hassaan khan

3C of global warming means droughts, & floods, of historically unprecedented magnitudes across broad swaths of the planet. It means the collapse of ecosystems, and possibly even cascading effects that could trigger any number of critical Earth system "tipping points." [12/n]

For this reason, the Gates memo presupposes a false dichotomy regarding climate outcomes: The choice we are faced with is not between "good for us" & "the end of the world," but instead how much harm we are willing to tolerate, and endure, in the years to come. [8/n]

Will I be the first to suggest the carbon offsets worked exactly as planned: they delayed real action for another 25 years

Global emissions from heating are about 4x those from cooling.

Air conditioning is an important and lifesaving adaptation to climate change.

Decarbonize the grid.

Feels like the current trend in the U.S. is that a lot of people will experience climate change as a creeping, steady boil of rising rents, insurance premiums and prices for everyday items that fewer and fewer people will be able to swallow month to month

Carbon Capture ‘Not Going to Happen,’ Top Fossil Fuel Advocate Predicts In audio obtained by DeSmog, Bjorn Lomborg told a Fraser Institute event in Vancouver that the technology is way too expensive to be viable.

Behind closed doors, fossil fuel advocates are trashing carbon capture and storage.

@desmog.com obtained audio of Bjorn Lomborg telling a private luncheon CCS is 'not going to happen.'

Oil companies only support CCS to get 'a lot of subsidies,' he claimed.

www.desmog.com/2025/06/05/c...

Did another interview where I was asked how I study disasters and stay "optimistic".

This is very confusing for me because I am not optimistic. I am extremely pessimistic.

I think people mistake my making jokes for being optimistic. The memes are a coping mechanism, guys. It's all very bad.

I'm usually immune to being shocked...

Emissions from Land use and forestry (LULUCF) are set to nearly double, and match emissions from transport (!) in the 2030s, as forests are harvested and become a major carbon source.

Swiss village almost entirely destroyed after collapse of glacier buries it in mud One person missing and Blatten devastated after huge cloud of ice and rubble inundates evacuated town

My friend is in charge of the team that wrote the climate change adaptation plan for Switzerland and this is one of the things they expected.

California turns on water to create new wetlands on the shore of the shrinking Salton Sea California officials sent water flowing to create new wetlands along the shores of the shrinking Salton Sea. The project is intended to control dust and provide habitat for birds.

Water began flowing onto hundreds of acres of dry, sunbaked lakebed as California officials filled ponds near the shore of the Salton Sea in an effort to create wetlands that will provide habitat for birds and help control lung-damaging dust around the shrinking lake. www.latimes.com/environment/...

How do we have a stable world, let alone "economic growth," if nearly half a billion people will need to move away from coasts and (to use jargon) the value of all that fixed capital is slowly destroyed?

Yes, What We Pay Teachers Matters Paying teachers well is an essential part of a healthier public education system

It's Teacher Appreciation Week. Here's how to appreciate teachers: pay them better.

Pretty wild that "24/7" fossil fuel generation all suddenly went offline and basically only wind and solar were still producing during today's Spanish/Portuguese blackout.

"Baseload" power can be dramatically unreliable

I wrote about the doom loop of the climate crisis and the collapse of our shared reality for understanding and/or doing anything about it newrepublic.com/article/1942...

The massive explosion in use of satellite imagery by archaeologists has led to the discovery of hundreds of thousands of ancient sites and features across the world in the last 25 years, none of which were known about previously due to data resolution+coverage.

This is also a post about autism

A few thoughts:
- Globally, food loss and waste is responsible for ~10% of annual GHG emissions while aviation is “only” ~3%
- But everyone eats while only some (wealthier people) fly. One roundtrip flight DC-London is ~2 tons CO2e. Can’t do much of that and stay within a small carbon budget. 1/

I remember the first time I posted a video like this a bunch of older scientists took to Twitter to make fun of me for being too informal. If only they realized it’s videos like this that actually reach young people and that science communication is meant for the public — not other scientists!

