Ben See Profile picture
Aug 27, 2019 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Scientists:

1. The natural world is collapsing
2. Earth's climate soon won't suit us
3. A 6th mass extinction has begun
4. Free market capitalism must end
5. Economic growth is destructive
6. Government intervention is vital
7. Energy distribution must be fair

Front page news?
BIOLOGICAL ANNIHILATION EMERGENCY:

There is 'a common misimpression that Earth’s biota is not immediately threatened, just slowly entering an episode of major biodiversity loss.'

In reality 'the window for effective action is very short'.

Hard to digest.pnas.org/content/114/30…
CLIMATE DEATH SPIRAL EMERGENCY:

It's far from certain humans will survive decently as the climate spirals away from once comfortable conditions.

The new climate & rate of change may be beyond "species' adaptive capacity". ⚠️

Humans will struggle to live.
EXTINCTION EMERGENCY:

The corporate capitalism of Forbes is destroying global biodiversity.

It's happening 'at an incredibly fast and accelerating rate.'

To see ecocide as an inevitable result of human nature is to ignore our complex, essential decency.
forbes.com/sites/linhanhc…
FREE MARKET CAPITALISM EMERGENCY:

🔺"societies have to go through a very dramatic shift"

🔺"we are past this discussion of should we have capitalism or should we have something else"

This is from a UN-commissioned report by scientists.

Time to change.

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b…
ECONOMIC GROWTH EMERGENCY:

⚠️ We cannot keep the current growth economy if we want to survive according to the recent IPBES report and the 23,000 scientists who put their names to the ideas in this paper (academic.oup.com/bioscience/art…) amongst many others...

RIGHT-WING POLITICAL ECONOMY EMERGENCY

'If the U.S. and the world are to succeed in limiting disruptive climate change, the U.S. will have to give up the idea that free markets alone can adequately address climate change markets need help from governments'scientificamerican.com/article/withou…
INEQUALITY EMERGENCY:

"A key constituent of sustainable pathways is steering away from the current limited paradigm of economic growth..That implies incorporating the reduction of inequalities into development pathways, reducing overconsumption and waste"
The only decent, workable response 'is energy as a public good, a global decentralised RE energy system, with a massive reduction in energy use together w/ total break up of agribusiness model with food as a right & agro-ecology as model.'

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ben See

Ben See Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ClimateBen

Aug 9
Destruction of habitats and wildlife has intensified and accelerated to an almost unimaginable degree during the capitalist era. Scientists say the 40-50% of plant species now facing extinction will be obliterated in a handful of decades. It didn't have to be like this. Rethink. Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm
1. Capitalism: a 'meteorite'

'previous mass extinctions.. took 10,000s, 100,000s, even millions of years to happen. this is happening so fast, now in just two, three decades..'
google.com/amp/s/www.cbsn…

Recovery: "we most likely won’t be there to see it"..
discovermagazine.com/earth-is-on-th…
2. Current estimates of plant extinctions are, without a doubt, gross underestimates. Extinctions will surpass background rates by 1000s of times over the next 80 years. universityofcalifornia.edu/news/plants-ar…
Read 8 tweets
Aug 7
BREAKING: as tropical forests show increasingly clear signs they are entering a collapse phase scientists warn irreversible mass extinction conditions are on the horizon 🧵
1. rapid warming & collapse

".. warming could continue to accelerate.. even if we reach zero human emissions. We will have fundamentally changed the carbon cycle in a way that can take geological timescales to recover, which has happened in Earth’s past.”scitechdaily.com/mass-extinctio…
2. “There will be a point in the not too distant future when we suddenly see and feel this mass extinction all around us very clearly”

“A key point of extinction crises is that life has always recovered.. However..we most likely won’t be there to see it."
Read 5 tweets
Jul 23
icymi: our coastal cities will be smashed by multi-metre sea level rise within decades Peak global mean temperature, atmospheric CO2, maximum global mean sea level (GMSL), and source(s) of meltwater.  Light blue shading indicates uncertainty of GMSL maximum. Red pie charts over Greenland and Antarctica denote fraction (not location) of ice retreat.
The Greenland ice sheet is now losing around 9 billion litres of ice an hour [Geological Survey of Denmark &Greenland]

With the ice sheet at “a tipping point of irreversible melting”, scientists currently expect an unavoidable sea level rise of 1-2 metres.weforum.org/stories/2025/0…
4 to 10 m sea level rise committed in the coming 2000 years, with the majoroty of that in the coming decades/centuries it would appear.
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

x.com/climate_ice/st…
Read 4 tweets
Jul 21
BREAKING: horrific worst-case scenarios firmly back on the table as scientists confirm large-scale Earth systems such as forests, ice sheets, and ocean currents may already be collapsing 🧵
'large-scale Earth systems may be experiencing gradual collapses that are easy to miss, with profound implications

"we may already be crossing tipping points without realizing"

Slow changes can be deceptive

some systems may slide into collapse silently'
phys.org/news/2025-07-e…
Read 5 tweets
Jul 19
BREAKING: as global warming accelerates wildly normally reticent Establishment scientists begin to discuss plausibility of near-term human extinction 🧵
1/'It seems very unlikely that extinction is on the table for any but the most severe scenarios of climate negligence. However, it is easy to envision a collapse of human civilization.'

What Dr Mann won't say: new papers show 3.5-5°C is entirely likely. gizmodo.com/is-climate-cha…
2/We know relatively low levels of warming like 2 or 2.5°C (which are in fact absolutely extreme given the rapid rate of change) could mean human extinction. Dr Mann would agree 2.25-3.25°C is likely/very likely to hit in a few/handful of decades.

Thread:
Read 6 tweets
Jul 19
BREAKING: climate scientists say it's now easy to envision a collapse of human civilization 🧵
1. it is easy to envision a collapse of human civilization:

'Without even appealing to the uncertain science of climate tipping points, the known impacts of climate change.. would be more than adequate to destabilize our societal infrastructure.'
gizmodo.com/is-climate-cha…
2. Climate scientists project 2°C and rising by the 2030s/40s, with 2.5°C or more by the 2040s/50s or soon after. There is no evidence whatsoever humans can survive that rate of change and the abrupt shift to extreme new conditions.

2-4°C is very likely.
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(