Biosphere in Crisis

Microplastic Diversity as a Potential Driver of Soil Denitrification Shifts Microplastics (MPs) are raising significant global concerns due to their environmental impacts. While most studies have focused on the effects of individual MP types, MPs in natural environments typic...

I admire the holistic approach to exinct complex life on Earth:

Microplastics in soils increase nitrous oxide emissions - just 300 times more potent than CO2

#Earth #climate #clusterfuck

Dolphins may be getting an Alzheimer's-like disease due to this neurotoxin The neurotoxins, found in algal blooms, primarily affect the body's nervous system.

Researchers have connected neurotoxins from algal blooms to brain changes associated with an Alzheimer’s-like disease in dolphins in Florida. This connection does not bode well for human communities exposed to those same substances.
www.popsci.com/environment/...

Especially dangerous because many people believe that what they haven’t seen just doesn’t exist, & never has.
Shifting baselines erases not only more abundant past, but one with larger specimens-think of declining numbers and size over fish over centuries

Sadly, I'm not surprised by this - when vibrant, diverse ecosystems are replaced by drab, monoculture plantations, there's not much call for vibrant butterflies in those artificially suppressed wastelands.

As forests are cut down, butterflies are losing their colours The insects’ brilliant hues evolved in lush ecosystems to help them survive. Now they are becoming more muted to adapt to degraded landscapes – and they are not the only things dulling down

The loss of #trees to rapid #industrial clear-cutting is causing #butterflies to lose their colors as they struggle to adapt to the changing #environment.

The fall of the CBS News climate team David Ellison, the new pro-Trump chief executive of Paramount Skydance, has dismantled the best climate change reporting team in cable news.

Tracy Wholf, who led the climate change charge at CBS, was canned along with her team, as Hurricane Melissa threatened Jamaica and was undergoing VRI.
It seems like CBS is morphing into, perhaps, a slicker version of Faux News. They lost me a while back.
open.substack.com/pub/heated/p...

Over 80% of the US is in recession. The only thing holding up the economy is AI capex.

Stronger arctic cyclones speed up polar melting, impacting global weather Powerful winds are ripping through the Arctic, breaking up critical sea ice that once acted as a shield against disturbance from wind and waves. Scientists warn the loss of sea ice is speeding up the ...

'Powerful winds are ripping through the Arctic, breaking up critical sea ice that once acted as a shield against disturbance from wind & waves. ...the loss...is speeding up the region’s ecological collapse & could disrupt weather patterns far beyond the Arctic'

news.mongabay.com/short-articl...

Someone said there's a special place in hell for those that Normied while the world burned...

It DOES kinda smell like brimstone, come to think of it...

"So, then the old geezers go off to die and young people are left with 2°C of global warming locked in, out of their control, and both hands tied behind their back"
Dr James E Hansen
@drjamesehansen.bsky.social

youtu.be/XlyWEixy8p4

Our waste stream continues to grow, as does its toxicity.
#overshoot

✌️😎🍄

Oh look, a new international study published in Communications Earth & Environment warns that the global construction sector's carbon footprint is on track to double by 2050.

#collapse

In North America’s frozen forests, there’s a formidable predator with bone-crushing jaws and flesh-piercing teeth — BBC Wildlife Magazine FOR MANY PEOPLE, THE WORD ‘wolverine’ will conjure up the image of a ripped Hollywood superhero, rather than a bear-like creature the size of a dog that lives in the snowy forests, tundra and mountain...

Historically, wolverines reached as far south as northern New Mexico and ranged into the Great Lakes, but trapping, predator control, and now shrinking spring snow have contracted their range into the far north.
apple.news/AXbZ6dF9ZR9q...

Thanks to @lightsoutforbirds.bsky.social for pulling together this segment from last weekend’s discussion. We covered a lot: carnivores, Ancient CO₂, Later Is Now, The Illusion of Green, wild horses, the ESA, and the hardest topic of all: accepting who we are.

The Climate 8-ball has abandoned all hope.

The Great Derangement Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first ma...

Your 'doom quote' for today:

"if the world's most powerful nations adopt the 'politics of the armed lifeboat,' explicity or otherwise, then millions of people in Asia, Africa and elsewhere will face doom."

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Breaking News!
Code Yikes!

October, 2025, finished as third hottest October on record, the third consecutive October over 1.5°C, and likely the third hottest October in over 120,000 years, averaging 1.55°C over the Paris Agreement baseline.

In the year 2525 ...

Melissa’s sudden intensification stunned even seasoned meteorologists. Within just 36 hours, it exploded from a tropical storm into one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Caribbean.

Global warming fueling stronger storms Several experts say mega storms like Hurricane Melissa are textbook example of how a warming planet is supercharging tropical storms.

Your 'moment of doom' for Nov. 2, 2025 ~ IOTTCO

"We’re now seeing storms intensify over record-warm waters that simply wouldn’t have existed without human-induced warming."

newsday.co.za/internationa...

Conservation of intact ecosystems is critical for biodiversity on Earth, and for the services these ecosystems provide to humans. While about 28 percent of land habitats are intact, only about 2.9 percent of ecosystems have all the animal species that they did 500 years ago.

Humans Have Altered 97 Percent of Earth's Land Through Habitat and Species Loss The study, which did not include Antarctica, also identified opportunities to restore up to 20 percent of land ecosystems

A new study says only 3% of Earth’s land remains “untouched.” We’ve been editing the planet for millennia as a result of pushing animals/plants to extinction….reshaping entire continents.
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/h...

The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer

In our new report, based on the data, we suggest that we are hurtling toward climate chaos if trends continue. Thanks are due to my coauthors @michaelemann.bsky.social @petergleick.bsky.social and others. You decide if you agree by reading the paper for yourself here: doi.org/10.1093/bios...

YouTube video by Planet: Critical The Mining Boom | Nina Djukanović

“Geopolitics is shifting with the supply of critical raw materials. The so-called “green transition” has triggered a mining boom all over the world which is leaving conflict, environmental devastation and political instability in its wake.”

#Mining

#NinaDjukanovic

#PlanetCritical

#RachelDonald

The disaster industry is booming. Turns out ruining the biosphere is good for corporate business in Mille ways: front-end extractivist profits + back-end reconstruction payouts after impacts.

Modern economics is a death cult.

“The tremendous rise in worldwide use of fossil fuels, some authorities say, is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than plants and ocean can absorb it.”

1965

NOAA aerial imagery is coming in. Hurricane Melissa literally turned western Jamaica from green to brown. Vegetation damage is immense — recovery will take years.

Is atmospheric CO2 concentration accelerating? Are humans the primary cause of this acceleration? Does more CO2 directly cause more planetary heating?

The Climate 8-ball is lost in River City.

Global methane action pays for itself at least six times over We provide a comprehensive assessment of the economic benefits and costs of global methane emissions abatement, anchored on the Global Methane Pledge. We use an integrated assessment model to estimate...

New paper: Global methane action pays for itself at least six times over

- "reasonable actions could reduce climate-related damages in 2050 by more than a trillion dollars a year"

#climatecrisis
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Parks Canada logging near Banff townsite to reduce wildfire threat “We know that wildfire risk is very real and while it can't be fully mitigated, there are certainly things we can do and so this is one of those things that we can do.”

"Logging is not a substitute for controlled burns, which remove much of the finer fuels." In terms of fire/fuel effects, conventional logging is not a substitute or even similar to prescribed fire -- don't let anyone tell you otherwise. www.rmoutlook.com/banff/parks-...