Andrew Glikson

For many weeks much of the mainstream media world-wide, including broadcasters, been warning of potential concessions in the negotiations between the US and North Korea and between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, lest vital interests of the west are compromised. In the process little has been said about the alternative for such negotiations and potential agreements, namely a nuclear holocaust on a regional to a global scale, with consequences that belong to the unthinkable (https://thebulletin.org/2010/03/the-climatic-consequences-of-nuclear-war/ ;  https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2017/08/12/even-a-small-nuclear-war-would-still-have-effects-on-global-scale/#5fbd4b75507d;  http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/). In this context, a picture is emerging regarding the priorities of the US President: On the one hand favoring authoritarian undemocratic leaders and regimes; on the other hand a wish to form an pact with Russia, which could avoid a mutually suicidal nuclear war. (more…)

Since 2015 when the then Prime Minister stated Australia was making a “definite commitment” to a 26% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly as high as 28% reduction”,  now Abbott states he did not foresee as prime minister “how the aspirational targets we agreed to at Paris would, in different hands, become binding commitments”. (more…)

In her new book “Fascism: A Warning” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I27X9L8rReo), Madeleine Albright’s states that the Fascism of a century ago was not atypical: “In hindsight, it is tempting to dismiss every Fascist of this era as a thoroughly bad guy or a lunatic, but that is too easy, also dangerous,” she writes. “Fascism is not an exception to humanity, but part of it.” … “Anti-democratic leaders are winning democratic elections … and some of the world’s savviest politicians are moving closer to tyranny with each passing year.” Inherent in fascism are extreme nationalism, totalitarianism, racism, militarism a push for war, all of which are on the increase, including in the mainstream media, not uncommonly excelling itself in aiming derogatory comments at perceived adversaries, unverified false flags and personal smears. Strangely much of the Fourth Estate is expressing “concern” regarding US negotiations with North Korea and with Russia, even though such may temporarily avert the slide toward nuclear war and the demise of billions. (more…)

“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice” (Martin Luther King)

If there is a single critical issue science has ever conveyed, it is that altering the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere can only bear fatal consequences for nature and humanity. It is estimated that, to date, some 150,000 to 400,000 people world-wide have perished each year due to the direct and indirect effects of global warming (https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-and-health/), including for example 1833 in New Orleans, possibly 5000 in Porto Rico, 6329 by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippine. The list goes on. While these events have been documented in detail, the silence in most of the mainstream media regarding the connection between global warming on the one hand and the rising spate of hurricanes, storms and fires on the other hand, is deafening. (more…)

“Two plus two is five – if the party says so” (George Orwell).

Should anyone record the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, they may report that, while temperatures and sea levels were rising, the human sense of reality has been clouded by electronic systems, including television, the internet and smartphones, by science fiction, virtual realities, public circuses, fake news, gratuitous hype and superlatives which overtook  common sense and the quest for protection of the earth and the survival of the species. (more…)

The extraction and transfer from the earth crust to the atmosphere of every economically available molecule of carbon, including coal, oil, tar sand oil, shale oil, methane gas, coal seam gas and other forms of hydrocarbon, constitutes the most significant shift in composition of the atmosphere since the PETM hyperthermal event about 56 million years ago and the K-T extinction of the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. (more…)

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save human way of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophes.” Albert Einstein 1946

Daniel Ellsberg, former presidential advisor, who had released the famous top-secret Pentagon Papers related to the Viet Nam war, also possessed a cache of top secret documents related to America’s nuclear program in the 1960s. In this new  book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” (5/12/2017) he reveals the contents of those documents, with their shocking relevance for today. It is an insider’s account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of the world, whose legacy threatens the very survival of humanity. Ellsberg’s analysis of recent research on nuclear winter shows that even a small nuclear exchange could expand to cause billions of deaths by global nuclear famine. (more…)

A species which has invented combustion, electromagnetic radiation and nuclear energy orders of magnitude more powerful than its own physical potential, needs to be perfectly wise and in control lest it is overwhelmed by these powers. (more…)

 As extreme temperatures, sea ice melt rates, collapse of Greenland glaciers, thawing of Siberian and Canadian permafrost, increased evaporation in the Arctic and intrusion of cold fronts into Europe and North America are rising, analogies with geological hyperthermal methane-release events such as the 56 m.y. old Paleocene-Eocene boundary thermal maximum and mass extinction (PETM), and even with the 251 Ma-old Permian-Triassic (PT) boundary and mass extinctions, are becoming more likely. (more…)

“Half-truth is much worse than a whole lie because it makes it even harder to tell the difference between the two.” (Gene Ruyle)

For many weeks the Australian parliament, paralyzed by the antiquated legalistic of Section 44 and pre-occupied with the marriage equality issue and the hounding of top politicians, remained oblivious to the existential risks to life on Earth, expressed by extreme weather events including powerful cyclones and extensive wildfires, engulfing large parts of the globe, and to the rising threat of nuclear annihilation. Nor does the majority of the Fourth Estate appear to be too concerned, preoccupied as they are in the chase of ratings and profits. But while it is “normal” for commercial channels to pander to their readers through the hour by hour reporting of salacious titbits, the ABC, the supposed guardian of the public good, appears to be living in fear of external pressures. (more…)

“Dear Caesar, Keep burning, raping and killing, but please, please spare us your obscene poetry and ugly music” (From Seneca’s last letter to Nero).  

