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(March 2023 update)

@petergleick Someone on NextDoor (neighborhood social media site in the US, which most people use for lost pets and home repair recommendations) posted a video by some crackpot "geomythologist" featured on Joe Rogan's podcast that PROVES climate change is a hoax because arrgle barrrgle reasons and ... so I thought I'd Google the guy and here he is. Can you make your graphics a little, um, sexier? Maybe throw a pyramid or two in there? Cuz this is what we're up against.
@Litzz11 The best way to deal with these Nextdoor weird posts is (IMO) to either ignore them; or mock them. This one is pretty obviously kooky.
@petergleick @Litzz11 Yes, we need at least one wizard beard in all climatological graphs 🧙‍♂️✨🌏

@petergleick

Some/most are completely fine with that.

Here is the view of the largest party in the European Parliament:

https://respublicae.eu/@EPPGroup/110011747493171506

EPP Group (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image We welcome that more and more Socialist and Liberal governments are now joining our opposition to the ban on cars with a #combustionengine. We now call on EU Member States to do the same! Read Jens Gieseke MEP’s view: https://epp.group/mzealq #FitFor55 🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/EPPGroup/status/1634962717521104897

Mastodon
@sebastien_garnier @petergleick wow they chose an image that looks like something out of a dystopian sci fi film.

Also, 'e-fuels are being championed by Germany’s Free Democratic Party, which controls’ the country’s transport ministry under the three-party ruling coalition, seeing it as a way of shielding the country’s powerful car industry from the wrenching change of switching to electric cars.'

https://www.politico.eu/article/electric-vehicle-germany-europe-climate-change-standoff-brussels-2035/

Germany pitches e-fuel fix in car engine standoff with Brussels

Berlin wants to avoid the spat overshadowing next week’s summit of EU leaders.

POLITICO

And, 'The SPD does not support a government-determined end date for ICEs - chancellor [then] candidate Olaf Scholz said in a recent interview that consumers would opt for EVs once they achieved price and quality parity.’

In terms of price economics, that point is now in sight.

Still, challenges remain for EU and Member States to enable the phase out of ICE's by 2035 and the massive roll out now of new e-vehicles and related facilities.

@petergleick

When the volcanic eruptions in the Siberian Traps occurred it triggered the Permian Extinction.

Over 80% of marine species went extinct. Over 70% of land species went extinct.

CO2 levels today are climbing to those levels.

The oil industry is funding fascism because they possess the best climate forecasters and know what's coming.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps#:~:text=The%20eruptions%20continued%20for%20roughly,event%20in%20the%20geologic%20record.

Siberian Traps - Wikipedia

@Npars01 @petergleick

Oh, not only, they knew: https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/109732299947236010

The only thing no-one knows absolutely nothing about regarding its climate impact are the #microplastics in the sky:

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/03/14/Microplastics-Sky-Climate-Change/

Microplastics Are in the Sky. Could They Change Our Climate? | The Tyee

They seed clouds and affect the air we breathe. It’s time to pay attention.

The Tyee

@HistoPol @petergleick

We may not have firm evidence of the consequences of environmental microplastics, but we do have ample evidence of the catastrophic effects of atmospheric particulates.

They trigger famines, little ice ages, and the end of civilizations.

Not one great empire survived unscathed from the volcanic activities of 536 AD. Roman. Chinese. Ganges. Sassanid

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter#:~:text=to%20rise%20sharply.-,1883,Record%20snowfalls%20were%20recorded%20worldwide.

https://eos.org/articles/how-modern-emissions-compare-to-ancient-extinction-level-events

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/50/6/650/612995/Five-million-years-of-high-atmospheric-CO2-in-the

Volcanic winter of 536 - Wikipedia

@Npars01 @petergleick

I completely agree with your summary.

However, not being an environmental scientist and they stating that at this point cannot determine the direction in which this is going, I don't dare to contradict:

"But whether they would warm, or cool, the Earth is unknown...
These plastics are incredibly long lived. They’re breaking down, and they’re going to be forming new microplastics for centuries. We just don’t know how big the problem is that we’ve...

@Npars01 @petergleick

... committed ourselves to.”

What really gives me headaches:

"👉The murk of #anthropogenic #aerosols in the sky has, overall, had a dramatic cooling effect since the #IndustrialRevolution (without them, *global warming would be 30 to 50 per cent greater than it is today*)👈. And they have more sway on extreme weather than greenhouse gases do: 👉a world warmed by removing aerosols would have more floods and droughts, for example, than a world warmed👈 the same...

@Npars01 @petergleick

"...amount by CO2."

