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Peter Brannen

@peterbrannen.bsky.social

1.6K followers 210 following 150 posts

Mammal 1st book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-ends-of-the-world-peter-brannen?variant=32121859801122 2nd book (Aug, 2025): https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-story-of-co2-is-the-story-of-everything-peter-brannen?variant=42382167638050

www.harpercollins.com

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · May 21

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

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Reposted by Peter Brannen

susannah glickman @susglickman.bsky.social · 3d

have a new piece out of defense tech with nyrb!

www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

The War Over Defense Tech | Susannah Glickman

Last October, on a Martin Luther–inspired website called www.18theses.com, a software executive named Shyam Sankar published a four-thousand-word polemic

www.nybooks.com

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Reposted by Peter Brannen

ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 1d

This is a good reminder, and a great accomplishment, but the message is somewhat off the mark regarding biosignatures. The key point is that nominal biosignatures always depend on context. You don't expect oxygen on a lava planet to be an indication of photosynthesis. Similarly, for PH3,

Keith Smith @drkeithsmith.bsky.social · 2d

The phosphine molecule, PH3, has been proposed as a biosignature in rocky planets. In @science.org, Burgasser et al. report phosphine in a brown dwarf atmosphere. "We therefore caution against the use of phosphine as a biosignature". #stellarastro #exoplanet ☄️
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Observation of undepleted phosphine in the atmosphere of a low-temperature brown dwarf

The atmospheres of low-temperature brown dwarfs and gas giant planets are expected to contain the phosphine molecule, PH3. However, previous observations have shown much lower abundances of this molec...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Peter Brannen

Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 5d

Today's the big day, friends - my new book, Lost Worlds: The Rise and Fall of Human Societies from the Ice Age to the Bronze Age, is available for preorder! Smash that link and purchase from your retailer of choice, if that's the kind of thing you're into. www.harpercollins.com/products/los...

Lost Worlds

The creator of the hit podcast Tides of History offers a new look at humanity’s deep past, showing us how our world was built not by inevitability, but by t...

www.harpercollins.com

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 7d

Was struck when I visited the grave of Eisenhower, the archetypal 20th c. warrior, he chose the inscription above his tomb, ”Every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed“

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 7d

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/...

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Reposted by Peter Brannen

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 8d

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.

Franffurter Allgemeine
G › Feuilleton › Bücher › Sachbuch › Klimawan
F+
KLIMAWANDEL UND KOHLENDIOXID
„Zusammengefasst stecken wir in einer tiefen Scheiße"
Von Philipp Krohn
29.09.2025, 17:33 Lesezeit: 5 Min.

Insofern überrascht es nicht, welche zentrale Rolle CO2 im modernen Leben insgesamt spielt. Das ist auch für die Literaturwissenschaftlerin Genevieve
Guenther der Ausgangspunkt. Sie hat die Freiwilligenorganisation End Climate Silence in den USA aufgebaut. In ihrem weit schmaleren Band zur Sprache der Klimapolitik analysiert sie den amerikanischen Klimadiskurs anhand wichtiger Schlagwörter: Alarmismus, Kosten, Wachstum, „Indien und China", Innovation und Resilienz.
GENEVIEVE GUENTHER

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 10d

If you’re in midcoast Maine today I’ll be shucking for my brother’s oyster farm at the Pemaquid Oyster Festival, come on by and say hi

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 12d

“The Arctic Ocean became a net CO2 source…contributing to prolonged carbon input, temperature rise and ocean acidification during the PETM. These findings highlight potential major perturbations to Arctic carbon cycling under future climate change.”

Nature Geoscience @natgeosci.nature.com · 12d

⚒️ Article: Enhanced aerobic oxidation of methane in the Arctic Ocean intensified carbon dioxide emissions during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, potentially extending the event

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Arctic CO2 emissions amplified by aerobic methane oxidation during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum - Nature Geoscience

Enhanced aerobic oxidation of methane in the Arctic Ocean intensified carbon dioxide emissions during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, potentially extending the event, according to biomarker records from an Arctic sediment core.

www.nature.com

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 13d

Had a fun, in-depth talk about my new book on the Decouple podcast www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEq3...

