Complex Life Threatened
The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its life forms—including humanity—is so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well informed experts.
Read MoreJan 23, 2021 | Earthlings
The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its life forms—including humanity—is so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well informed experts.
Read MoreJan 13, 2021 | Earth
The Alliance of World Scientists (13,700 strong) delivered a biting report, not mincing words: “Scientists now find that catastrophic climate change could render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable consequent to continued high emissions, self-reinforcing climate feedback loops and looming tipping points.”
Read MoreDec 29, 2020 | Human Society
Written by Robert Hunziker Global warming is the biggest challenge of all time. It impacts every...
Read MoreDec 17, 2020 | Earth
The Arctic’s most prolific scientist, Peter Waldhams, tells us that “the story of methane really is a story of a very serious definitive threat to our future existence on this planet.”
Read MoreNov 22, 2020 | Personal
According to Dr. Carter, we’re facing “the most rapid extinction Earth has ever experienced.” But there are solutions: “The most effective, definitively effective, immediately effective, readily doable action that everybody in the world can do is Go Vegan. In theory, we can all do that. If we do that, emissions drop immediately.”
Read MoreNov 7, 2020 | Earth
A notable satellite-telephonic call to colleagues in late October from Swedish scientist Örjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University briefly described a haunting discovery: “This East Siberian slope methane hydrate system has been perturbed and the process will be ongoing.”
Read MoreOct 31, 2020 | Earth
A perverse endlessness overhangs Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima Daiichi (2011), earmarking these nuclear power meltdowns as the worst industrial accidents in human history. Yet, with 440 operating nuclear plants worldwide, and 50 new plants under construction, there are plans to build a few hundred more.
Read MoreOct 21, 2020 | Earth
Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost. By all appearances, it is melting well beyond natural background rates, in fact, substantially!
Read MoreOct 3, 2020 | Earth
Right before the eyes of the world, the most legendary rainforest on the planet is going up in smoke.
Read MoreOct 2, 2020 | Earthlings
Global warming is ravaging forests throughout the world.
Read MoreAug 26, 2020 | Earth
Greenland’s ice is melting at an accelerating rate, which has alarming implications for human society as we know it.
Read MoreAug 13, 2020 | Earth
NASA satellite images of fires in eastern Siberia depict an inferno of monstrous proportions, nothing in modern history compares. And, as of July, it’s intensifying. Should people be concerned? Answer: Yes, and double yes.
Read MoreAug 8, 2020 | Earth
Massive uncontrolled unprecedented wildfires are consuming portions of the Amazon rainforest and several regions of the Arctic. Somebody somewhere must be asking why all of a sudden in unison, all over creation, two of the planet’s largest ecosystems are going up in smoke.
Read MoreJul 26, 2020 | Earth
It’s no surprise that first prize for exceeding 2°C above baseline goes to the Arctic with permafrost that covers 25% of the Northern Hemisphere.
Read MoreJul 18, 2020 | Earth
The sky is falling is one of the more disturbing thoughts in society today, as to whether climate change is on a fast track collision course with doomsday amidst a collapsing society.
Read MoreJul 17, 2020 | Earth
A new study reveals details about climate change inertia, a sobering study that speaks to the absolute necessity of herculean efforts to stop emissions, full stop, now, not tomorrow
Read MoreJun 30, 2020 | Human Society
Clearly, too much heat has already overwhelmed the Arctic and Amazon rainforest ecosystems. Along the way, greenie frustration is finally coming to a head as environmentalists “cat fight” in open public.
Read MoreJun 26, 2020 | Earth
Over the past 20 years, like clockwork, severe droughts have hit the Amazon every five years with regularity 2005, 2010, 2015. Of course, droughts have hit the Amazon rainforest throughout paleoclimate history, but this time it’s different. The frequency and severity is off the charts.
Read MoreJun 23, 2020 | Human Society
Never before this year 2020 has the world-famous Doomsday Clock registered only “100 seconds-to-midnight.” According to the Science & Security Board, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, since WWII, the world has never been so perilous.
Read MoreMay 23, 2020 | Earth
Earth at 10°C above pre-industrial is unimaginable. It’s a deadly horrifying thought, but as shall be explained herein, it should not be dismissed out of hand.
