Thawing permafrost is crossing several tipping points

William P. Hall on February 3, 2022

An EOS article published today puts exclamation marks around yesterday’s post: “Thawing permafrost in the Arctic warns we are probably crossing several critical tipping points on the road to runaway warming and near-term human extinction“. “The increasing incidence of wildfire …

Improve your health and double your climate dividend by eating less mammalian meat

William P. Hall on January 12, 2022

Animal-based foods have higher carbon and land footprints than their plant-based alternatives, and are most commonly consumed in high-income countries. The study, published in Nature Food, investigates how the global food system would change if 54 high-income countries were to shift to a more plant-based diet. If this land were all allowed to revert to its natural state, it would capture almost 100bn tonnes of carbon – equal to 14 years of global agricultural emissions – the authors note. They add that this level of carbon capture “could potentially fulfill high-income countries’ CO2 removal obligations needed to limit warming to 1.5C under equality sharing principles”.

Global warming means urban wildfires are after you

William P. Hall on January 10, 2022

Amongst many other growing perils resulting from global warming, as long as we allow our only Earth to go on warming urban firestorms will become more frequent, fiercer, and deadlier. Many of Australia's close packed and leafy suburbs would also be susceptible to this kind of urban firestorm.