Peter Brannen
@peterbrannen.bsky.social
Pinned
Peter Brannen
@peterbrannen.bsky.social
· May 21
The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...
www.harpercollins.com
Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
One of the creepier geology papers I've read was about how in the end-Permian mass extinction (which is characterized by extreme volcanic CO2 outgassing and warming) the actual kill mechanism might have been when pulses of sulfur aerosols masking the warming rained out and the temperature spiked
A lot of people are going to lose money on this. Solar radiation modification only makes sense if followed by large-scale carbon dioxide removal, and we ain't got that.
A 25-person startup is developing technology to block the sun and turn down the planet’s thermostat.
The stakes are huge — and the company and its critics say regulations need to catch up.
Read more: politi.co/4iaojIc
The stakes are huge — and the company and its critics say regulations need to catch up.
Read more: politi.co/4iaojIc
November 24, 2025 at 8:08 PM
One of the creepier geology papers I've read was about how in the end-Permian mass extinction (which is characterized by extreme volcanic CO2 outgassing and warming) the actual kill mechanism might have been when pulses of sulfur aerosols masking the warming rained out and the temperature spiked
Reposted by Peter Brannen
"The entire financial system, including government bonds and mortgages, is premised on the idea that tomorrow will look something like today. In a world that’s 3 degrees warmer, it assuredly will not"
@peterbrannen.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com -->>
www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
@peterbrannen.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com -->>
www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
November 23, 2025 at 10:05 PM
"The entire financial system, including government bonds and mortgages, is premised on the idea that tomorrow will look something like today. In a world that’s 3 degrees warmer, it assuredly will not"
@peterbrannen.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com -->>
www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
@peterbrannen.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com -->>
www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
Wrote about how climate change is bad www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
Climate Realism Is a Delusion
By shooting for 3 degrees Celsius of warming, the world could slide toward a more cataclysmic 4 degrees.
www.theatlantic.com
November 23, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Wrote about how climate change is bad www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
Apart from being a heartbreaking meditation on death, the fury Tatiana Schlossberg feels towards her shithead cousin RFK Jr. radiates off this piece www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
A Battle with My Blood
When I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first thought was that this couldn’t be happening to me, to my family.
www.newyorker.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Apart from being a heartbreaking meditation on death, the fury Tatiana Schlossberg feels towards her shithead cousin RFK Jr. radiates off this piece www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
“If we drive the carbon cycle far enough from equilibrium, it will respond in kind, no matter how hard we try to subordinate it to the market, or tame it with panicked legislation.” - @peterbrannen.bsky.social (quote from Peter’s excellent new book)
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) averaged about 425 ppm in October 2025
10 years ago October averaged about 398 ppm
Data available at gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
10 years ago October averaged about 398 ppm
Data available at gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
November 18, 2025 at 1:51 AM
“If we drive the carbon cycle far enough from equilibrium, it will respond in kind, no matter how hard we try to subordinate it to the market, or tame it with panicked legislation.” - @peterbrannen.bsky.social (quote from Peter’s excellent new book)
Reposted by Peter Brannen
Nice explainer about CO2 - wiyh some nice examples from the geological record. @peterbrannen.bsky.social
The Climate Question
Science Podcast · Updated Fortnightly · Why we find it so hard to save our own planet, and how we might change that.
podcasts.apple.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Nice explainer about CO2 - wiyh some nice examples from the geological record. @peterbrannen.bsky.social
Climate effects aside, just the sheer scale of our emissions are astounding. Humanity makes more CO2 every year than all other materials we produce combined
1) Fossil fuel
Still no peak. Emissions are projected to increase by 1.1% in 2025, reaching 38.1 GtCO2. An all time high.
Still no peak. Emissions are projected to increase by 1.1% in 2025, reaching 38.1 GtCO2. An all time high.
November 13, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Climate effects aside, just the sheer scale of our emissions are astounding. Humanity makes more CO2 every year than all other materials we produce combined
Attention Mainers (and pandemic-era NYC transplants to Maine), I'll be talking deep time carbon cycle shenanigans at the Footbridge Brewery in Boothbay on Thursday, for Bigelow Lab's Ocean on Tap series
November 11, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Attention Mainers (and pandemic-era NYC transplants to Maine), I'll be talking deep time carbon cycle shenanigans at the Footbridge Brewery in Boothbay on Thursday, for Bigelow Lab's Ocean on Tap series
The hardening Beltway conventional wisdom about the tolerability of 3°C of warming (leaving aside the possibility of carbon cycle feedbacks kicking that up to around 4°C) is crazy. thebulletin.org/2022/07/extr...
November 9, 2025 at 6:06 PM
The hardening Beltway conventional wisdom about the tolerability of 3°C of warming (leaving aside the possibility of carbon cycle feedbacks kicking that up to around 4°C) is crazy. thebulletin.org/2022/07/extr...
It's the time of year when I think people are posting maps of isostatic rebound again.
November 5, 2025 at 8:48 PM
It's the time of year when I think people are posting maps of isostatic rebound again.
The arc of history is long but it bends towards a lethally hot supercontinent 250 million years from now
October 27, 2025 at 9:49 PM
The arc of history is long but it bends towards a lethally hot supercontinent 250 million years from now
Reposted by Peter Brannen
Just began @peterbrannen.bsky.social's new book and already came across this gem 🤌 „If you really wanna have good fun, be a geologist. Geologists often know 2 or 3 languages and they always know the best places to drink.“ followed by a shout-out to IODP, the JR, and Exp399. Promising start!
