Climate Science

The authors of this book have very little to say about the Anthropocene, the crisis of the Earth System, or the new global epoch, and most of what they do say is misleading or wrong.

I submitted my review of Anthropocene or Capitalocene?” to International Socialist Review in July, but publication was unavoidably delayed until now. These are some thoughts I had after I submitted my manuscript. There’s a link to my review at the end.

Introduction to a critique

Meanwhile, new research discovers soil may not be trapping carbon as fast as we hoped

The planet could pass the critical 1.5°C global temperature threshold in a decade—and is already two-thirds of the way to hit that warming limit, climate scientists warned on Thursday.

Sept 16, 2016 - Another U.S. scientific study has confirmed that methane emissions from oil and gas activity are increasing more rapidly than previously estimated, and that these increases were happening at the same time that the North American shale gas boom and related fracking frenzy took off.

The U.S. is expected to reach a major carbon emissions milestone this year: For the first time, carbon dioxide emissions from burning natural gas in the U.S. are set to surpass those from burning coal — the globe’s chief climate polluter.

Emissions from burning natural gas are expected to be 10 percent greater than those from coal in 2016, as electric companies rely more on power plants that run on natural gas than those that run on coal, according to U.S. Department of Energy data.

Key conclusion of Anthropocene Working Group report to Geological Congress: the "Great Acceleration" in the second half of the 20th century marked the end of the Holocene and the beginning of a new geological epoch.

The evidence is overwhelming: earth entered a new geological epoch in about 1950.  In an official report to the International Geological Congress, the Anthropocene Working Group made that case, and proposed to move towards official adoption in the next 2-3 years.

Aug 3, 2016 - NASA researchers have helped produce the first map showing what parts of the bottom of the massive Greenland Ice Sheet are thawed – key information in better predicting how the ice sheet will react to a warming climate.