering. But it’s likely coming, whether we are ready or not. It’s crazy that policy makers and researchers are giving it so little attention.

We can speculate, of course, that there might be other perils—a horrible pandemic; out-of-control artificial intelligence; an all-out nuclear war; an asteroid; unforeseen consequences of genetic modification—that could prove even more destructive. But anthropogenic climate change is a certainty rather than some remote risk. The temptation to apply a quick fix will one day prove irresistible for those countries that find themselves under acute climatic stress.

I dislike applying both military and disease metaphors to the climate crisis. More often than not, they distort rather than illuminate the true nature of the problem.

Nevertheless, proposed geoengineering remedies for global warming have some parallels with cancer treatments. There’s little doubt that they will reduce the impact of some of the worst symptoms and prolong survival. But some problems, most notably ocean acidification, will remain unaddressed by solar radiation management. Even though average global temperatures can certainly be lowered by feeding reflective particles into the stratosphere—we know this from observations of big volcanic eruptions—regional consequences can’t yet be adequately predicted by climate models.

Cancer treatments affect only the patients. Medical ethics protects them by insisting on first obtaining their informed consent. Albedo geoengineering, in contrast, can be applied unilaterally and inexpensively by any middle-power country, which could well be oblivious to any negative consequences inflicted on its neighbours.

The dosage of the stratospheric sulphate medication will forever have to be maintained. It will have to be increased if we continue to burn fossil fuels. If, for any reason, the albedo meds were suddenly interrupted, the shock to the global climate system would be sudden and truly catastrophic. Global temperatures could shoot up several degrees in a few years: it would be like taking a wrecking ball to our planetary home.

The only “cure” for climate change will be in attempting to restore the stable climate in which human civilization developed. We will have to find a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations back to below 400ppm, perhaps even to 350ppm, as James Hansen and other scientists have recommended. That will be extraordinarily expensive and perhaps not even physically possible.

It will demand sacrifice, investment and restraint from the majority of the world to achieve a positive result that will take decades to manifest itself. It will require not only sucking CO2 out of the air, but a nearly equal and additional amount out of the oceans. Basically, we would have to put back in to the Earth most of the carbon we have taken out of it since the Industrial Revolution. The challenge is made harder because the physical mass of the required carbon disposal is amplified by a factor of more than three: those carbon atoms we dug up and burned are now wedded to two heavier oxygen atoms.

A long-term program of planetary CO2 liposuction, combined with a strict carbon diet, could eventually turn things around. But even with such an attempted cure, there will still be the earthly equivalents of scar tissue, damaged vital organs and lost limbs—coral reefs, ice sheets, precious ecosystems—that may never restore themselves within human timelines. 

Coda

One of the great benefits of my engaging in research and activism on climate change has been making friends with some determined and talented people. They have taught me so much. They will continue the struggle to communicate the nature of the crisis and advocate for solutions. In particular, the volunteers in the Skeptical Science team have been an inspiration. Long may they run.

I’m still keen to continue conversations, especially with people I don’t agree with. There’s so much more to learn. A politically conservative perspective on climate solutions is essential. It’s a tragedy that many right-wingers have ruled themselves out of serious debate, with their idiotic, tribally motivated denial of basic science. To solve this problem we will have to change everything. That will require willing contributions from all of us.

Participating in the struggle against denial of the scientific consensus on climate is something I would dearly like to continue doing, but force majeure dictates some triage of my efforts. I’m no longer going to bicker with those who don’t engage in good faith. Life really is too short.

I’m not gone quite yet and I’ll try to keep doing what I can.

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Comments

Comments 1 to 20:

  1. Dear Andy-

    What a brave and clear-thinking post.  We lost our son 20 years ago to Ewing's sarcoma, and he faced his death at 16 with the same kind of courage, clarity and openness your post demonstrates— something I can only hope I will manage when my own turn comes.  Our grief, and our daughter's, still feels as sharp and overwhelming as it did then, but it recurs less frequently.  Our best wishes and condolences to you and those who love you.  

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  2. Thank you for the post Andy. Words fall short; I would like to express more than what comes to me right now. Best wishes.

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  3. Good for you, Andy.

    I know the feelings, thoughts, moods. I have lung cancer, currently at bay. As a personal note, I totally agree with your recommendations regarding family and close friends. No climate scientist, I prepare and deliver lectures at local churches and libraries (I use my own church to try out new preentations: fellow parishioners are excellent guinea pigs). (They go over amazingly well.)

    So I live until I don't. Which I have been doing all my live, anyhoo.

    Thanks for the cheer you brought me!

