A lot of people do not seem to understand the implications of climate change. The majority of people do not deny that climate change is happening (well, at least outside of the United States), and most of them also understand that it’s humans causing it through emissions of greenhouse gases and land-use change. But they still don’t understand that they will probably die from it. Here are the most likely ways you could die because of climate change
This is great - I read through the whole thing and couldn't agree more. This is something I've seriously started planning for recently (gone from helpless and hopeless outrage to solution-oriented strategizing).
I had a few edits/tweaks/additions for you to consider, just from the information I've been compiling! Please consider this to be supportive and constructive - not trying to tear apart your work but wanting to add to it to help others be even more informed.
Forest die-backs and the Amazon:
The Amazon has already transferred from being a sink to a source. In fact, every forest on the planet has already become a carbon source - except for the Congo Basin.
Forest diebacks are the next, but separate, step in the process. A dieback refers to the forest transitioning to a grassland.
The failure of forest carbon sinks isn't happening decades out at 3-4 degrees, it's happening now at ~1.5 degrees. Like you said, these processes are slow and build up over time, so maybe by 3-4 degrees we'll know that the terrestrial sinks have "officially" collapsed.
AMOC, tipping point 2-4 degrees:
The AMOC itself is already in decline, and will fully collapse at 2-4 degrees. But 2-4 degrees is actually a very wide range, and a lot of humans lie to themselves that it will happen at 4 degrees 100 years from now.
The reality is that the AMOC also relies on other, smaller currents - which have much closer tipping points. (So you're likely to get this domino effect, and we should probably all assumed loss of the AMOC at 2 degrees within the next decade.)
Tipping points that will contribute to AMOC collapse:
Greenland ice sheet collapse: 1.5C
Barents Sea ice loss: 1.5C (I think this has a relationship w AMOC? Also big impact on weather in northern Europe.)
Trump wants to buy Greenland cos he's not a climate crisis denier (though he says he is). He want Greenland for shipping routes and resources to make sure Russia or China don't get them.
Before the end there will be no insurance, no Big Gov blank cheque rescues no bailouts no rebuilds or repairs. Folks will be trading their homes to BlackRock for a six pack of Ramen noodles.
BlackRock is endtimes Earth's Gollum and their precious is all rental properties.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If anyone still believes in nonsense "fighting climate change" propaganda or anything Mike Mann says they only need to look at the latest consumption-pollution data to see who's winning the fight.
~
*2023 Set Records in Global Fossil Fuel Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions*
"In 2023, the world consumed more oil, coal and natural gas than any time in history, according to the Energy Institute’s “Statistical Review of World Energy.”
A great summary for those of us surrounded by people who still don’t understand the severity of our predicament (although many still choose not to see…)
Great article! Really well put together. You definitely draw the point home for those uninitiated. Going to start following you to see what else you can put together.
The analyses I’ve read say we do have enough resources for the energy transition. Also, as always the future is uncertain. I think the best thing to do is to encourage the speed of the transition to increase. Frankly, a lot of environmentalists are keen on slowing that transition down. The situation you describe is a reason to embrace change. The way we’ve been doing things is not sustainable. Also, China is a big part of the problem/solution. In Europe and the US, emissions have been falling. They need to come down more but China is the one really driving growth now.
I support renewable energy and the green transition, and I hope we pull it off. But to be successful, it would need to be coupled with a realistic and honest strategy of lowering consumption and restoring nature.
China being a problem, sure, but that's because they make a lot of our stuff (electronics, EV's, all that plastic junk etc.). Western countries have outsourced their manufacturing and production, then they celebrate lowering their emissions. The reality is that a lot of that reduction is through outsourcing manufacturing related emissions to other countries.
I agree that all the models show us needing to use overall less and be much more efficient. But I think it’s easy to look at the mountain and make it more than it has to be. We have a series of choices and I firmly believe we can get there. That’s not to say there won’t be costs and bad things that will happen.
Thanks, I'll have a look, I'm very familiar with the author so I'm guessing it's a reductionist analysis where everything goes perfectly, not factoring in geopolitical reality, climate change impacts on society, economic decline, declining EROI, and how that would impact our ability to mine and progress with the transition. But if the numbers are correct in regards to minerals, then I will correct that in my analysis.
