I’m assuming that’s some kind of logarithm scale and not plain linear? I would imagine hockey stick rate growth somewhere around 1950 or so, which makes the graph even scarier.
Anyway, I’ll be unsubscribing because I only want good news forced into my eyeballs, clockwork orange style.
To be fair, a linear extrapolation of 50kyr is unlikely to be accurate. There could have been temperature spikes that led to extinctions. But I expect the geologic record didn’t preserve that level of granularity.
The graph clearly shows an increase of less than .2 degrees during the mass extinction. The red line is at 1.4 already, and we're all still alive! Something else caused the mass extinction! Temperature changes are fine!
No, I'm not being serious. But this would be my interpretation if I was a dishonest sleazebag like Rogan and had 15 million gullible halfwits following me.
Thanks for the graph. Are you implying that the end-Permian extinction was driven primarily by warming? The most comprehensive thing I've read on this was "When Life Nearly Died" by Michael J. Benton (2003). He cites Paul Wignall's extinction model, which seems to put more emphasis on acid rain and anoxia, with periods of both cooling and warming, which certainly didn't help.
Likewise, current extinctions seem to be more caused by habitat loss and invasive species than by temperature.
I don't want to rain on your "good news" parade regarding renewables for electric generation, but I do want to speak for the poor of the world. 600 million people in Africa currently lack access to electricity, and use wood or dung for cooking, which is the primary source of air pollution deaths in the world, killing millions yearly. To solve this problem, the International Energy Agency sponsors the Sustainable Africa Scenario, which focuses only on renewable energy sources. Because of this, many aid organizations and financial institutions refuse to finance fossil-fuel electric generation, leaving children to die rather than contribute a few more thousandths of a degree of warming. This is the bad news side of your good news.
Also on the bad news side, the Europeans' single-minded focus on renewables and achieving net zero is depressing the standard of living for Europeans and sucking up most discretionary resources, leaving NATO countries unable to contribute enough for their own security, let alone assist Ukraine in resisting Russia.
"I don't want to rain on your "good news" parade regarding renewables for electric generation..."
Oh, yes you do.
"I do want to speak for the poor of the world..."
Now, there's a grandiose claim.
"...many aid organizations and financial institutions refuse to finance fossil-fuel electric generation, leaving children to die rather than contribute a few more thousandths of a degree of warming..."
Citation needed, other than to a site named "CO2balance". You realize that global warming is driven by the aggregate of small anthropogenic contributions, don't you? And that as the globe warms, it does so by thousandths of degrees?
"...the Europeans' single-minded focus on renewables and achieving net zero is depressing the standard of living for Europeans and sucking up most discretionary resources..."
Citation needed. Not that achieving net zero isn't a worthwhile goal, the alternative being open-ended warming, bringing with it open-ended grief and expense (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07219-0).
And so forth... let's see what kind of unsupported BS Brian comes up with next. He's a tar baby: avoid getting stuck!
Our fossil fuel emissions are only part of the rise in atmospheric CO2. The failure of the terrestrial carbon sink in 2023 + 2024 has resulted in an additional 10GT of CO2 going into the atmosphere in each of the last two years. If the sinks continue to fail then Katy bar the door . The boreal forests and peat beds are drying and burning, the Amazon is burning and these fires count in atmospheric CO2 accumulations we are witnessing and frankly they are a sign of how an uncontrolled feedback will negate any small gains of renewable electricity. We are tanked.
Actually, there has been a significant greening trend worldwide due to recent increases in CO2. Please note that more CO2 is outgassed by the land and sea with increasing temperature.
Yes, as the oceans warm, CO2 is less soluble in the water, and begins to outgas at the surface, in equilibrium with the adjacent air. OTOH, the additional CO2 added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, that's responsible for global warming, is dissolving back into the water. The net transfer is into the oceans, where CO2 is slowly accumulating, reducing seawater pH while mixing into the depths. Meanwhile, carbon-isotope ratios show that the additional 140 ppm of atmospheric CO2 since 1850 is entirely from fossil carbon.
Heh. When I ran my reply through ChatGPT, it said:
"Exactly ✅ That’s a solid summary of the ocean–atmosphere carbon exchange and why the fossil fuel fingerprint is undeniable."
