Thread by @DoctorVive

I cannot stop thinking about @PeterBrannen1's gorgeous & harrowing article on the Carnian Pluvial Episode.

That climate change produces rainfall powerful enough to wipe away the topography of all the Earth's landmass is shocking even for me.

[thread]

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

2. That climate change this powerful was triggered by warming roughly equivalent to what's projected for our current pollution emissions trajectory is ... almost too much to bear.

3. Right around now many of my friends are making their winter holiday plans, buying tickets to fly all sorts of lovely places around the world. All of these people claim to understand the reality of climate change.

4. My yoga teacher is going to Mysore, India. Her stated goal is to improve the world by teaching people how to live as yogis do.

The first Yama (principle) of the yogic system is "ahimsa," non harming.

I've lost count of how many flights she's taken this year.

5. I'm feeling a little alienated today, can you tell?

6. I cannot bear the thought--I refuse to dignify the thought!--that human beings have neither free will nor the capacity to love. We CANNOT BE merely the planet's way to burn off its terrestrial carbon reserves and start over with something else for reasons we don't understand.

7.I mean, the mathematics that makes Bach's cello concertos so beautiful is real, & we are connected to that beauty.

I don't believe our capacity for beauty is a side effect of our being some sort of scourge on this manifestation of earthly life. No way.

8. And the joy that I feel, that I think almost everyone must feel?, listening to these children laugh, doesn't that make you want to protect them no matter what pleasure you may need to give up?

Isn't protecting their lives worth it?

9. I'm sorry. Perhaps twitter is not the place for this cri de coeur.

But where else are the people who understand what the stakes are? And who are doing everything they can to stop our fossil-fuel use?

Climate twitter is one proof that humanity is not all bad.

10. God, that's depressing, ha ha.

11. Anyhow, I'm not really sure how to finish this thread. Probably by saying I'm going to go over to @EndClimtSilence now & poke some anchor to ask a debate question about climate change. That helps me. (Please follow and RT that account!)

Then I'm going to go do some yoga ha.

12. Then I'm going to come back to my desk and keep writing, maybe call @RepJerryNadler's office and needle his staff about his needing to be more vocal about climate change. 🙂

13. And when friends ask me what we are doing over the winter holidays, I'm going to tell them that we're staying put.

14. I'm going to SAY that I cannot bear to dump tons of CO2 into our air knowing that, if we do not stop polluting our planet with GHGs, in my son's lifetime we will warm enough to cause our continents to wash into the ocean.

Fuck it.

15. If my friends drop me, at least there's climate twitter. 💚

And, in any case, there's my sanity. And my family. And what *really* makes life worth living.

#EndClimateSilence

PS The beach in the photo amended to the tweet above was reached by electric car powered by renewables. Thank you! 🙂