So, in fact, without the offsetting effect of aerosols, we could already be competing with #Dune to be the new habitat for #sandworms.

If airborne microplastics were to solve our #GlobalWarming problems in the same way, this would just be an irony of fate, undeservedly so, I must say. ;)

Source: https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/03/14/Microplastics-Sky-Climate-Change/

Microplastics Are in the Sky. Could They Change Our Climate? | The Tyee

They seed clouds and affect the air we breathe. It’s time to pay attention.

The Tyee

@HistoPol @petergleick

I tend to distrust most speculative narratives about technological interventions in climate change.

Adding occluding microparticulates to the atmosphere isn't a likely viable option.

The best resolution to climate change is an accelerated transition to renewables and accelerated fusion research.

The globe is being deliberately hooked on an oil addiction by despots.

@Npars01 @petergleick

Ah, I know technological progress has gotten us into this #ClimateCrisis and I know that tech has failed us time and again (and I am not talking about bluescreens;)), but I am, at heart, an optimist having read too much scify in when I was younger.
I really do get your point.

In this context, however, I was not talking about a consciously developed remedy, but a side effect, as with aerosols. If that sentence is true, then we are SO lucky,..

@Npars01 @petergleick
2/

...b/c otherwise we'd be very close to a Dune climate in most places.

Some months back, I posted a longer thread on the #BorgSite about a meta study of climate change. I like the resulting scenario technique b/c
a) it got Royal Dutch Shell very successfully out of the 1970's oil crisis and
b) you get an excellent feeling about the data as a whole (as "Data..." is your cup of tea, you will know what I am talking about)...

@Npars01 @petergleick

3/

...Anyway, without any major, scalable breakthrough (or beneficial side effect as with aerosols), we are so thoroughly screwed.

I agree with your suggested solutions 100%. However, they will not be enough to avoid the breakdown of civilization in some regions due to climate-induced mass migrations of whole nations.

In the past, all major civilizations failed to adjust to mega-draughts:...

@Npars01 @petergleick

4/

...
"the first one started some 5,000 years ago when the unification of Upper and #LowerEgypt occurred and the Uruk Kingdom in modern Iraq collapsed.

The second event, some 3,000 years ago, took place in the eastern Mediterranean and is associated with the fall of the #Ugarit Kingdom and famines in the #Babylonian and #Syrian Kingdoms."

Back then, there were not many people on the planet.

I think, green energy by itself will not solve our problems...

@Npars01 @petergleick

6/7

...I do think, though, that we have part of the solution in the area of another agricultural revolution: a combination of the nascent tech of agrivoltaics and the ancient Waru Waru technique (see my pinned thread). Other than that, we need gigantic cisterns, if we cannot use aquifers, as in many regions in California.

Apart from that, we need to consume a lot less meat and we will have to build cities under the sea and greatly expand ocean farming...

@Npars01 @petergleick

7/7

...
This list is not complete, though.

Source: (and I know I did not quote the fall of the Old Kingdom in Egypt for lack of space here)

https://phys.org/news/2012-08-climate-drought-lessons-ancient-egypt.html

Climate and drought lessons from ancient Egypt

Ancient pollen and charcoal preserved in deeply buried sediments in Egypt's Nile Delta document the region's ancient droughts and fires, including a huge drought 4,200 years ago associated with the demise of Egypt's Old Kingdom, the era known as the pyramid-building time.

Phys.org

@HistoPol @petergleick

"Unintended consequences".

There are a number of false narratives about technological interventions for climate change. Microplastics likely worsen environmental degradation & climate change.

As the oceans warm & acidify, it's more likely that the production of greenhouse gases will accelerate.

The polar oceans contain vast amounts of frozen methane at risk of melting.

As limestone & other sediments are exposed to atmospheric & marine acids, it releases more CO2.

@petergleick so we go from dotted graph to drawn in graph?
@petergleick Can someone ELI5 how they measured the levels from before the emergence of homo sapiens? Is there a way of measuring this from the rocks?
@fathermucker Antarctic ice cores, and othe proxy methods
@petergleick #gaia is broken!
Thanks Homo hubris, sub sp. deathwishia occidentalis
@petergleick is this graph available with only the last 10 or 25 k of years? Or 2k? Thank you.
@petergleick some recent papers said there may have been homo sapiens back to the last 500 000 years, not just 200 000.
but yeah. GHG is fuking rising since a very short time because of human emitting activities, that is unprecedented.

@petergleick I’m slightly confused. Is this CO2 ppm, or average shareholder dividend growth?

#NotEvenFunny