Yes there has been greening because the sinks have managed to keep up with sources, so far ,but the fires and drying have recently overwhelmed the greening.
In 2023 and 2024 the terrestrial sinks collapsed. Yes it was partly El Niño but the rebound expected for La Niña may also be failing.
The fun fact is, it doesn't matter if we believe it's getting hotter or whether CO2 is the cause, or whether humans are causing it (all true, by the way), physics and climate don't care what puny humans know or believe. It will come.
Authors: apparently my "debate" with Tuco's Child was moderated out. I suppose it was too confrontational, or else just too tedious. I'm glad to know there are limits! I'll self-moderate here also.
Firstly, there is no such thing as "renewables". That is a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. Panels and turbines are a terribly inefficient way to generate electricity.
Secondly, 400 ppm CO2 cannot warm the atmosphere or "hold heat in" due to it's weak far infrared 15 micron wavelength emission, nor it's kinetic energy (Boltzmann).
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that heat moves from hot to cold, so 400 ppm of weak CO2 energy (photonic or mostly kinetic) derived from Earth's radiation cannot heat already warmer gas molecules in the atmosphere (N2,O2).
101 physics and chemistry easily disproves CO2 myth.
The climate has always changed. We just showed up recently.
Is someone paying you to post motivated pernicious nonsense? Here's how ChatGPT responds, in short, punchy, social-media mode with sources. That's all the effort needed to decisively rebut your claims. The answers are familiar to anyone well-informed about the physics of climate change. ChatGPT will give longer, more detailed answers on request.
ChatGPT:
"Here’s how a short, scientific, fact-based reply with sources at the bottom would look for social media:
"CO₂ does affect climate.
"- Solar & wind don’t violate thermodynamics—they convert natural energy flows, like waterwheels.
"- CO₂ absorbs infrared radiation (15 μm band) and slows heat loss to space, confirmed by satellite data.
"- Today’s warming is ~10× faster than natural cycles, with fossil fuel carbon isotopes clearly identified.
"Sources: NASA (2019), IPCC AR6 (2021), NOAA (2022)"
I have a pre-woke PhD in chemistry, and thus do not depend on AI.
I only ascribe to the most basic 101 Law's of Physics and Thermodynamics. The Kinetic Theory of Gases is also useful. Old timers like Planck, Boltzmann, and Gibbs you may wish to become familiar with. Grab an old textbook and read.
"I only ascribe to the most basic 101 Law's [sic] of Physics and Thermodynamics."
There's your problem right there. Science has learned a lot about the radiative physics of the atmosphere that you're apparently unaware of.
"Old timers like Planck, Boltzmann, and Gibbs you may wish to become familiar with. Grab an old textbook and read."
Having spent two years of the pre-woke early 1980s in a doctoral program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology before finding an easier way to make a living, I assure you I'm familiar with the "old timers". Hell, I'm an old-timer myself 8^D! Trust me, Biology and the Earth Sciences are built on those basic physical principles.
I'm guessing you, OTOH, haven't read much about the 200 years of advancing climate science since Fourier, none of it "woke". The best recommendation I can make is Spencer R. Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming", published by the American Institute of Physics (https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm). There's a printed book last revised in 2008, and it's also maintained dynamically online. The AIP is the parent body for a number of scientific professional societies, including the American Physical Society, American Astronomical Society, and American Meteorological Society. Dr. Weart had a research career in Physics, but later worked for the AIP as a Historian of Science. You can brag about your own pre-woke Chemistry PhD all you want, but you wouldn't last 5 minutes in a room with this guy. Woke, my ass.
I have no illusions that I can change your mind, TC, so I write with the hypothetical uncommitted lurker in mind. No doubt less clearly and at greater length than I wish, but FWIW:
My scientific training was long, but now long ago. I don't do assigned homework anymore. Thankfully, I don't need to do the math, because I've got smart, trained, disciplined people at my fingertips to do it for me. They're professional scientists. I once planned to be their peer, before deciding I didn't want to work that hard for a living. That's why I'm happy to let this peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.9b02488) answer your challenge. It's not my job!