China initially never wanted to adopt the whole modern industrial way of life. She just wanted to be left alone to follow her ancient ways. She eventually chose to adopt this way of life because, if she didn't, then it would have been easy for those who did to trample on her.
There are significant subtleties to estimating what can be effectively recovered because the Earth’s size and mass immediately present such large gross quantities that the entire nature of the task differs radically in kind from what Hannah Ritchie is doing. For instance, the uranium & other metals in the core of the planet are inaccessible. Uranium & other metals in seawater are too dilute to recover at scale. Too thin of coal seams, oil in geological formations that don’t facilitate pumping it to the surface, sand whose grains isn’t the right shape etc. It’s just not the kind of handwaving she’s doing.
That's absolutely right. Most coal, oil and gas will remain in the ground forever because it's not worth extracting and never will be. We exist just on the percentage that currently is viable.
> The analyses I’ve read say we do have enough resources for the energy transition.
That's because they're funded by green energy companies and interests, and written with people (governments, public organizations, NGOs, private companies, etc) looking for careers in that industry...
All this is true and I’ve known it for years. I’m an electric utility engineer and something else that’ll happen I never see mentioned… when the AMOC stops, ferocious unimaginable storms will wreck the electric transmission network. NO grid power henceforth for a long long time. It takes a long time to simply replace a few transmission towers. A single isolated tornado will take out huge high voltage transmission towers. Fucking mayhem.
The storms alone will result in massive, relentless choking/killing dust storms just like during the dustbowl era in the southern plains only much worse.
well, I have 3 kids, 2 determined not to reproduce, one depressed as hell for the dystopia their daughter will face. All fully green lifestyles, all deep science thinkers.
In the 1980s I did quick soil C modeling- based simply on high order Soil classification. We figured the C in boreal soils was locked up tight. And realized that if permafrost were to melt, it meant apocalypse.
here we are...Homo faithiens was a failed experiment
Hey, don't forget PEAK OIL. It's only going to add to the fun!
The Industrial Revolution was a bargain with the Devil. Enough said. The Devil pays well in the short run. But the long run is now.
Many of us actually never wanted to tread this path at first. Why did we eventually do so, then? Because if we didn't it would be easy for those who did to trample on us. That's why.
Unfettered tribal oligarchies and corporate greed was and are the primary drivers of all of the factors you cited. The biblical and religious mandates to breed unlimited numbers of additional humans to populate the planet fit nicely into that paradigm. Absent those two factors the results we’re seeing today would have been different. Keep in mind that tribal oligarchs and corporations are not actual human beings living on planet earth.
P2025 is the Trump playbook for his cabinet choices to follow. Watch closely how there is a spike in all of the factors you mentioned over the next 8 years, plus an increase in pandemic level heath issues. He will unleash impositions and restrictions on everything he can for the next four years which will by followed by measurable environmental impacting results in the following four, or more, years.
Again, apologies. Your article is excellent, by the way. Thank you!
I don’t deny a single word of this, but I need to point something out, too.
There is, I believe, a kind of denialism cloaked within most of the Climate Change discourse, particularly when it comes to discussing its perilous consequences. Seeing the reality of Climate Change and its longer-term threat is a way to mentally hide from the unthinkable: total thermonuclear war.
Climate Change, as bad as it’s likely to be, even with all of its extinctions and loss of biodiversity is not likely to end all but the most numerous and hardy of multicellular life larger than insects. That’s not true for thermonuclear war in a world where around 4000 nuclear weapons are actively deployed. As noted in _Nuclear War: A Scenario_ by Anne Jacobsen, wargaming exercises have shown that there is no option for what might be called “limited nuclear war.” All scenarios lead to totality. That is the sudden and immediate danger I suggest almost everyone involved in the Climate Change debate does not want to face, and purposefully hides from behind a belief that the nuclear war problem has somehow been solved.
Climate change, then, becomes the primary threat facing our species and our world.
[How I wish this were so. How I wish we did make it so, through radical disarmament, that our primary worry could only be the long-term consequences of Climate Change. We humans have been through an exercise of disarmament once before on a scale that we need now. In the 1980s, the world had under active deployment between 30,000 and 50,000 nuclear weapons, mostly between the USA and the Soviet Union. Since then we have collectively reduced this arsenal by more than 90%. We could do likewise, again, leaving only 400 weapons deployed worldwide, and then, again, go down to 40. (Even that is too many.) This could be done if the will were there.]