‘Spiral of silence’: climate action is very popular, so why don’t people realise it? Researchers find 89% of people around the world want more to be done, but mistakenly assume their peers do not

The ‘spiral of silence’ blocking climate action and how to end it

- Globally, people are hugely supportive of climate action but wrongly believe their fellow citizens are not - revealing the truth could spark a social tipping point

#The89Percent
Story by me
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I don’t know who needs to hear this but those five bags of clothes for good will you’ve been driving around in your trunk for two years? You can just drop them off and it takes two seconds. Truly wild stuff!

The Pope Who Decried the Savage Inequalities of Billionaire-Class Capitalism Pope Francis, who has died at 88, fought for economic justice with a consistency that distinguished him from the elites of his time.

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”
— Pope Francis

Remembering Pope Francis's Climate Legacy Pope Francis served as a voice of moral clarity, speaking and writing about the social consequences of human influence on the planet.

As @justinworland.com reminds us, "Francis paid special attention to the disproportionate impact of climate change on the world’s poorest and critiqued the economic structures that make this a reality."

Exquisite writing. Required reading for anyone parsing through the noise.

Louisiana coerced unhoused people into an unheated warehouse – and paid $17.5m for it Dozens of New Orleanians were bused to a site with insufficient heating and blankets days before the city is to host the Super Bowl

In preparation for today’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, state police forced over 100 homeless men and women onto buses under threat of arrest, dumping them in an unheated warehouse. Tents destroyed, belongings lost. Press are barred from the warehouse.

The price tag for this cruelty? $17.5 million

Opinion: We built our world for a climate that no longer exists | CNN From melting airport tarmac to power grids hit by hurricanes and reservoir dams stressed by extreme rainfall, our ‘Old World’ infrastructure is ill-equipped for climate change, writes Jeff Goodell.

"Beryl knocked out power to more than 2 mil homes. Yes, hurricanes are devastating. Less than two months earlier, a sudden windstorm in the city blacked out electricity for more than a mil ppl. How many blackouts will it take before we realize today’s power grid was built for yesterday’s climate?"

We need to prepare our transport systems for heatwaves — here’s how Melting roads and buckling rails are disrupting travel, with the most vulnerable populations affected the worst. A concerted approach is needed to keep people moving as the world gets hotter.

"...frameworks...single out physical transport infrastructure without considering the people who use it."

Hearing from travelling post-docs (bi-coastal heat dome last year) about 2nd order effects like delayed organ transport certainly put things in to perspective.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What do climate protests actually achieve? More than you think. The evidence is in: Protests can persuade people, and maybe even change how they vote, according to recent studies.

What do climate protests actually achieve? More than you think.

The evidence is in: Protests can persuade people, and maybe even change how they vote.

grist.org/protest/clim...

#Protest #Climate #Environment #Trump #Greensky

YouTube video by LEAP Professor Paul Behrens: plenary talk, 2025 LEAP conference

Climate impacts means lower yields and less land for food in the future, but what can we do? How do we provide healthy food using fewer inputs, less land, less capital etc?

I argue that biophysical limits mean we'll likely go much more plant based in this keynote 🧵

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2nl...

Melanie Nakagawa. Following Chief Sustainability Officer @ Microsoft | Combining ... 22m⚫ : ☑ The energy grid is under immense strain from extreme weather, wildfires, and rising electricity demand. As these pressures increase, so does the need for smarter, more resilient and reliable energy grids.... see more Microsoft Utilidata, through the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, brings Al to the electric grid Utilidata's distributed Al platform, Karman, analyzes and predicts grid conditions in real time, enabling better management of distributed energy resources like solar and batteries. By investing in Utilidata, Microsoft is furthering our commitment to improving energy transmission and grid capacity.

Microsoft claiming AI is fixing the power grid while wildly overbuilding data centres is really a lot like handing out raincoats to the community you just flooded to build your hydro plant