A basic principle of science I learned early, however, is that facts are the basis of theory, not the other way around. In his book, Weart details key empirical discoveries in a chronology of climate science since Fourier's time. The fact of the CO2 "greenhouse" (yes, it's a poor metaphor) effect was conclusively demonstrated in 1856 by Eunice Foote, and again in 1861 by John Tyndall, in front of large audiences. By the 1890s, Svante Arrhenius understood that IR interception by water vapor was strictly a feedback to CO2 forcing. Much more has been learned subsequently. You've got some catching up to do.
I, for one, recognize science as a transnational, transgenerational collective enterprise, for building a body of intersubjectively verifiable, self-correcting, globally accessible knowledge across the centuries [call me Mr. Adjectives and Adverbs -MA]. It can't make progress without peer consensus: Newton, Gibbs, Arrhenius, and Keeling, all stood on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them. Feynman said, "the first rule is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool". Anyone telling you "consensus isn't science" is either fooling themselves, or trying to fool you! As a comprehensive non-expert, in any dispute between you and the expert consensus, my money is on them. Occam's Razor, you know.
Of course, if you really think you've overturned the near-complete consensus of rigorously trained, mutually disciplined, published peer climate scientists, you can write it up and submit it for presentation at the next AGU meeting (https://www.agu.org/annual-meeting). If you're humble enough, you'll accept your reviewers' collective judgement. If not, you're just another tragic victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Love this graph! Do y'all mind if I use it in my upcoming book, "Your Guide to Climate Action"? It would fit perfectly in Chapter 1. Please let me know!
Let's see. 1.4°C warming in 174 years is 0.008 C/year.
So assuming nothing unusual happens, we'll reach the dreaded 10°C extinction number in 8.6° / 0.008°C per year … 25 plus 75, carry the one, and we have …
… the year 3100 AD. A mere 1,075 years from now.
Yep. Everyone panic. Let's destroy our economy out of raw fear of the year 3100 AD.
And hey, there's nothing wrong with extrapolating a linear trend over a thousand years into the future. I'm reminded of Mark Twain, who famously said:
"The Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago... Its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present.
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and 'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past... what an opportunity is here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue from!
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year.
Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
My best to all,
w.
PS—Comparing modern changes to paleo changes is generally not done for a host of reasons. If you don't know what they are, perhaps you shouldn't do it … anyhow, here are the issues involved:
Comparing the speed of modern temperature change to rates inferred from paleo temperature proxies over 250 million years is problematic due to several key scientific reasons:
1. Proxy Uncertainties and Limitations
Proxy methods have large uncertainties: Paleotemperature proxies (e.g., tree rings, ice cores, marine sediments) have typical uncertainties ranging from ±1.2°C to ±3°C depending on method and environment, and the median uncertainty across all proxies and seasons is roughly ±1.7°C. This is much higher than the uncertainty in the modern instrumental record (usually less than ±0.1°C over annual to decadal scales).
Chronological resolution is coarse: Proxy records spanning 250 million years generally have time resolution no finer than thousands to tens of thousands of years. In contrast, the modern instrumental record resolves temperature at monthly, annual, and decadal scales, allowing for precise quantification of change rates. Chronological uncertainty for proxy records can be several centuries to millennia for these deep time records.
2. Temporal Averaging Masks Rapid Events
Ancient proxies smooth rapid changes: Data for ancient climates are averaged over far longer intervals. Sudden temperature changes (over years or centuries) are blurred or lost in proxies that average over thousands or millions of years. This means proxy-derived change rates will systematically underestimate the real speed of past rapid shifts.
Extreme events may be undetectable: For example, sharp shifts similar to today’s warming (mostly measured over decades) would not appear as such in marine sediment cores or isotope records with thousand-year time steps.
3. Calibration and Signal Weakness
Proxy-to-temperature relationships are statistical, not direct: The correlation between proxies and local temperature is often weak or highly variable, with some proxy types explaining little of the annual (much less decadal) variation in actual temperature. Many proxies are sensitive to confounding environmental factors beyond temperature (e.g., precipitation, local ecology, ocean chemistry).
Instrumental calibration is lacking for deep time: Calibration of proxies is generally grounded on conditions present in the recent past, but the ecological and environmental background of proxies 250 million years ago is very different (e.g., continental positions, solar output, atmospheric composition).
