Categories
-
Recent Posts
- Lab-grown meat is energy intensive – and up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef
- The Biblical Revelations, critical thinking, and how this affects us today
- Why the U.S. is ignoring nuclear winter in nuclear policies & strategies
- Oil choke points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, accidents, & piracy
- Nuclear weapons must be reduced or we risk nuclear winter
- Fusion is already running out of fuel
- Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018
- Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy
- 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
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, 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
Comments Off on The nine boundaries we must not cross or we may go extinct
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
Comments Off on Jellyfish in the news
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
Comments Off on One million plant & animal species at risk of extinction