I still remember “the pale blue dot,” and in so remembering, sometimes water comes to my eyes.
You're absolutely right Peter. What do you think we can do to lower that risk? Would an economic, political, and societal collapse help, or just make things worse? Under what conditions might a world leader conclude that guaranteed extinction through nuclear war is the only way forward?
Almost nothing Trump plans is anything we want to see.
But he _is_ a very egotistical man, and would likely welcome the thought of a praiseworthy legacy. And, he is friendly to Russia.
It might not work, but we could lobby him as private citizens to a) take measures to reduce the present risk of nuclear war — taking such measures as ending ‘launch-on-warning; rebuilding the top-level international communication network for avoiding nuclear mistakes, and promoting a program of technology-sharing to enable other nations to match the high-end satellite nuclear launch warning system under US deployment, again, to avoid nuclear mistakes — AND b) to enter into serious negotiations to quickly reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons, first between the USA and Russia, and then globally.
Our argument might go like this: “no matter what you may do that more than half the nation will not like, even so, your name will shine to humanity throughout the ages if you lead the way to this one thing — moving the world forward to a nuclear-war-free future. Besides, nuclear war would be bad for business.”
Also, I think collapse greatly increases the risk of nuclear catastrophe on account of wars over resources and cooler territorial zones.
A collapse scenario which would possibly not provoke global (nuclear) war might come from worldwide pandemic much deadlier than COVID-19.
I do not see a future without many megadeaths. The only questions we can hopefully answer with small hope have to do with what kind of world will be left after the collapse of our presently teetering global economic system (based as it is upon an illusion of unlimited cheap, trade-off-free, fossil fuel energy).
Good points. I agree, Trump is obviously an extreme narcissist and an egomaniac. But he doesn't want the legacy of "worst president ever". He wants to be loved. He wants to be seen as a hero. That can go either way, good or bad, depending who he is taking advice from. But it’s something that can be used to lower big risks like nuclear war.
Also agree on your take in regards to collapse scenario. It's a wild card, but I'm afraid that's what's coming. I just don't see how we avoid it.
Excellent piece. Restacking now. If anyone is interested, my Substack talks about grassroots, cooperative solutions to climate change and economic inequality. (The solutions go hand-in-hahand-in-hand.)
Interesting outtake is that man’s agricultural inputs starting about 5,000 years ago may have halted the normal ice age we would now be experiencing. In other words mankind as we now know it wouldn’t be here today to discuss warming. Things that make you go hmmmm.
“Therefore, not just greenhouse gas emissions over the last 200 years may have stopped us from going into a new ice age, but it is greenhouse gas emissions for the last 5000 years that have collectively helped to steer us away from the next ice age. By this, we may have delayed the onset of the next ice age for now, but if another one starts now, it will have big consequences for human civilization.”
Thanks for sharing. It's an interesting thought, considering how many humans existed at the time, let's be generous and say 10 million, and then assume they cleared land for agriculture as much as 1 hectare per person. The initial clearing could have been as high as 0.40 Gt CO2 which is significant. But after that, depends if they kept clearing new land or not, it could come down to just 0.004 Gt C02 per year. Either way, it may have played a role.
I have often considered the Middle East, and especially the great deserts found there, as evidence of what happens when civilization uses the land up and disrupts natural ecologies and environments. Archaeologists have found petrified trees in the Sahara and evidence in Mesopotamia of large lakes and large populations of people who farmed in a rich and fruitful land. Where, and why, did it all go?
This is great - I read through the whole thing and couldn't agree more. This is something I've seriously started planning for recently (gone from helpless and hopeless outrage to solution-oriented strategizing).
I had a few edits/tweaks/additions for you to consider, just from the information I've been compiling! Please consider this to be supportive and constructive - not trying to tear apart your work but wanting to add to it to help others be even more informed.
Forest die-backs and the Amazon:
The Amazon has already transferred from being a sink to a source. In fact, every forest on the planet has already become a carbon source - except for the Congo Basin.
Forest diebacks are the next, but separate, step in the process. A dieback refers to the forest transitioning to a grassland.