The Molecule That Transformed Earth – #294

YouTube video by Decouple Media

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Peter Brannen

Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 13d

NEW SEASON of Tides of History starting soon, so stoked!
Oct 9: The Ancient Economy from Assyria to Augustus
Oct 16: Living and Working in Imperial Babylon
Oct 23: Interview with @peterbrannen.bsky.social on his new book
Oct 30: The Ancient Egyptian Economy
Nov 6: Interview with Eric Cline

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 16d

I've started reading @peterbrannen.bsky.social's "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" and I'm going old school by underlining and jotting down notes in the margins

here are a couple of excerpts in the section introducing silicate weathering and the carbon cycle ⚒️📚

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Reposted by Peter Brannen

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 22d

Geologists and data scientists are building system models of Earth’s ancient past like we’ve never seen before. www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 19d

Feels weird promoting a book in this moment, but very touched by this thread in which Josh implicitly compares my work to the versatile game of Utah Jazz stretch-5 Lauri Markkanen

Joshua Sokol @joshuasokol.bsky.social · 20d

Otherwise I really enjoyed, and admire, when he wanders away from geology (his starting superpower) into other domains, putting this book in a rare circle of nominal pieces of science writing that are equivalent to the positionless 7-foot NBA "unicorns" who can step out of the paint and drain 3s.

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

I have to say, did not realize that the path to Turkmenistan as a country was so direct

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

Some takeaways:

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

Thanks so much Josh, thrilled you enjoyed the book and I really truly appreciate the generous words. Also, very happy to be the Karl Anthony-Towns of science writing

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

Thanks Elise!

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

Wrote a long story for @quantamagazine.bsky.social about our best understanding of climate change over the entire half-billion-year-plus age of animals www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...

Climate Extremes Are a Hallmark of the Age of Animals | Quanta Magazine

New reconstructions of 540 million years of climate history show the planet tumbling between icehouse and hothouse states, revealing how rare and vulnerable our temperate moment is.

www.quantamagazine.org

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 21d

Thanks, Peter. Carbon is not just the whole story on Earth, it's (almost) the whole story for habitability of planets everywhere. I say "almost," because there are other greenhouse gases, like hydrogen, which can maintain habitability, but so far, CO2 is the only one with a known feedback that

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 21d

Fascinating, thanks for highlighting it again

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 21d

This physical depletion of the crust is why climate scientists Roger Revelle and Hans Suess called the fossil fueled-industrialization of the world, “a large-scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.”

Reuters @reuters.com · 22d

Decline in global oil and gas field output accelerating, IEA says reut.rs/4meC74R

Decline in global oil and gas field output accelerating, IEA says

The decline in output from mature global oil and gas fields is accelerating amid greater reliance on shale and deep offshore resources, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday, meaning companies need to invest more just to keep output flat.

reut.rs

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 22d

Same goes for Ferris’ sweeping, lyrical tour of geobiology and ecology, Becoming Earth!

Ferris Jabr @ferrisjabr.bsky.social · 22d

Make some shelf space for this one. Peter has produced an epic work of superb synthesis: rigorously researched, bold in vision, eloquently told, and always illuminating — one of the best nonfiction books for understanding our current moment in the context of Earth history. Highly recommended ⭐ 🌍 💙📚

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · May 21

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 22d

Far too kind! Thanks so much Ferris, really appreciate it.

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 22d

Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, and beyond, come hear me talk about the past 4 billion years or so with my friend Phoebe, geologist extraordinaire, at the @harvardbookstore.bsky.social Thursday 7pm

Phoebe Cohen @phoebefossil.bsky.social · 22d

Boston and Camberville! See you Thursday! I am 99% done with this epic book and so excited to blather with @peterbrannen.bsky.social about it at @harvardbookstore.bsky.social

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 22d

Yes, this song went through peer review

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