4. Spatial Coverage and Bias
Sampling network is often incomplete and biased: Ancient records disproportionately sample particular regions (e.g., Northern Hemisphere, marine environments), while modern instruments sample globally. This bias can distort patterns and rates inferred from proxies, further complicating comparisons.
5. Differences in Underlying Drivers
Forcings differ profoundly across eras: Rates of change reflect different climate forcings (e.g., volcanism, asteroid impacts, tectonics, greenhouse gases) which are fundamentally unlike the present anthropogenic CO₂ rise. Paleo changes may involve slower or more gradual mechanisms than today’s rapid emissions-driven change.
In summary
Instrumental records (last 150 years) provide precise, high-resolution temperature change rates averaged over years to decades.
Paleo proxies (hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago) have much coarser temporal and spatial resolution, very large uncertainties, and smoothing that prevents detection of rapid events.
Therefore, it is scientifically inappropriate to directly compare the “speed” of temperature change derived from modern instrumental records to that inferred from paleo proxies, especially across such vastly different timescales and contexts.
These cautionary reasons do not mean paleoclimate research is uninformative—rather, they reinforce care in making statements about “unprecedented” modern change rates using ancient proxy data.
That is a good graph. One of the goodest.
I’m assuming that’s some kind of logarithm scale and not plain linear? I would imagine hockey stick rate growth somewhere around 1950 or so, which makes the graph even scarier.
Anyway, I’ll be unsubscribing because I only want good news forced into my eyeballs, clockwork orange style.
To be fair, a linear extrapolation of 50kyr is unlikely to be accurate. There could have been temperature spikes that led to extinctions. But I expect the geologic record didn’t preserve that level of granularity.
The graph clearly shows an increase of less than .2 degrees during the mass extinction. The red line is at 1.4 already, and we're all still alive! Something else caused the mass extinction! Temperature changes are fine!
No, I'm not being serious. But this would be my interpretation if I was a dishonest sleazebag like Rogan and had 15 million gullible halfwits following me.
Thanks for the graph. Are you implying that the end-Permian extinction was driven primarily by warming? The most comprehensive thing I've read on this was "When Life Nearly Died" by Michael J. Benton (2003). He cites Paul Wignall's extinction model, which seems to put more emphasis on acid rain and anoxia, with periods of both cooling and warming, which certainly didn't help.
Likewise, current extinctions seem to be more caused by habitat loss and invasive species than by temperature.
I don't want to rain on your "good news" parade regarding renewables for electric generation, but I do want to speak for the poor of the world. 600 million people in Africa currently lack access to electricity, and use wood or dung for cooking, which is the primary source of air pollution deaths in the world, killing millions yearly. To solve this problem, the International Energy Agency sponsors the Sustainable Africa Scenario, which focuses only on renewable energy sources. Because of this, many aid organizations and financial institutions refuse to finance fossil-fuel electric generation, leaving children to die rather than contribute a few more thousandths of a degree of warming. This is the bad news side of your good news.
Also on the bad news side, the Europeans' single-minded focus on renewables and achieving net zero is depressing the standard of living for Europeans and sucking up most discretionary resources, leaving NATO countries unable to contribute enough for their own security, let alone assist Ukraine in resisting Russia.
"I don't want to rain on your "good news" parade regarding renewables for electric generation..."
Oh, yes you do.
"I do want to speak for the poor of the world..."
Now, there's a grandiose claim.
"...many aid organizations and financial institutions refuse to finance fossil-fuel electric generation, leaving children to die rather than contribute a few more thousandths of a degree of warming..."
Citation needed, other than to a site named "CO2balance". You realize that global warming is driven by the aggregate of small anthropogenic contributions, don't you? And that as the globe warms, it does so by thousandths of degrees?
"...the Europeans' single-minded focus on renewables and achieving net zero is depressing the standard of living for Europeans and sucking up most discretionary resources..."
Citation needed. Not that achieving net zero isn't a worthwhile goal, the alternative being open-ended warming, bringing with it open-ended grief and expense (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07219-0).
And so forth... let's see what kind of unsupported BS Brian comes up with next. He's a tar baby: avoid getting stuck!