Scientists showed that last year, in 2023, terrestrial carbon sinks did not actually absorb carbon "as planned". https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/14/nature-carbon-sink-collapse-global-heating-models-emissions-targets-evidence-aoe
The failure of forest carbon sinks isn't happening decades out at 3-4 degrees, it's happening now at ~1.5 degrees. Like you said, these processes are slow and build up over time, so maybe by 3-4 degrees we'll know that the terrestrial sinks have "officially" collapsed.
AMOC, tipping point 2-4 degrees:
The AMOC itself is already in decline, and will fully collapse at 2-4 degrees. But 2-4 degrees is actually a very wide range, and a lot of humans lie to themselves that it will happen at 4 degrees 100 years from now.
The reality is that the AMOC also relies on other, smaller currents - which have much closer tipping points. (So you're likely to get this domino effect, and we should probably all assumed loss of the AMOC at 2 degrees within the next decade.)
Tipping points that will contribute to AMOC collapse:
Greenland ice sheet collapse: 1.5C
Barents Sea ice loss: 1.5C (I think this has a relationship w AMOC? Also big impact on weather in northern Europe.)
Labrador Sea current collapse: 1.75C
If Trump wasn't a climate change denier would he still want to buy Greenland?
Trump wants to buy Greenland cos he's not a climate crisis denier (though he says he is). He want Greenland for shipping routes and resources to make sure Russia or China don't get them.
Yes, Climate Change Is Probably Going To Kill You...but first it's going to impoverish you.
~
*Helene damage costs in NC more than $53 billion. Who will pay is unclear.*
[November 26, 2024]
Mounting costs from storm damage, economic losses and expected repairs continues to mount. Also the latest county breakdown in lives lost.
https://carolinapublicpress.org/67325/helene-costs-nc-billions-unclear-who-pays/
~
Before the end there will be no insurance, no Big Gov blank cheque rescues no bailouts no rebuilds or repairs. Folks will be trading their homes to BlackRock for a six pack of Ramen noodles.
BlackRock is endtimes Earth's Gollum and their precious is all rental properties.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If anyone still believes in nonsense "fighting climate change" propaganda or anything Mike Mann says they only need to look at the latest consumption-pollution data to see who's winning the fight.
~
*2023 Set Records in Global Fossil Fuel Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions*
"In 2023, the world consumed more oil, coal and natural gas than any time in history, according to the Energy Institute’s “Statistical Review of World Energy.”
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/2023-set-records-in-global-fossil-fuel-use-and-carbon-dioxide-emissions/
A great summary for those of us surrounded by people who still don’t understand the severity of our predicament (although many still choose not to see…)
Great article! Really well put together. You definitely draw the point home for those uninitiated. Going to start following you to see what else you can put together.
The analyses I’ve read say we do have enough resources for the energy transition. Also, as always the future is uncertain. I think the best thing to do is to encourage the speed of the transition to increase. Frankly, a lot of environmentalists are keen on slowing that transition down. The situation you describe is a reason to embrace change. The way we’ve been doing things is not sustainable. Also, China is a big part of the problem/solution. In Europe and the US, emissions have been falling. They need to come down more but China is the one really driving growth now.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/transition-mineral-demand-part-one
Hi Thomas,
I support renewable energy and the green transition, and I hope we pull it off. But to be successful, it would need to be coupled with a realistic and honest strategy of lowering consumption and restoring nature.
China being a problem, sure, but that's because they make a lot of our stuff (electronics, EV's, all that plastic junk etc.). Western countries have outsourced their manufacturing and production, then they celebrate lowering their emissions. The reality is that a lot of that reduction is through outsourcing manufacturing related emissions to other countries.
I agree that all the models show us needing to use overall less and be much more efficient. But I think it’s easy to look at the mountain and make it more than it has to be. We have a series of choices and I firmly believe we can get there. That’s not to say there won’t be costs and bad things that will happen.
Hi Thomas, can you share the analysis that says we have enough minerals? I’m interested in reading it. Working on an article on the topic. Thanks!
It’s at the Sustainability by the numbers link I posted above.
Thanks, I'll have a look, I'm very familiar with the author so I'm guessing it's a reductionist analysis where everything goes perfectly, not factoring in geopolitical reality, climate change impacts on society, economic decline, declining EROI, and how that would impact our ability to mine and progress with the transition. But if the numbers are correct in regards to minerals, then I will correct that in my analysis.
There is no energy transition. There is only collapse.