Read MoreMay 13, 2020 | Earth
The human body has limits. If “temperature plus humidity” is high enough, even a healthy person seated in the shade with plentiful water to drink will suffer severely or likely die. It’s the Wet-Bulb Temperature (TW) effect.
Read MoreMay 3, 2020 | Human Society
Stop cutting down trees for biomass… STOP WOODY BIOMASS! That should be a bumper sticker on every vehicle in America and around the world as easy-to-read bumper stickers are more effective than many forms of advertising.
Read MoreApr 25, 2020 | Human Society
Celebrating 50 years of Earth Day, Michael Moore, executive producer and the director Jeff Gibbs re-released their daunting and alarming documentary about the heart and soul of America’s Green Movement in a compelling film: Planet of the Humans (2019).
Read MoreApr 16, 2020 | Earth
Abrupt ecosystem collapse is similar to coronavirus in some aspects but dreadfully different and much more sinister in many others.
Read MoreMar 19, 2020 | Earth
A recent landmark study of massive ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland fulfills the “worst case” prognosis, as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It’s a nightmare come true, as the impact of global warming on the planet’s most significant/biggest masses of ice multiplied six-fold in only 30 years. It wasn’t supposed to happen so unexpectedly, so suddenly.
Read MoreMar 9, 2020 | Human Society
In Feb 2020, the Trump administration signed a regulation to remove America’s water resources from federal protection. “This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen,” according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Read MoreMar 8, 2020 | Earth
The year 2019 is the 43rd consecutive year since 1977 with both land and ocean temperatures above the global 20th century average. And the global rate of global warming has doubled since 1977, an ominous and clear signal of accelerating global warming. Frankly, it’s horrible news. Brace yourself!
Read MoreFeb 15, 2020 | Earth
This month, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro proposed a new bill promoting mining, expanded agriculture, and energy production on indigenous lands in the Amazon. During Bolsonaro’s first full year in office, Amazon deforestation increased by 85%, an eye-popping number expected to get even worse.
Read MoreFeb 5, 2020 | Human Society
The Big Heat is a treasure trove built upon blood, sweat, and tears, compiling years of hard work and astute research to help people better understand a bastardized psycho-socio-politico-economic system, i.e. neoliberalism,
Read MoreJan 27, 2020 | Earth
Thwaites, in West Antarctica, is the world’s most dangerous glacier. As of January 15th, scientists have labeled it: “A Climate Time Bomb.”
Read MoreJan 23, 2020 | Earth
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) has the biggest potential to trigger runaway global warming because of sizeable subsea methane deposits, thereby taking civilization down to its knees.
Read MoreJan 11, 2020 | Earth
Throughout the world, mega droughts are hitting hard with a ferocity not seen in decades and in some cases not seen in centuries. It’s not merely coincidental that as global warming accelerates droughts turn more vicious than ever before.
Read MoreJan 6, 2020 | Human Society
There’s a problem with America’s favorite statistic: GDP. It avoids pretty much everything that’s actually, truly, really good for society, including the importance of robust ecology. Still, it’s the biggest measure of what’s happening with the economy and used around the world, even though horribly flawed.
Read MoreDec 25, 2019 | Earth
The Amazon rainforest is a crucial life-support ecosystem–without it, civilization would cease to exist beyond scattered tribes, here and there. But recent research concludes that the life of this beacon of biodiversity and resilience may soon come to an end: “The tipping point is here, it is now.”
Read MoreDec 20, 2019 | Earth
The world is on a colossal fossil fuel growth phase in the face of stark warnings from scientists that emissions must decline to net zero. Otherwise, the planet is destined to turn into a hothouse. As things stand today, it appears “Hothouse” is baking into the cake.
Read MoreDec 8, 2019 | Earth
For tens of thousands of years the Arctic’s carbon sink has been a powerful dynamic in functionality of the Earth System. However, that all-important functionality has been crippled and could be permanently severed. According to new research, the “entire Arctic” now emits more carbon than it absorbs, a fact that can only be described as worse than bad news.