    David Collins

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  4. When I took Denial 101 few years back, I thought Andy Skuce lectures therein, to be of unparalleled quality, standing up among other lectures and it's not a cliche assessment. Exemplary one that gave me a wealth of information, even though I was already familiar with rock waethering, Urey reaction, carbon cycle, etc. Here it is:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy9rx19dujU

    a lecture that changes the mind. I suggest others add more of Andy's achievements in climate science in this thread. Let's celebrate Andy's contribution big time: long live Andy and his teachings, well beyond any earthly life!

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    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Changed the link.

  5. Chriskoz, the youtube link you gave [ youtube.com/watch?v=cy9rx19dujU  ] is the correct address, but is somehow not linking.

    Punching it in, independently, delivered me the excellent Skuce video.

     

    Andy Skuce : thank you for your absolutely first class video lecture on volcanic CO2 in relation to man-made CO2.   Informative and brief, summarising the situation. The style smooth and low-key. Impossible to be improved on !!!  Memorably good !

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  6. Look up CBD, it's a cannabinoid, legal in UK, which among other things is an anti-cancer agent. But most doctors haven't a clue, and the pharmaceutical industry wants it kept that way. Available in dropper bottles and capsules of varying doses. Lots of information online. Cure yourslef!

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  7. Andy,

    I just happened on your post while checking on another stream.  It touched me greatly.   We share some similarities in that many years ago I was a petroleum landman with Mobil Oil before returning to university to get my law degree.  Like you, I moved to the West Coast.  We live in West Vancouver.

    Facing death is not something that we like to confront but everyone knows that it is only a matter of time.  But we cannot help but feel robbed when something like this happens.  One of my best friends, Gary Aitken (former VP Land of Canadian Hunter), who you may have known in Calgary, succumbed to lung cancer many years before his time.  I still have trouble dealing with that loss.  It seems so unfair.  But fairness and the natural world do not have much in common.  

    Although I have not really come down on a lot of issues relating to climate change, we need more people like you who selflessly dedicate significant parts of their life to trying to make this world a better place.  That applies to many others who contribute to this website.   I have also watched your video and found it very convincing.  I must admit I cannot believe people could be so naive as to think that volcanoes could be the cause of our massive increases in CO2 concentrations.  Clearly there are some out there.

    I wish you the best in whatever time you have.  If you ever wish to have lunch here in Vancouver, I would be very pleased to meet you.

    Regards

    Norris Morgan

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  8. Andy, thank you for this beautiful piece. It ties so many things together.

    I've long thought that our culture's unhealthy relationship to death contributes far more to the tangled mass of our predicament than most people think. 

    Best wishes to you (and to us all) in your (and our) remaining time on this wonderful planet. We all won the cosmic lottery just to be here, and we all soon go back to that place we came from, the source of all things.

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  9. One very effective measure would be to bring back our soils and bring them up to or beyond the Carbon content they contained before plow agriculture began.  Sound idealistic.  Not a bit of it. 

    The "instruction manual" on how to do it is in the book by David R. Montgomery, Growing a Revolution.  An significant effect would be noticable within 3 years and a huge effect in 6.  Of course this is 3 and 6 years after you first convince farmers to have a go. 

    The critical step on the pathway is to have individual farmers scattered around far and wide that are doing this so that "conventional" chemical farmers can see the results for themselves.  Even this is likely not enough. 

    You have to back down vested interests such as the providers of fertilizers, pesticices, herbicides and fuel and you have to reform the insurance industry in such a way that this sort of farming is encouraged rather then discouraged. 

    Many farmers, using these methods, give up on agricultural insurance all together.  They stop having crop failures.

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  10. Keep up the good work, it's much appreciated.  Two of your posts ('The history of emissions and the Great Acceleration' and 'Modelling the permafrost carbon feedback') contain information I've reposted time and time again.  You have a way of reducing the noise and getting right to the heart of things that I've much appreciated and have reposted on various platforms to pay it forward.  

    But also, of course, kick back a bit.  Thanks to your previous efforts, you don't need, so much, to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". Relaxing a bit, is a comfort reserved to those who've done so well with the light they were given.

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  11. I just want to say thank you for the many kind and thoughtful comments above.

    I'm touched.

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  12. HI, Andy,

    I have always been impressed by your very pertinent posts over the years. I am saddened by your news, and touched by your candid writing. You are right to appreciate what you have and did - my young niece survived Hodgkins Lymphoma, but died in her sleep during what should have been her graduation year.

    I recently came across this Tim MInchin Commencement Address, which is relevant and humourous. You might find you have been living it.

    A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this… but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.

    OCCASIONAL ADDRESS

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  13. Pete @6:

    Look up CBD, it's a cannabinoid, legal in UK, which among other things is an anti-cancer agent. But most doctors haven't a clue, and the pharmaceutical industry wants it kept that way.

