You’ve got to know which side I’m on. I’m an old-school environmentalist, coming of age in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. More environmental f&%kery happened during my youth and more meaningful environmental policy was enacted in my youth than at any time or any place in modern industrial civilization’s history. When I hear the youth of today complain about […]
Okay, the ‘world’ will go on. Planet X is not going to come crashing into Earth anytime soon, scattering debris into a new asteroid belt. And yes, eventually the planet will heal itself of the human virus (Homo Ecophagus), and life will go on in some form after humans have consumated their planetary extinction event. I’m using ‘end of the […]
A wide-ranging conversation, including the history and evolution of Earth Day and a robust Q/A session. Enjoy!
It was a great honor to be a guest on this show, aptly titled “Chaos in the Climate Casino.” Thank you to everyone at the Climate Emergency Forum for this opportunity.
Inspired by Sam Mitchell of Collapse Chronicles, here is my “Ain’t Gonna’ Happen” list, also known as AGH. This list arose from the almost daily onslaught of “we must”, “we should”, “we have to”, “if only we” and “if we don’t” aspirational rhetoric that floods mass media, climate journalism and social networks. This list is also inspired by Michael Dowd’s […]
My third appearance on ‘Santa Barbara Talks’ with Josh Molina. We started off talking about the extreme rain event that was happening that very moment, but quickly went off-topic into a deep and at times unexpected discussion about doomerism and the near-term fate of humanity and all life on this planet. Josh is one of my favorite interviewers, and we […]
Do you want to get frustrated by climate scientists? Just ask them what the current level of global surface warming is above the IPCC 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline. In response, you’ll hear numbers ranging from 1.0°C up to about 1.3°C, depending on your source. The lack of rigor and consistency in reporting this all-important number is crazy-making. But this singular value […]
The rate at which Earth is heating up due to the rise in greenhouse gasses is best described by what’s known as the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI). This is the difference between the amount of incoming solar radiation that heats the planet and the outgoing radiation of all types that escapes back into space. As James Hansen and a group […]
As everyone who pays attention knows, Michael Mann, the self-appointed media darling for climate science, is famous for attacking doomers as being worse than climate deniers. But what has become clear after reading the content of Mann’s attacks is his nearly complete ignorance of what it means to be a doomer. For example, here is what he wrote in this […]
Two years ago methane was the rising star on the hitlist of doomer messaging. And it was easy: the methane monster had so many different heads to chose from. From natural sources we had permafrost methane, East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) methane, methane bubbling up from lake and ocean bottoms and from an increase in termites. From anthropogenic sources we […]
Earlier today I posted this Tweet: There aren’t enough f&%ks in my vocabulary to express how I feel today about pretty much everything humans are doing to each other, to every living thing, and to this once and future remarkable planet. I am just exhausted by pretty much everything humans do that is f&%ked. And just about everything humans do […]
With all the present-tense climate f&%kery going on in the world, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that it’s CO₂ that’s primarily driving these events (with methane in second place for now). Okay, for the purists, it’s overshoot that’s causing the f&%kery. But we’re going to stick to CO₂ for the purpose of this article. Meanwhile, as civilization […]
From the YouTube description: Doomer Dr. Eliot Jacobson returns to Santa Barbara Talks to discuss the potential catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Hilary and why we are seeing a tropical hurricane on the West Coast. Jacobson also talks about rising heat records in Phoenix, increasing ocean temperatures, and the wildfires in Canada. Jacobson is a doomer who believe that it is […]
[Revised and re-posted: June 26, 2023. Apparently I lost the previous comments when I updated the post date. Sorry about that!] Let’s start with the obvious. The word “doomer” is a word with horribly dark connotations. The obvious interpretation is that a doomer believes life is hopeless, they might as well give up trying; there is no value in being […]
It was a distinct pleasure having this discussion with one of Santa Barbara’s finest local journalists, Josh Molina, on June 14, 2023. We talk about the recent spike in ocean temperatures for the first part, then launch into a wide ranging discussion of what it means to be a doomer and the future of the planet. Click on the image […]
As of June 10, 2023, worldwide data showed the remarkable concurrence of three dramatic climate events. The first WTF is in the Antarctic, where sea-ice extent is setting record lows daily, now fully over 2 million kilometers below the 1991-2020 mean. This is not some one-off event. A decline like this has long been predicted. The impact is that there […]
Cheers Eliot, we appreciate your rye wit alongside the increasing salinity of your arguments. Remember Nagasaki.
Truly value everything you've done, Eliot!
Thanks, Mister Jacobson. You're the best math teacher.
Thanks for the math correction, Eliot. Hopefully the mass media picks up on your work {Ain't Gonna Happen!} then relates…
Excellent response, thank you kindly for that correction. I've always felt as though it was a bit too high in…
This put me in mind of the following passage from David Mitchell's excellent novel The Bone Clocks. His character is…
Strangely, or maybe not so strangely as I identify in the “ doomer” category, I found some of this relieving.…
Hi Eliot, even trying to relate to number of Hiroshima bombs is beyond most people’s comprehension. I would find how…