Read MoreNov 28, 2019 | Human Society
China’s failure to kick a long-standing addiction to coal has thrown a knockout punch to the Paris Agreement of 2015, including its 195 signatories. Suddenly, out of the blue, the world has turned upside down!
Read MoreNov 21, 2019 | Human Society
Massive, continuous demonstrations in the streets around the world bespeak a universal threat that neoliberalism’s self-immolation will grow worse and worse if it continues its horribly stale rotted emphasis on globalization and austerity of social programs as the answers for progress. It’s backfiring.
Read MoreNov 16, 2019 | Human Society
Written by Robert Hunziker Climate change is a nagging issue for many people because it is so big,...
Read MoreNov 10, 2019 | Earth
The planet is coming apart at the seams right before the eyes of scientists at work in remote fringe areas of the North where permafrost crumbles and collapses. It’s abrupt climate change at work in real time, but the governing leaders of the world either don’t care or don’t know.
Read MoreOct 26, 2019 | Human Society
Extinction Rebellion (“XR”) has hit the world stage like a flash of light with participants in more than 70 countries all within one year’s time. Its allure is simply “telling the truth” about the climate crisis… for a change. A breath of fresh air in a world filled with deceit and lies by people in positions of power.
Read MoreOct 17, 2019 | Human Society
Written by Robert Hunziker Extinction Rebellion, XR est. October 31, 2018, has become a powerful...
Read MoreOct 12, 2019 | Earth
Global warming is on speed, especially in northern latitudes where an international team of scientists recently made a startling discovery aboard the Academic Mstislav Keldysh (see photo above), the kind of discovery that sends chills down the spine, i.e., “methane bubbles boiling in water.”
Read MoreOct 6, 2019 | Earth
The October episode of Nature Bats Last featured a discussion between NBL co-hosts Professor Guy McPherson, Kevin Hester and US independent journalist Robert Hunziker.
Read MoreSep 19, 2019 | Human Society
Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which experienced three massive meltdowns in 2011, is running out of room to store radioactive water. No surprise! But now, what to do about phosphorescent water?
Read MoreSep 9, 2019 | Human Society
The climate crisis is turning average law-abiding people into raging law-breaking eco rebels, by boatloads. Extinction Rebellion (ER) is at the forefront, demanding that governments declare climate emergencies and take urgent action.
Read MoreSep 5, 2019 | Earth
The oceans are “crying for mercy,” a fact that is starkly revealed in a telling 900-page draft of a forthcoming UN report due for release September 25th. T
Read MoreAug 25, 2019 | Earth
Because prominent scientists addressed the issue of a 4°C planet and because climate scientists, in general, are constantly apologizing for being too conservative, too timid in their forecasts, it is a worthwhile exercise to look at a 4°C world. It could happen within current lifetimes.
Read MoreAug 14, 2019 | Earth
Sea level has been stable, at current levels, throughout recorded history for 5,000 years. That’s about to change.
Read MoreAug 7, 2019 | Earth
Greenland is one of the biggest targets for global warming, in part, because it’s so big it’s hard to miss. And sure enough, only recently crazy halting weather with inordinate hot temperature hit Greenland bull’s-eye, dead-on with one helluva meltdown. That’s bad news for pretty much everybody on the planet.
Read MoreJul 30, 2019 | Earth
Crumbling permafrost is an extraordinarily dangerous situation that, over time, can lead to deadly RGW (runaway global warming) and subsequent burn-off of mid-latitude agriculture and massive food shortages among other calamities. But, not to worry, there’s a political answer: Alaska’s governor, taking field notes from “Donald Trump’s Tips on Handling Climate Change” proposes: Defund it! Kill it! Hide it!
Read MoreJul 15, 2019 | Human Society
Julian Cribb’s ‘Food or War’ is an important book: “The world faces the greatest threat to global food supply in all of human history… There has never been a situation faced by the entire human population at one time to compare with today’s.”
Read MoreJun 27, 2019 | Earth, Human Society
James Lovelock theorized Gaia while working for NASA in the 1960s when he was hired to determine if there was “life on Mars.” Gaia may be older but James Lovelock, Mr. Gaia himself, turns 100 on his upcoming birthday, July 26th.
