Writer
Andrew Glikson
Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleoclimate scientist.
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ANDREW GLIKSON. An Orwellian climate endangers planet
“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, Continue reading »
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Methane, coal seam gas and the demise of the planetary life support system
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Daniel Ellsberg and the global nuclear suicide machine
“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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The onset of climate tipping points
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The ABC and the climate impasse.
“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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The price of the Earth.
“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 Continue reading »
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Nuclear portents mount while Rome burns
“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” (Albert Einstein May 1946). Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. 2.0 minutes to midnight on the clock of the atomic scientists.
“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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. An Orwellian climate: the rise of dangerous ideologies in a heating world.
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Climate change, droughts and wars: is there a nexus?
According to Al Gore during 2006 and 2010 some 60 percent of farms in Syria were destroyed and abandoned and some 80 percent of the livestock were killed during the most severe drought parts of the Middle East ever recorded[i]. Subsequently more than a million Syrians migrated into cities, along with refugees from the Iraq Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The ALP and global warming
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The criminal dimension of climate change-a new book.
“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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Humanity’s stark choice: continue genocidal wars or try to save our planetary home.
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. Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. at 2.5 minutes to midnight, we must defend the planet
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. A privileged few ignore scorched Earth in race to Mars
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Hurricanes and megafires abound, but don’t mention the words ‘climate change’
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 Continue reading »