Rogan's analysis of data. Priceless.
"Analysis"
Ftfy
Our fossil fuel emissions are only part of the rise in atmospheric CO2. The failure of the terrestrial carbon sink in 2023 + 2024 has resulted in an additional 10GT of CO2 going into the atmosphere in each of the last two years. If the sinks continue to fail then Katy bar the door . The boreal forests and peat beds are drying and burning, the Amazon is burning and these fires count in atmospheric CO2 accumulations we are witnessing and frankly they are a sign of how an uncontrolled feedback will negate any small gains of renewable electricity. We are tanked.
Actually, there has been a significant greening trend worldwide due to recent increases in CO2. Please note that more CO2 is outgassed by the land and sea with increasing temperature.
This is from my own hand, not an AI:
Yes, as the oceans warm, CO2 is less soluble in the water, and begins to outgas at the surface, in equilibrium with the adjacent air. OTOH, the additional CO2 added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, that's responsible for global warming, is dissolving back into the water. The net transfer is into the oceans, where CO2 is slowly accumulating, reducing seawater pH while mixing into the depths. Meanwhile, carbon-isotope ratios show that the additional 140 ppm of atmospheric CO2 since 1850 is entirely from fossil carbon.
Heh. When I ran my reply through ChatGPT, it said:
"Exactly ✅ That’s a solid summary of the ocean–atmosphere carbon exchange and why the fossil fuel fingerprint is undeniable."
Yes there has been greening because the sinks have managed to keep up with sources, so far ,but the fires and drying have recently overwhelmed the greening.
In 2023 and 2024 the terrestrial sinks collapsed. Yes it was partly El Niño but the rebound expected for La Niña may also be failing.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl2201
The fun fact is, it doesn't matter if we believe it's getting hotter or whether CO2 is the cause, or whether humans are causing it (all true, by the way), physics and climate don't care what puny humans know or believe. It will come.
Nice. On a side note, I wrote about why renewables can’t save us here https://open.substack.com/pub/gnug315/p/our-planet-sized-gordian-knot
Authors: apparently my "debate" with Tuco's Child was moderated out. I suppose it was too confrontational, or else just too tedious. I'm glad to know there are limits! I'll self-moderate here also.
Please see below:
Firstly, there is no such thing as "renewables". That is a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. Panels and turbines are a terribly inefficient way to generate electricity.
Secondly, 400 ppm CO2 cannot warm the atmosphere or "hold heat in" due to it's weak far infrared 15 micron wavelength emission, nor it's kinetic energy (Boltzmann).
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that heat moves from hot to cold, so 400 ppm of weak CO2 energy (photonic or mostly kinetic) derived from Earth's radiation cannot heat already warmer gas molecules in the atmosphere (N2,O2).
101 physics and chemistry easily disproves CO2 myth.
The climate has always changed. We just showed up recently.
Is someone paying you to post motivated pernicious nonsense? Here's how ChatGPT responds, in short, punchy, social-media mode with sources. That's all the effort needed to decisively rebut your claims. The answers are familiar to anyone well-informed about the physics of climate change. ChatGPT will give longer, more detailed answers on request.
ChatGPT:
"Here’s how a short, scientific, fact-based reply with sources at the bottom would look for social media:
"CO₂ does affect climate.
"- Solar & wind don’t violate thermodynamics—they convert natural energy flows, like waterwheels.
"- CO₂ absorbs infrared radiation (15 μm band) and slows heat loss to space, confirmed by satellite data.
"- Today’s warming is ~10× faster than natural cycles, with fossil fuel carbon isotopes clearly identified.
"Sources: NASA (2019), IPCC AR6 (2021), NOAA (2022)"
Argue with the auto-fisker, not with me.
Dear Malodorous,
Thank you for the reply.
I have a pre-woke PhD in chemistry, and thus do not depend on AI.
I only ascribe to the most basic 101 Law's of Physics and Thermodynamics. The Kinetic Theory of Gases is also useful. Old timers like Planck, Boltzmann, and Gibbs you may wish to become familiar with. Grab an old textbook and read.
Have a great weekend.
TC
Awesome!