Read MoreJun 24, 2019 | Earth
It’s postulated that Runaway Global Warming, which could wipe out huge swaths of civilized society, starts in the North, where few people live. Egad! They’re already seeing it.
Read MoreJun 22, 2019 | Earth
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) hosts massive quantities of methane (“CH4”) in frozen subsea permafrost in extremely shallow waters, enough CH4 to transform the “global warming” cycle into a “life-ending” cycle. As absurd as it sounds, it is not inconceivable.
Read MoreJun 11, 2019 | Earth
Permafrost has an image of permanence and slow/gradual change, “the sloth of the north.” But, that slothful image is now out-of-date. Global warming has changed the equation. Nowadays, permafrost disintegration is officially hot news.
Read MoreJun 2, 2019 | Earth
But on May 22nd 2019, the same Science News magazine that broke the good news and celebrated “A Shrinking Ozone Hole in 2012” newest headline reads: “Emissions of a Banned Ozone-Destroying Chemical Have Been Traced to China.” It appears that our ozone problems are not over yet.
Read MoreMay 22, 2019 | Earth, Human Society
A recent article in Arctic News on the outlook for global warming foresees a frightening scenario lurking right around the corner. Hopefully, the article’s premise of impending runaway global warming (“RGW”) is off the mark, by a lot. More to the point, off by really a lot in order to temper the sting expected when abrupt temperature increases hit hard, as projected in the article, which is entitled: “Greenhouse Gas Levels Keep Accelerating.” Oh, BTW… the worst-case scenario happens within one decade!
Read MoreMay 16, 2019 | Human Society
Venezuela’s ubiquitous Communes are proof that direct democracy works. And, interestingly enough, those same Communes are powerful buffers to attempted coups, protecting the sanctity of direct democracy in their country.
Read MoreMay 11, 2019 | Earth
Rachel Carson’s famous and brilliant book Silent Spring (1962), which single-handedly ignited the environmental movement, has never been more relevant than it is today. A mimeo of Silent Spring is scheduled for publication by the UN, as the most comprehensive study of life on the planet ever undertaken, an 1,800-page study by the world’s leading scientists that spells out in detail the results of a massive study of the world’s ecosystems. The conclusion: Nature is in “steep decline.”
Read MoreMay 10, 2019 | Earth, Human Society
America’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo christened the Arctic meltdown: “A wonderful economic opportunity for international trade.” The silver lining within Pompeo’s pomposity is the inescapable conclusion that the world needs a wakeup call, a kick in the shins, or a hard knock on the head that an ice-free Arctic could be absolutely devastating. So far, the world community doesn’t seem to take the risks seriously, as CO2 emissions are ready/set for all-time records in 2019.
Read MoreMay 1, 2019 | Earthlings
Bavarians will implement a sweeping set of conservation measures, including: (1) Setting aside 13% of state land in special ecological zones, inclusive of ecosystem infrastructure of hedgerows, meadows, and wetlands (2) Organic agriculture must be practiced in 1/3 of Bavarian farmland, as well as cutting out fertilizers on all state-owned farms to reduce nitrogen pollution (3) Protection of wetlands, waterways, and threatened insect populations by eliminating insecticides as much as possible.
Read MoreApr 19, 2019 | Earth, Earthlings, Human Society
Sometime in the near future it is highly probable that the Arctic will no longer have sea ice, meaning zero ice for the first time in eons, aka: the Blue Ocean Event.Surely, the world is not prepared for the consequences of such an historic event, which likely turns the world topsy-turvy, negatively impacting agriculture with gonzo weather patterns, thus forcing people to either starve or fight. But, the problem may be even bigger than shortages of food.
Read MoreApr 13, 2019 | Earthlings, Human Society
According to the World Health Organization: “The world is facing an antibiotic apocalypse.” There are multiple causes behind antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with their extensive use in animal farming being chief among these.
Read MoreApr 3, 2019 | Earth, Earthlings
The most sensitive areas to global warming, (1) the Arctic (almost all of its multi-year ice, or old ice, is gone- already melted), and (2) East Antarctica, the coldest spot in the planet… strangely melting, and (3) Siberian ground that “no longer freezes in winter” are three occurrences that should keep world leaders up late into the night, blankly staring at the ceiling.
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