Astrophysicist Greg Laughlin came up with a figure of €3000 trillion for the worth of planet Earth, given its breathable atmosphere—a shield from cosmic radiation. A close estimate is by Greg Laughlin at US$5000 trillion. By contrast Mars is estimated as a modest $16,000 while Venus is dismissed at about a penny (https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/new-formula-values-earth-at -50000000000000.html).  Far from a joke, such estimates symbolize the religious worship of money, the loss of reverence toward nature and life and the reality of the Faustian Bargain in the roots of the seventh mass extinction of species. Once a species has acquired the power to destroy its environment, the species needs to be perfectly wise and in control if it is to survive.  (more…)

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences” (Winston Churchill).

On 25 January 2018 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.0 minutes to midnight, the closest it has been since 1953, with implications for humanity and nature. This is the closest the clock has been to catastrophe since detonation of the first hydrogen bomb on 1 November 1952 on Eniwatok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. By 2 March 2016 some 14,900 nuclear weapons existed, enough to eliminate a massive proportion of living creatures, as well as destroy human civilization as we know it. Underlying factors for the shift of the Atomic Clock to 2.0 minutes to midnight include rising expenditure on nuclear weapons, increase in accuracy and tactical “usability” of nuclear weapons, lateral nuclear proliferation, including by North Korea, absence of arms control negotiations and failure in effective measures to combat climate disruption round the world—amounting to crimes against the Earth.   (more…)

It is impossible to say anything good about “Ingsoc”— George Orwell’s brutal and inhumane 1984 dystopia, mimicking Hitler’s and Stalin’s regimes, with only one proviso:  Bar blowing atomic bombs in distant wars, no mention is made in the book of a systematic devastation of the planetary environment—something modern global civilization is in the process of wilfully committing through large-scale carbon emission and hair-trigger nuclear fleets. The parallel rise of extreme ideologies around the world, denying the existential threat to nature and habitats, is closely relevant. (more…)

When a lump of coal was presented in Parliament to the cheers of conservative MPs no doubts could remain regarding their position on global warming, covered with the thin fig leaf of the Paris agreement.  One wonders whether the PM would now be willing to repeat his statement of 2010: “Now our response to climate change must be guided by science. The science tells us that we have already exceeded the safe upper limit for atmospheric carbon dioxide. We are as humans conducting a massive science experiment with this planet. It’s the only planet we’ve got.” (more…)

“We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet.”  (Professor Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impacts)

The extreme rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) since the onset of the industrial age, reaching approximately 403 parts per million in 2017, and the corresponding rise in mean global temperature to +1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature, pose an existential risk for the future of civilization and nature.  (more…)

Sometimes it is what is not mentioned, or little-mentioned, rather than widely discussed, which tells the story. (more…)

CO₂ levels reached 403.64 ppm in October 2017, a rise of 2.07 ppm above October 2016. This has triggered amplifying feedbacks from land and oceans. It is becoming clear the only way to avert environmental and nuclear catastrophes is to down-draw atmospheric CO₂ using budgets on a scale currently only available to the military.           (more…)

On the 27 January, 2017, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.5 min to midnight, the closest it has been since 1953, with enormous implications for humanity and nature. A book titled “The Plutocene: Blueprints for a post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth” elaborates the reasons for the decision of the Atomic Scientists. (more…)

Scientific exploration of the solar system planets constitutes one of the most exciting achievements of the human race. However, the idea of colonizing Mars may prove to be one of the most misleading, creating an impression that an alternative exists to planet Earth, which is a unique haven of life in the solar system, perhaps even in the Milky Way, and which is currently suffering from dangerous heating, rising oceans, extreme weather events, mass extinction of species and a growing risk of a nuclear calamity. (more…)

As extreme hurricanes and extensive wildfires proliferate around the globe, an internet search suggests that, in reporting these events, the words “climate change” have almost disappeared from much of the mainstream media. Some exceptions include the SMH[1] and the Guardian[2]. Nor have numerous ABC reports of the Houston floods included references to climate change. See for example at the following links[3] (more…)