"I only ascribe to the most basic 101 Law's [sic] of Physics and Thermodynamics."
There's your problem right there. Science has learned a lot about the radiative physics of the atmosphere that you're apparently unaware of.
"Old timers like Planck, Boltzmann, and Gibbs you may wish to become familiar with. Grab an old textbook and read."
Having spent two years of the pre-woke early 1980s in a doctoral program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology before finding an easier way to make a living, I assure you I'm familiar with the "old timers". Hell, I'm an old-timer myself 8^D! Trust me, Biology and the Earth Sciences are built on those basic physical principles.
I'm guessing you, OTOH, haven't read much about the 200 years of advancing climate science since Fourier, none of it "woke". The best recommendation I can make is Spencer R. Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming", published by the American Institute of Physics (https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm). There's a printed book last revised in 2008, and it's also maintained dynamically online. The AIP is the parent body for a number of scientific professional societies, including the American Physical Society, American Astronomical Society, and American Meteorological Society. Dr. Weart had a research career in Physics, but later worked for the AIP as a Historian of Science. You can brag about your own pre-woke Chemistry PhD all you want, but you wouldn't last 5 minutes in a room with this guy. Woke, my ass.
Thank you for your reply.
A review of most fundamental principles of thermodynamics and the kinetic theory of gases will illuminate why CO2 cannot warm the atmosphere.
Thought Experiments to ponder :
if a Planck Black Body had a lambda max at the 15 micron wavelength, what is that Black Body peak temperature?
Does heat spontaneously flow from hot to cold ?
Are most processes reversible or irreversible?
Challenge: understand and explain the concept of J. W. Gibb's Free Energy.
*Eppur si riscalda* (h/t Trevor Ridgway).
I have no illusions that I can change your mind, TC, so I write with the hypothetical uncommitted lurker in mind. No doubt less clearly and at greater length than I wish, but FWIW:
My scientific training was long, but now long ago. I don't do assigned homework anymore. Thankfully, I don't need to do the math, because I've got smart, trained, disciplined people at my fingertips to do it for me. They're professional scientists. I once planned to be their peer, before deciding I didn't want to work that hard for a living. That's why I'm happy to let this peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.9b02488) answer your challenge. It's not my job!
A basic principle of science I learned early, however, is that facts are the basis of theory, not the other way around. In his book, Weart details key empirical discoveries in a chronology of climate science since Fourier's time. The fact of the CO2 "greenhouse" (yes, it's a poor metaphor) effect was conclusively demonstrated in 1856 by Eunice Foote, and again in 1861 by John Tyndall, in front of large audiences. By the 1890s, Svante Arrhenius understood that IR interception by water vapor was strictly a feedback to CO2 forcing. Much more has been learned subsequently. You've got some catching up to do.
I, for one, recognize science as a transnational, transgenerational collective enterprise, for building a body of intersubjectively verifiable, self-correcting, globally accessible knowledge across the centuries [call me Mr. Adjectives and Adverbs -MA]. It can't make progress without peer consensus: Newton, Gibbs, Arrhenius, and Keeling, all stood on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them. Feynman said, "the first rule is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool". Anyone telling you "consensus isn't science" is either fooling themselves, or trying to fool you! As a comprehensive non-expert, in any dispute between you and the expert consensus, my money is on them. Occam's Razor, you know.
Of course, if you really think you've overturned the near-complete consensus of rigorously trained, mutually disciplined, published peer climate scientists, you can write it up and submit it for presentation at the next AGU meeting (https://www.agu.org/annual-meeting). If you're humble enough, you'll accept your reviewers' collective judgement. If not, you're just another tragic victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Wow truely elaborate way to show ones cluelessness.
Love this graph! Do y'all mind if I use it in my upcoming book, "Your Guide to Climate Action"? It would fit perfectly in Chapter 1. Please let me know!
Silly comparison... let the real scientist do the work please..
Let's see. 1.4°C warming in 174 years is 0.008 C/year.
So assuming nothing unusual happens, we'll reach the dreaded 10°C extinction number in 8.6° / 0.008°C per year … 25 plus 75, carry the one, and we have …
… the year 3100 AD. A mere 1,075 years from now.
