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Recent Posts
- Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
- Book review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
- The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy
- Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
- What percent of Americans are rational?
- Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath
- Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
- Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
- Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”
- Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips
- What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months?
- Where to be? Links to Superfund, hazardous waste and other toxic sites in U.S.
- Why methanol cannot replace petroleum in shipping
- Why is everyone afraid of AI taking over? It makes stuff up!
- Do you want to eat, drink, or fly?
Category Archives: Extinction
The nine boundaries we must not cross or we may go extinct
Preface. This post has excerpts from the famous paper by Rockström et al (2009) as well as a more recent proposal by Running (2012) on an easier measure of how close we’re coming to rendering the planet uninhabitable. The media … Continue reading
Posted in Acidification, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Extinction, Peak Oil, Planetary Boundaries, Pollution, Sea Level Rise, Water, World's Best Scientists
Tagged atmospheric aerosol loading, biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, biological diversity, boundaries, chemical pollution, climate change, Earth, extinction, global freshwater use, global warming, IPCC, land system change, ocean acidification, ozone hole, peak oil, phosphorus cycle, stratospheric ozone, sustainability
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Jellyfish in the news
Preface. As we overfish, eutrophy and acidify the ocean with fertilizer and pesticides we risk a tipping point where jellyfish dominate the oceans and fish are scarce. Related: Why and how Jellyfish are taking over the world Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com … Continue reading
Posted in BioInvasion, Extinction, Jellyfish
Tagged Bioinvasion, jellyfish, slime
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Freshwater fish under threat of extinction
Preface. A third of freshwater fish are under threat from pollution, over fishing, dams, non-native species, climate change, disruption of river ecology and more. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When … Continue reading
Not enough fossil fuels left to trigger another mass extinction
Preface. Since both conventional and unconventional oil peaked in 2018, we clearly won’t be burning fossils at exponentially increasing rates until 2400 as the IPCC expected. Quite the opposite, currently the decline rate of oil is 8% a year, which … Continue reading
We’ve wiped out two-thirds of wildlife in just 50 years
Last updated 2022-4-28 Preface. Human over-consumption is driving extinction far more than climate change. Humans began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. Brain expansion in early hominins predicts … Continue reading
Scientists’ warning to humanity on insect extinctions
Preface. Below are excerpts from two articles on why the extinction of insects could lead to our own extinction, not to mention all the other species on earth. Though if peak oil did happen in 2018 (citations chapter 2 of … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Extinction, Scientists Warnings to Humanity
Tagged extinction, insects
4 Comments
Nuclear winter could kill 2 to 5 billion people
Preface. Carl Sagan introduced the idea of a “nuclear winter”, which helped to end the cold war. The smoke from fires started by bombs would absorb so much sun the earth wold grow cold, dry, and dark, killing plants on … Continue reading
Posted in Extinction, Farming & Ranching, Fisheries, Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter
Tagged 1 billion deaths, agriculture, fishery, nuclear, nuclear winter, ozone loss, UV radiation, war
1 Comment
Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?
The idea that we can go to Mars is touted by NASA, Elon Musk, and so many others that this dream seems just around the corner. If we destroy our planet with climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, aquifer … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Extinction, Far Out, Hopium, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged biosphere, colonize, Earth, Mars, radiation, space, terraform
11 Comments
World’s Oceans are losing Oxygen rapidly
Preface. Yikes, add deoxygenization to your list of worries. Oxygen levels in the world’s oceans declined by roughly 2% from 1960 and 2010. The decline was largely due to climate change, though other human activities such as nutrient runoff from … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Extinction, Mass Extinction, Planetary Boundaries
Tagged climate change, deoxygenation, phytoplankton
7 Comments
One million plant & animal species at risk of extinction
As usual, no mention of birth control or carrying capacity. Related: 2019-9 Huge decline in songbirds linked to common insecticide (neo nicotinoids). National Geographic. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Extinction
Tagged biodiversity, extinction
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