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Alex Steffen Profile picture
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24 Aug, 5 tweets, 2 min read
How it started. How it's going.

Mount Shasta without snow for the first time in history.

This is what climate/ecological discontinuity looks like on the ground.
(Images: NPS, @BillMartinKTVU)
The planetary crisis is not an issue, it's an era, and we're already living in it.

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/were-not-yet…
If you're trying to understand discontinuity and what it means for you and your life, you might dig my newsletter:

alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe
Subsequent reporting has revealed that while Shasta is unusually bare this year, it was actually this extreme, before, in 2014. This is not the first time.

Sorry to repeat an inaccurate claim.

The larger point of course stands.
sfchronicle.com/climate/articl…

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More from @AlexSteffen

Alex Steffen Profile picture
15 Sep
Rioting to demand bold, headlong—indeed positively fucking reckless—climate action might be about to have its moment.
Because

And
Read 4 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
19 Aug
"Transition risk" is not temporary, because we aren't "transitioning" from an unsustainable economy to a stable new sustainable economy.

Discontinuity will not be "solved" by action, and risk will not be rebounded by it either.

Era, not issue.
Bubble will pop or be resolved, but that won't mean restoration of continuity.

More here:

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/discontinuit…
And here:

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/the-planetar…
Read 6 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
18 Aug
Such a powerful story: this is real climate journalism.

"This was not an accident, or a tragic result of unforeseen circumstances. It was a kind of murder."

rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
Delay kills.
"Scientists have known for decades that burning fossil fuels are heating up the planet, and that more intense heat waves are one of the clearest manifestations of life on a superheated planet. And..."
Read 5 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
17 Aug
The claim that there are forbidden tech paths that could save us, if only greens weren't so technophobic, has never held up to scrutiny.

Negative emissions techs are a prime example of a set of approaches that may/ may not hold promise, but cannot possibly save us by themselves.
Follow @Peters_Glen on this. He knows what he's talking about

Here's his commentary (with @KevinClimate) in Science:

science.sciencemag.org/content/354/63…
Read 6 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
16 Aug
OODA SHEAR = 💯

On COVID, Afghanistan or domestic terror, sure, but on climate chaos, ecological destabilization, supply chain breaks, mass-migration, failed disaster states, sudden economic realignments and all the other mechanisms of discontinuity in the planetary crisis, too.
"The OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) is a four-step approach to decision-making"

"The silence at the top. OODA shear. Events are moving too fast for them to process. They are frozen in place, unable to adapt." —@johnrobb

h/t @CrittJarvis
OODA sheer is happening not only around responses to fast-moving crises, but also in regards to the rapidly-evolving strategic environment for solutions/action.

What used to be expert thinking about sustainability, decarbonization, etc is now outdated.

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/discontinuit…
Read 4 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
16 Aug
Just your reminder that a—arguably *the*— pivotal character is DUNE is Liet Kynes, the planetary ecologist.

He is one of the main engines behind all that happens.

"Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount..."

Image by Moebius/Jodorowsky
"The highest function of ecology is understanding consequences."

Image: Max von Sydow, 1984 film
To me, there is a sort of grizzled old man wisdom at the very core of Kynes' vision.

It seems to me a strange choice of character to gender swap. But every adaptation is a new story, Villeneuve is a genius and Sharon Duncan-Brewster may do something new & amazing with the role.
Read 4 tweets

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