Yep. Everyone panic. Let's destroy our economy out of raw fear of the year 3100 AD.
And hey, there's nothing wrong with extrapolating a linear trend over a thousand years into the future. I'm reminded of Mark Twain, who famously said:
"The Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago... Its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present.
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and 'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past... what an opportunity is here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue from!
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year.
Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
My best to all,
w.
PS—Comparing modern changes to paleo changes is generally not done for a host of reasons. If you don't know what they are, perhaps you shouldn't do it … anyhow, here are the issues involved:
Comparing the speed of modern temperature change to rates inferred from paleo temperature proxies over 250 million years is problematic due to several key scientific reasons:
1. Proxy Uncertainties and Limitations
Proxy methods have large uncertainties: Paleotemperature proxies (e.g., tree rings, ice cores, marine sediments) have typical uncertainties ranging from ±1.2°C to ±3°C depending on method and environment, and the median uncertainty across all proxies and seasons is roughly ±1.7°C. This is much higher than the uncertainty in the modern instrumental record (usually less than ±0.1°C over annual to decadal scales).
Chronological resolution is coarse: Proxy records spanning 250 million years generally have time resolution no finer than thousands to tens of thousands of years. In contrast, the modern instrumental record resolves temperature at monthly, annual, and decadal scales, allowing for precise quantification of change rates. Chronological uncertainty for proxy records can be several centuries to millennia for these deep time records.
2. Temporal Averaging Masks Rapid Events
Ancient proxies smooth rapid changes: Data for ancient climates are averaged over far longer intervals. Sudden temperature changes (over years or centuries) are blurred or lost in proxies that average over thousands or millions of years. This means proxy-derived change rates will systematically underestimate the real speed of past rapid shifts.
Extreme events may be undetectable: For example, sharp shifts similar to today’s warming (mostly measured over decades) would not appear as such in marine sediment cores or isotope records with thousand-year time steps.
3. Calibration and Signal Weakness
Proxy-to-temperature relationships are statistical, not direct: The correlation between proxies and local temperature is often weak or highly variable, with some proxy types explaining little of the annual (much less decadal) variation in actual temperature. Many proxies are sensitive to confounding environmental factors beyond temperature (e.g., precipitation, local ecology, ocean chemistry).
Instrumental calibration is lacking for deep time: Calibration of proxies is generally grounded on conditions present in the recent past, but the ecological and environmental background of proxies 250 million years ago is very different (e.g., continental positions, solar output, atmospheric composition).
4. Spatial Coverage and Bias
Sampling network is often incomplete and biased: Ancient records disproportionately sample particular regions (e.g., Northern Hemisphere, marine environments), while modern instruments sample globally. This bias can distort patterns and rates inferred from proxies, further complicating comparisons.
5. Differences in Underlying Drivers
Forcings differ profoundly across eras: Rates of change reflect different climate forcings (e.g., volcanism, asteroid impacts, tectonics, greenhouse gases) which are fundamentally unlike the present anthropogenic CO₂ rise. Paleo changes may involve slower or more gradual mechanisms than today’s rapid emissions-driven change.
In summary
Instrumental records (last 150 years) provide precise, high-resolution temperature change rates averaged over years to decades.
Paleo proxies (hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago) have much coarser temporal and spatial resolution, very large uncertainties, and smoothing that prevents detection of rapid events.
Therefore, it is scientifically inappropriate to directly compare the “speed” of temperature change derived from modern instrumental records to that inferred from paleo proxies, especially across such vastly different timescales and contexts.
These cautionary reasons do not mean paleoclimate research is uninformative—rather, they reinforce care in making statements about “unprecedented” modern change rates using ancient proxy data.
Well it’s one of
Steve Davis
Stephen Hendry
Ronnie O’Sullivan
I’d have to go with Ronnie O’Sullivan.
That said my favourite player was Jimmy White.
Fantastic skill but he always seemed to come up just that little bit short in the big tournaments
Dennis Taylor
Did I just lose my mind, or should Rollie go on Joe Rogan's show, toe-to-toe and BEAT HIM AT HIS OWN GAME??!?!!! 🔥 🤑 💪🏼 🧠👀 🦅 🌳 🌞🐍👏🏼💯
Edit to add: Yes!