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October 25, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Just began @peterbrannen.bsky.social's new book and already came across this gem 🤌 „If you really wanna have good fun, be a geologist. Geologists often know 2 or 3 languages and they always know the best places to drink.“ followed by a shout-out to IODP, the JR, and Exp399. Promising start!
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if you’re a Boston Brahmin, Masshole or even a chowderhead, come out to the Boston Book Festival today at 4:30 for my panel with @dagomardegroot.bsky.social on placing humanity in its geologic and cosmic context bostonbookfestival2025.sched.com/event/28bfb/...
Boston Book Festival 2025: Science: Planetary and Cosmic Histories
View more about this event at Boston Book Festival 2025
bostonbookfestival2025.sched.com
October 25, 2025 at 3:08 PM
if you’re a Boston Brahmin, Masshole or even a chowderhead, come out to the Boston Book Festival today at 4:30 for my panel with @dagomardegroot.bsky.social on placing humanity in its geologic and cosmic context bostonbookfestival2025.sched.com/event/28bfb/...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
I listened to this on the commute today. Highly recommend. Brannen and Wyman both influenced my chapter in Future of Denial on the history of Earth told through CO₂ levels
Had tons of fun talking to @patrickwyman.bsky.social about the past few hundred million years or so for his great Tides of History podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Tides of History
History Podcast · Updated Weekly · Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we s...
podcasts.apple.com
October 24, 2025 at 2:51 PM
I listened to this on the commute today. Highly recommend. Brannen and Wyman both influenced my chapter in Future of Denial on the history of Earth told through CO₂ levels
Had tons of fun talking to @patrickwyman.bsky.social about the past few hundred million years or so for his great Tides of History podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Tides of History
History Podcast · Updated Weekly · Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we s...
podcasts.apple.com
October 23, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Had tons of fun talking to @patrickwyman.bsky.social about the past few hundred million years or so for his great Tides of History podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
It can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
October 17, 2025 at 4:23 PM
It can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The fact that not only is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, but the *rate of CO2 increasing* in the atmosphere is still increasing is true nightmare stuff.
“[Last year] CO2 in the global surface atmosphere increased by 3.5 ppm, the largest one-year increase since modern measurements began... This increase was driven by continued fossil CO2 emissions, enhanced fire emissions and reduced terrestrial/ocean sinks… which could signal a climate feedback.”
October 15, 2025 at 6:33 PM
The fact that not only is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, but the *rate of CO2 increasing* in the atmosphere is still increasing is true nightmare stuff.
Really enjoyed this @asherelbein.bsky.social story on maybe the most enigmatic and controversial rocks in the geologic record: the bizarre, premature-by-a-billion-years-or-so fossils[?] of large complex life[?] in Gabon. @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/comp...
These Enigmatic ‘Fossils’ Could Rewrite the History of Life on Earth
Controversial evidence hints that complex life might have emerged hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought—and possibly more than once
www.scientificamerican.com
October 14, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Really enjoyed this @asherelbein.bsky.social story on maybe the most enigmatic and controversial rocks in the geologic record: the bizarre, premature-by-a-billion-years-or-so fossils[?] of large complex life[?] in Gabon. @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/comp...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
This book is so good
Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...
www.harpercollins.com
October 10, 2025 at 12:56 PM
This book is so good
They shouldn't have been allowed to do this imho
October 9, 2025 at 4:50 PM
They shouldn't have been allowed to do this imho
Reposted by Peter Brannen
I’m really into @peterbrannen.bsky.social’s new book. If you’ve most read anything I’ve written in recent years, it’s indebted to his prior book The Ends of the World
October 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
I’m really into @peterbrannen.bsky.social’s new book. If you’ve most read anything I’ve written in recent years, it’s indebted to his prior book The Ends of the World
Just remembered this jaw-dropping graph by @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social showing the rate of change in CO2 during the previous two deglaciations of the Pleistocene (which, as a fun aside, featured ~400 feet of sea level rise) as compared with today
October 9, 2025 at 1:30 AM
Just remembered this jaw-dropping graph by @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social showing the rate of change in CO2 during the previous two deglaciations of the Pleistocene (which, as a fun aside, featured ~400 feet of sea level rise) as compared with today
Reposted by Peter Brannen
🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
October 8, 2025 at 4:50 PM
🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Fascinating line in new Hülse & Ridgwell paper about how our gigantic pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere--after tens of thousands of years of warming--could kick off an overcorrection of organic carbon burial in the oceans and hasten the descent into an ice age www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
September 30, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Fascinating line in new Hülse & Ridgwell paper about how our gigantic pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere--after tens of thousands of years of warming--could kick off an overcorrection of organic carbon burial in the oceans and hasten the descent into an ice age www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
Pretty tickled that my book was reviewed alongside @peterbrannen.bsky.social's brilliant "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" — and in Germany, no less, for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Peak moment, that.
Peak moment, that.
September 29, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Pretty tickled that my book was reviewed alongside @peterbrannen.bsky.social's brilliant "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" — and in Germany, no less, for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Peak moment, that.
Peak moment, that.