Paul Maidowski Profile picture
Feb 1, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
1. The shock of 2020: we learned a pandemic can strike US out of the blue.

We worried climate would lose the little salience we'd won in 2019 and worked unpaid overtime for months/years to link both to deeper socioeconomic problem structures.

System dynamics + #syndemic theory.
2. The shock of 2021 was Omicron: we learned how eagerly people dismissed it.

Spoiler: we then pissed away one year telling ourselves it was "mild", "a natural vaccine", "we were lucky"; rather than taking preparations for SARS eradication, which would work just like in 2003.
3. The surprise of 2022 was seeing the last #ZeroCovid countries like New Zealand, Taiwan and China remove protections even though they everyone who was remotely interested and science-literate knew what would happen.

The real shock is: No one has a plan.
ourworldindata.org/explorers/coro…
4. China still stands out. What will be the surprise of 2023?

Please log back in in a year to find out. Have a good novel year everyone!
5. In the meantime, look out for y/our children. Man, I grow a white hair every time I need to repeat this. 🫠

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More from @_ppmv

Sep 20
1. The structural parallels of SARS-CoV-2 and HIV-1 were known already 20 years ago, from SARS-CoV-1. Yet COVID-19 policy and even most scientists ignore these parallels, failing to learn key lessons. Fundamentally, genetic recombination drives both pandemics—two typical articles

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2. Don't worry about the specific article—there are hundreds more, and more relevant ones. The lesson here is we face syndemics, overlapping epidemics that cluster with inequity, not just distinct pandemics. All reinforce each other
link.springer.com/article/10.118…
frontiersin.org/journals/micro…
3. Background. There are literally thousands such articles; no one integrates them. That's why as political scientist, for years already, I've been arguing that only institutionalization can help with such complexity. We need a @UNAIDS for SARS-CoV, sorry
Read 29 tweets
Aug 30
1. Growing bamboo is our best chance to avert climate breakdown: the plants build soil, help biodiversity, avoid GHG emissions, provide food & construction material, sequester carbon 30 times (!) faster than mixed temperate forest. Yet stunningly, no one coordinates this work yet 40 year old moso bamboo in southwestern France grown from seed. Photo Lihua Jiang, www.yunnan-bamboo.com
2. After 40 years of climate science - first AGGG, now IPCC -, everyone feels they know climate. Yet experts only really know their own field. Generalists and practitioners can implement solutions but need experts to develop them. Bamboo as climate solution is entirely unexplored
Two bamboo stands in Zhongshan Expo Park, Taipei
Bamboo species in Tapei botanical garden
3. Last time atmospheric carbon content was as high as today, 16 million years ago, Earth was >3°C warmer than today, the Arctic was ice free, and Iceland had a subtropical climate. People think they know what climate change means, but most really don't. mdpi.com/2673-4834/5/2/…
Read 47 tweets
Aug 21
We’ve shared this for years, it was known or suspected even before the pandemic from SARS-CoV-1. Friends of we’re going to learn at this rate, ignoring prepandemic science, populations worldwide will get into serious trouble
Background. Thanks for outstanding science communications @vipintukur
I'd like to delete my account, but then a sizable fraction of the early Covid twitter scicomm documentation - to show what was known when - would be gone. As far as I know, no one else with even a moderately sized account (>10k followers) shares the same readily available science
Read 5 tweets
Jun 13
“Bamboo is our best chance to slow climate breakdown. It can replace drivers of GHG emissions and biodiversity loss (food, construction, concrete, plastic), build soil & allow regrowing rainforest." - Let's test it. Grow bamboo as blueprint for a future ecological civilization 🧵
Moso bamboo (phyllostachys edulis) seedling grown from seed with tap root
Moso bamboo forest in China, stock photo
2. Giant bamboo dwarfs trees. As grass, it grows 30 times (!) faster and can be harvested every year. Timber takes decades; too slow. Stunningly, no one in the west described the unique climate mitigation potential of bamboo yet. - Note the rhizome system:

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3. Climate relevant will be the use in millions of ha of plantations, just like other economically important crops. After two months on this, some significant progress: air pot kindly donated 1 m of their professional U system, so I can test it for bamboo.
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Read 39 tweets
Jun 4
SARS-CoV-2 reminder: The more immune compromised the population, the less symptoms, the ‘milder’ it appears, the more severe it really is (=Long Covid, long term damage). That’s what even most scientists seem not to get
Thanks for vivid discussion everyone. It really is a fundamentally important point. Since I deleted most references for lack of structure (and frankly, just being fed up repeating the same points for 3 to 4 years), I'll look for new references that must have been published by now
Read 8 tweets
May 30
1. "Bamboo is our best chance to slow climate breakdown: it sustains societies, can protect soil and store carbon for 100 years in food, construction, bio-concrete and plastic." - Let’s test this. As our very German neighbors renew their English Gardens, we start growing bamboo👇

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2. Three months ago I started on bamboo: no one else in Europe seemed to have systematically analyzed or even considered its global climate mitigation potential when used as agricultural crop rather than natural forests, which do little climate mitigation.
3. A bamboo focus isn't for the coming years. We are at least a decade early. However, since getting started will take decades, now is a good time. In 10 years, atmospheric CO2 will exceed 450 ppm. That's enough to fundamentally transform the Earth system.
Read 6 tweets

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