China initially never wanted to adopt the whole modern industrial way of life. She just wanted to be left alone to follow her ancient ways. She eventually chose to adopt this way of life because, if she didn't, then it would have been easy for those who did to trample on her.
There are significant subtleties to estimating what can be effectively recovered because the Earth’s size and mass immediately present such large gross quantities that the entire nature of the task differs radically in kind from what Hannah Ritchie is doing. For instance, the uranium & other metals in the core of the planet are inaccessible. Uranium & other metals in seawater are too dilute to recover at scale. Too thin of coal seams, oil in geological formations that don’t facilitate pumping it to the surface, sand whose grains isn’t the right shape etc. It’s just not the kind of handwaving she’s doing.
That's absolutely right. Most coal, oil and gas will remain in the ground forever because it's not worth extracting and never will be. We exist just on the percentage that currently is viable.
> The analyses I’ve read say we do have enough resources for the energy transition.
That's because they're funded by green energy companies and interests, and written with people (governments, public organizations, NGOs, private companies, etc) looking for careers in that industry...
A possitive spin makes it marketable
All this is true and I’ve known it for years. I’m an electric utility engineer and something else that’ll happen I never see mentioned… when the AMOC stops, ferocious unimaginable storms will wreck the electric transmission network. NO grid power henceforth for a long long time. It takes a long time to simply replace a few transmission towers. A single isolated tornado will take out huge high voltage transmission towers. Fucking mayhem.
The storms alone will result in massive, relentless choking/killing dust storms just like during the dustbowl era in the southern plains only much worse.
Yee haw!
well, I have 3 kids, 2 determined not to reproduce, one depressed as hell for the dystopia their daughter will face. All fully green lifestyles, all deep science thinkers.
In the 1980s I did quick soil C modeling- based simply on high order Soil classification. We figured the C in boreal soils was locked up tight. And realized that if permafrost were to melt, it meant apocalypse.
here we are...Homo faithiens was a failed experiment
Hey, don't forget PEAK OIL. It's only going to add to the fun!
The Industrial Revolution was a bargain with the Devil. Enough said. The Devil pays well in the short run. But the long run is now.
Many of us actually never wanted to tread this path at first. Why did we eventually do so, then? Because if we didn't it would be easy for those who did to trample on us. That's why.
I love Western civilization.
Apologies, but I must disagree.
Unfettered tribal oligarchies and corporate greed was and are the primary drivers of all of the factors you cited. The biblical and religious mandates to breed unlimited numbers of additional humans to populate the planet fit nicely into that paradigm. Absent those two factors the results we’re seeing today would have been different. Keep in mind that tribal oligarchs and corporations are not actual human beings living on planet earth.
P2025 is the Trump playbook for his cabinet choices to follow. Watch closely how there is a spike in all of the factors you mentioned over the next 8 years, plus an increase in pandemic level heath issues. He will unleash impositions and restrictions on everything he can for the next four years which will by followed by measurable environmental impacting results in the following four, or more, years.
Again, apologies. Your article is excellent, by the way. Thank you!
Stunning presentation. Makes me sad but we are fools. Thank you.
I remember watching that scene on Newsroom. Left me speechless once again.
My garden is booming.
Lots of food. Lots of water. Lots of animals.
I don’t deny a single word of this, but I need to point something out, too.
There is, I believe, a kind of denialism cloaked within most of the Climate Change discourse, particularly when it comes to discussing its perilous consequences. Seeing the reality of Climate Change and its longer-term threat is a way to mentally hide from the unthinkable: total thermonuclear war.
Climate Change, as bad as it’s likely to be, even with all of its extinctions and loss of biodiversity is not likely to end all but the most numerous and hardy of multicellular life larger than insects. That’s not true for thermonuclear war in a world where around 4000 nuclear weapons are actively deployed. As noted in _Nuclear War: A Scenario_ by Anne Jacobsen, wargaming exercises have shown that there is no option for what might be called “limited nuclear war.” All scenarios lead to totality. That is the sudden and immediate danger I suggest almost everyone involved in the Climate Change debate does not want to face, and purposefully hides from behind a belief that the nuclear war problem has somehow been solved.
Climate change, then, becomes the primary threat facing our species and our world.
