A 2.3 billion year old hunk of granite from the side of the road in Wyoming. Older than life on Earth.
*multicellular life
This one is also Precambrian, 3 billion years old
specifically, a chunk of gneiss from the Wyoming Craton, a proto-continent that formed North America.

an even older outcropping of the Superior Craton, another proto-continent, is back home in Minnesota. those rocks are 3.6 billion years old.
dnr.state.mn.us/snas/detail.ht…

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More from @EricHolthaus

21 Jul
Today’s air quality in New York City was the worst in more than 14 years. The concentration of fine particulate matter was seven times the @WHO's healthy limit.

The cause? A plume of smoke spanning the entire continent.

We are in a climate emergency.

getrevue.co/profile/curren… a smoky NYC skyline
And it wasn't just NYC.

The worst of the smoke stretched from western Canada to Minnesota to New England. Nearly every major city in the Northeast had dangerously unhealthy levels of air quality.

airnow.gov/national-maps/ air quality map from airnow.gov
Air pollution from burning fossil fuels kills more than 8 million people worldwide every year. That's more than the entire COVID-19 pandemic.

The fossil fuel industry is literally killing us, now. This is not a future issue. This is a climate emergency.

cnn.com/2021/02/09/wor….
Read 4 tweets
12 Jul
On Friday, Death Valley recorded the hottest day ever measured, anywhere in the world: High 130°F, Low 104°F, Ave 117°F.

Today was even hotter.

High 128°F, Low 108°F(‼️), Ave 118°F

We are in a climate emergency.
getrevue.co/profile/curren…
That overnight low of 108°F is still preliminary — the day isn't over yet after all.

If it holds (it will) it'll be the hottest night ever measured anywhere in the world outside of Oman (109°F).
cnn.com/travel/article…
That overnight low temperatures are warming worldwide more quickly than daytime highs is a telltale signal of climate change.

It's also making heat waves more deadly everywhere, because bodies don't have a chance to recover.
Read 4 tweets
10 Jul
Today's temperature of 130.0°F at Death Valley is the fourth-highest temperature ever recorded anywhere on Earth. All three higher temperatures are disputed.

If confirmed by @WMO, it would be the highest reliably-measured temperature in human history.

Today and tomorrow are expected to be even hotter in Death Valley.

This is climate change.

@currently has more:
getrevue.co/profile/curren…
Yesterday Death Valley hit 120°F at noon.

Today it hit 120°F before 11 a.m.

That puts Death Valley on track to beat yesterday's highest-reliably-measured-temperature-in-human-history of 130°F. current conditions at Death...
Read 4 tweets
6 Jul
Hot take: I honestly couldn't care less about Fox Weather.

The folks who are going to be interested in Fox Weather aren't the folks who are forward-thinking in a rapidly warming world.

That's the reason we're making @currently —a weather service built for the climate emergency.
To be relevant in 2021, coverage of weather and climate has to be grounded in truth. It has to be trustworthy. It has to be personal. It has to meet people where they are.

The main truth of our time is the climate emergency & that we need systemic change to thrive this century.
Any media service — especially a weather service — not grounded in that truth is not going to do well.

Viewers are smart. We know when we're being lied to, we know when key facts are missing.

That's why leading with climate is the only way weather coverage is going to work.
Read 4 tweets
1 Jul
So, the heat wave in Canada was so strong that it created extreme wildfire conditions, and when the fires started the heat plumes were so strong they created severe thunderstorms, which are so strong they're creating lightning that's sparking new fires
It's way, way scarier when you watch the satellite footage.

These fires and the severe thunderstorms around them produced 710,117 lightning strikes in Canada yesterday.

That's a lot.

Read 4 tweets
27 Jun
We're just about an hour away from today's @currently Spaces chat on the Northwest heatwave:

15 min to go. Join our @currently heatwave chat:

twitter.com/i/spaces/1eaKb…
Read 4 tweets

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