    I share your cynicism about Big Pharma's economic incentive, as eradicating a disease outright is far less profitable than continuing to sell treatments or palliatives for it indefinitely. But this has not stopped medical science from eradicating (locally or globally) a number of diseases, such as smallpox and polio. It's been a while since the Black Death wiped out 25% of Europe as well. That's because Big Pharma isn't the only player - lots of other people have incentives to cure any disease that can be cured, starting with the victims, their families, and their advocates. There is also career incentive for a scientific researcher who stands to reap awards, grants, the respect of his or her peers and of the public, and scientific immortality for curing a notable disease. That's on top of the internal motivation of the researcher who is driven to solve problems irrespective of external incentives.

    Consider the vast trade in illegal drugs, which heavy police state action can only dent but not stop. The resources of governments cannot keep the chronic out of the hands of middle-schoolers - and yet Big Pharma can successfully suppress a cure for cancer?

    Then there is medical tourism, in which desperate terminal patients travel to less-regulated countries where they can try any and all long-shot cures. Imagine what would happen if even a fraction of these written-off patients were to return in robust health.

    These factors make it very unlikely that any real cure for cancer could go unnoticed for long. Thus I am skeptical about the endless parade of claimed miracle cures. I'm reminded of the mythical water-fuelled automobile that Big Oil is supposedly conspiring to keep off the market.

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  14. NorrisM @7:

    I must admit I cannot believe people could be so naive as to think that volcanoes could be the cause of our massive increases in CO2 concentrations.

    Change the word "naive" to "motivated" and it makes more sense. Literally everyone around me is heavily committed to the climate-raping lifestyle, indulging routinely in high-emitting activities such as: driving, flying, heating, cooling, lighting, eating meat, owning meat-eating pets, and procreating. If climate science is real and we decide to behave as if it is real, we'll need nearly everyone to drastically curtail those activities and more - with the highest-emitting individuals making the biggest adjustments. The lifestyle adjustments will have to continue until such time as technological progress might provide the goodies without the emissions. In the cases of air travel and meat production, that is unlikely to be within the lifetimes of most people reading this.

    Among the world's highest greenhouse gas emitters (including nearly all native English speakers), you'll find little if any interest in behaving as if climate science is real. Try documenting the carbon footprint of dogs and cats for example, and watch pet users fly into hysterics, or at least fire up the excuse factory. Browse through your list of Facebook friends, and see how many post photos boasting of their climate-raping holiday trips and their selfies from the driver's seats of their climate-destroying automobiles. At least the overt science deniers are behaviorally consistent: they behave the way you would expect people to behave if climate science is a hoax.

    Accordingly, this might mean that if you could persuade a science denier to stop denying science, he or she might be more inclined to respond with real action to slash the greenhouse gas emissions under his or her direct control. He or she might be less prone to the all-too-common liberal circle-squaring whereby climate change can be real and human-caused, yet no individual human is under any obligation to sacrifice any contributing vice.

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  15. Thanks for your interesting comments Andy and best wishes to you. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I found your comments heartening and valuable.

    Just for general interest, immunotherapy is showing some very serious promise, I think regarding blood cancers but new trials are no doubt planned for other things. It's sometimes possible to become part of a trial.

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  16. All the best in whatever years you have remaining, Andy. I'll be sharing your post on Facebook for my own benefit, and for the benefit of friends and family (my wife is being treated in her mid-30s for metastatic colon cancer; we are cautiously optimistic as things stand, but there is of course always the potential for things to go wrong).

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  17. Thank you, Mr Skuce, for all that you have done. May every one of your remaining days bring joy to you and your loved ones.
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  18. Many thanks for your post and for all the work you have done and continue to do.  May it give the rest of us (me) inspiration and courage to fight the good fight while we can.

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  19. My post is too late to speak to Andy, but I want to say anyway how much I appreciated watching and listening to him on video talking about climate change along with its social context & problems. My best wishes to those closest to him.

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  20. Andy,

    I suppose I have delayed posting simply due to the subject cutting a bit too close for comfort. I just lost my Dad this year after a decades long struggle with congestive heart failure. But I wanted to show my appreciation for all you have done in the fight to educate and mitigate AGW.

    Indeed we don't agree often. I don't see us needing to sacrifice to mitigate AGW. The opposite in fact. We are spending billions making sure it does happen...foolishly. Your comments on Geoengineering seem crazy to me. Completely ignoring that 1 we are geoengineering now, and 2 the LCP works because the fossil carbon has to oxygen attached, not in spite of it. Though we disagree on a few thing I still count you as an important ally though, especially your vids.

    Keep up the good work.

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