[How I wish this were so. How I wish we did make it so, through radical disarmament, that our primary worry could only be the long-term consequences of Climate Change. We humans have been through an exercise of disarmament once before on a scale that we need now. In the 1980s, the world had under active deployment between 30,000 and 50,000 nuclear weapons, mostly between the USA and the Soviet Union. Since then we have collectively reduced this arsenal by more than 90%. We could do likewise, again, leaving only 400 weapons deployed worldwide, and then, again, go down to 40. (Even that is too many.) This could be done if the will were there.]
I still remember “the pale blue dot,” and in so remembering, sometimes water comes to my eyes.
You're absolutely right Peter. What do you think we can do to lower that risk? Would an economic, political, and societal collapse help, or just make things worse? Under what conditions might a world leader conclude that guaranteed extinction through nuclear war is the only way forward?
Here’s a thought I’ve been having.
Almost nothing Trump plans is anything we want to see.
But he _is_ a very egotistical man, and would likely welcome the thought of a praiseworthy legacy. And, he is friendly to Russia.
It might not work, but we could lobby him as private citizens to a) take measures to reduce the present risk of nuclear war — taking such measures as ending ‘launch-on-warning; rebuilding the top-level international communication network for avoiding nuclear mistakes, and promoting a program of technology-sharing to enable other nations to match the high-end satellite nuclear launch warning system under US deployment, again, to avoid nuclear mistakes — AND b) to enter into serious negotiations to quickly reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons, first between the USA and Russia, and then globally.
Our argument might go like this: “no matter what you may do that more than half the nation will not like, even so, your name will shine to humanity throughout the ages if you lead the way to this one thing — moving the world forward to a nuclear-war-free future. Besides, nuclear war would be bad for business.”
Also, I think collapse greatly increases the risk of nuclear catastrophe on account of wars over resources and cooler territorial zones.
A collapse scenario which would possibly not provoke global (nuclear) war might come from worldwide pandemic much deadlier than COVID-19.
I do not see a future without many megadeaths. The only questions we can hopefully answer with small hope have to do with what kind of world will be left after the collapse of our presently teetering global economic system (based as it is upon an illusion of unlimited cheap, trade-off-free, fossil fuel energy).
Good points. I agree, Trump is obviously an extreme narcissist and an egomaniac. But he doesn't want the legacy of "worst president ever". He wants to be loved. He wants to be seen as a hero. That can go either way, good or bad, depending who he is taking advice from. But it’s something that can be used to lower big risks like nuclear war.
Also agree on your take in regards to collapse scenario. It's a wild card, but I'm afraid that's what's coming. I just don't see how we avoid it.
Excellent piece. Restacking now. If anyone is interested, my Substack talks about grassroots, cooperative solutions to climate change and economic inequality. (The solutions go hand-in-hahand-in-hand.)
Excellent overview. I have always maintained that building wind turbines today in forests was counterproductive and a waste of limited resources.
I assume you have seen and read this study.
“Review of Climate Change Impacts on Human Environment: Past, Present and Future Projections”
Nasrat Adamo, Nadhir Al-Ansari, Varoujan Sissakian
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=113523
Interesting outtake is that man’s agricultural inputs starting about 5,000 years ago may have halted the normal ice age we would now be experiencing. In other words mankind as we now know it wouldn’t be here today to discuss warming. Things that make you go hmmmm.
“Therefore, not just greenhouse gas emissions over the last 200 years may have stopped us from going into a new ice age, but it is greenhouse gas emissions for the last 5000 years that have collectively helped to steer us away from the next ice age. By this, we may have delayed the onset of the next ice age for now, but if another one starts now, it will have big consequences for human civilization.”
Thanks for sharing. It's an interesting thought, considering how many humans existed at the time, let's be generous and say 10 million, and then assume they cleared land for agriculture as much as 1 hectare per person. The initial clearing could have been as high as 0.40 Gt CO2 which is significant. But after that, depends if they kept clearing new land or not, it could come down to just 0.004 Gt C02 per year. Either way, it may have played a role.
I have often considered the Middle East, and especially the great deserts found there, as evidence of what happens when civilization uses the land up and disrupts natural ecologies and environments. Archaeologists have found petrified trees in the Sahara and evidence in Mesopotamia of large lakes and large populations of people who farmed in a rich and fruitful land. Where, and why, did it all go?
It certainly does look grim.
https://lastweekincollapse.substack.com/