I've long said we're at risk of losing essentially everything due to global heating - all of modern life, much of life on Earth, billions of human lives, our super habitable planet. More and more climate scientists are coming to see this. Please start listening Elected and corporate "leaders" continue to prioritize their personal power and wealth at the cost of irreversible loss of essentially everything, even as this irreversible loss comes more and more into focus. I see this as literally a form of insanity theguardian.com/environment/ar…

Dear journalists of the world: We are at risk of losing basically everything. This - what we're experiencing now - is how that process unfolds. The more fossil fuels we burn, the further in that process we go.

You MUST begin to tell 5 critical truths. Civilization depends on it. When you report on climate-related disasters, make the following connections very clear. They are all true, and critical parts of your story anyway. To leave them out is poor journalism:

1. Global heating played a role (describe role). Even this is still often omitted!

Reminder that oil corporations have known since the 1970s that they were irreversibly destroying Spaceship Earth. They could have chosen to be part of the solution, transitioning to becoming energy corporations and ending fossil fuels. Instead, they chose to lie and block action They are still doing so today. Right now. The people involved deserve to be in prison, and the corporations need to lose their social license to exist.

A few personal notes:
I was just at a NASA team meeting for 3 days in DC. The scientific findings are so fucked up. Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know When I am at these scientific meetings, where basically every talk and poster is about precisely how Earth is rapidly breaking down, I just want to scream. I stood up and asked a question about this in front of everyone, though maybe too politely

I'm on a train to DC to help blockade the White House Correspondents' Dinner tonight. Why? Because President Biden has been making the climate crisis worse by expanding fossil fuels, and the news media continues to fail us by downplaying climate urgency and giving leaders a pass Biden and his team have been going directly against clear, consensus scientific guidance: no new fossil fuel projects! But Biden has been approving carbon bomb after carbon bomb and as a climate scientist I cannot stay silent about these disastrous and deadly decisions

In December, Rose Abramoff and I jumped up on a stage at the AGU Earth science conference in Chicago, where we were presenting our work, with a banner that said "Out of the lab and into the streets." We did this out of love. Rose was fired, I am still under ethics investigation However, the AGU recently concluded their own independent ethics investigation, with their ethics committee unanimously deciding to (1) restore our scientific abstracts into the conference program (which they had withdrawn); (2) take no further action.

It is a kind of societal insanity or collective sickness that we haven't yet banned private jets. Banning private jets is one of the most obvious, least controversial steps we could take.

Late-night hosts will keep treating crazy weather as a funny joke to the end, but in reality it's a manifestation of irreversible damage to spaceship Earth inflicted, knowingly, by the fossil fuel industry. They should bring on scientists and activists and discuss it seriously. Letterman was starting to do this, just before he retired from late night. You could tell he was terrified - and he was absolutely right to be.

Since Alan Alda is trending, I'll chime in that I had the good fortune to take a 2-day science communication class with him a very long time ago during which (among other things) he taught me improv. I learned I suck at improv, but that Alan is a wonderful human. Happy 87, Alan. Definitely simpler times, in a lot of ways. I was still an astrophysicist, at Caltech, but very close to changing fields to climate science.

Your kids and grandkids will want to know if you got arrested for the climate I wanted to say that this ^^ wasn't a great tweet. I am well aware that not everyone can risk arrest, and I've said as much publicly many times. The spirit behind the tweet was that, in general, we are being FAR too polite as activists, and taking more risks should be encouraged.

Rose Abramoff (@ultracricket) and I jumped up on a stage at a climate science conference begging our colleagues to speak out. Rose was fired for it.

We are doing everything we can to urge society to address Earth breakdown and we are being censured for it
nytimes.com/2023/01/10/opi… This was at #AGU22 in Chicago in December. For two weeks after the action, I thought I might get fired as well. "I knew that I could face retaliation. But inaction during this critical time will have far greater consequences."

COP27 was another failure. As expected. The reasons I expected it to be a failure:
1. They once again let in the fossil fuel industry in a massive way.
2. COP26 was not widely recognized as the failure it was.
3. There were no significant changes from COP26. Maybe due to #2. Lessons were not learned. (See #1).

So far, it seems that #COP27 is an even bigger failure than COP26:
💀 25% more fossil fuel lobbyists than COP26 - the largest delegate group
💀 best outcome might be avoiding backslide from COP26
💀 even weaker language on ending fossil fuel subsidies
💀 sponsored by Coca Cola These people need a firewall against the fossil fuel industry and they need to bring in climate activists especially youth and Global South activists. Otherwise it will remain a farce.

I don't think there should be any temperature target. People are already dying and the fossil fuel industry has already caused severe, irreversible damage. I think the goal should be to end the fossil fuel industry in the Global North by 2030 or faster, on a binding schedule This is what we should be doing if we want to maximize the odds of avoiding civilizational collapse. Because Earth breakdown is already having deeper impacts to our civilization than we expected. Uncertainty is NOT our friend here.

Today I was arrested for the second time trying to increase public urgency about Earth breakdown along with about 80 other scientists and many others. I was released and I’m fine, but tired. We worked very hard for weeks. We’re on the right side of history, but it feels like we’re losing badly. We need reinforcements. Civil disobedients and others.

All right, I supect this account has been shadow-banned due to today's tweets getting about a fifth the engagement of normal. Maybe due to having a Mastodon handle in my name for a few days. Is anyone else clearly experiencing this? This is part of what I mean when I say I'll stay active on twitter until I feel it is no longer tenable.

Some thoughts (and questions) on #COP27.
First, if no plan for quickly ramping down the fossil fuel industry comes out of the meeting, it's a failure. That's the bottom line. Fossil fuels are the cause. Ramping down that industry MUST be the very core of any solutions package. Roughly 75% or 80% of global heating is from the fossil fuel industry while roughly 15% is from animal agriculture. These industries must be ramped down to stem the irreversible planetary damage. But they will fight - they are very rich and they give "donations" to politicians.

Musk's plan to shadowban all non-"verified" users will make Twitter completely pointless. As a matter of principle I will not pay $8/month to contribute my writing to Twitter. So much for "free speech" It's just going to become an echo chamber for trolls, with ads from gun shops and Hobby Lobby. No thanks

I just voted, it took 5 minutes. Please vote, but do not think voting is enough when corporations and the rich have consolidated this much power, because when it's like this it's not a democracy. We need everyone to organize and help take back power from the rich. Things are getting so bad that voting can feel pointless, but I don't think it's pointless. That's binary thinking... and in reality there are different levels of badness. Voting is clearly not enough, but I think it's nonetheless still very much worth doing.

So, um, did @theAGU ever end up severing its ties with Exxon and other fossil fuel industry entities? This is from way back in 2016. @NaomiOreskes @MichaelEMann
eos.org/opinions/agu-s… I'm wondering what ended up happening because I can't find the answer, including on @theAGU website. I think it's very important for institutions like the AGU and universities to completely and publicly sever ties with the more-than-bad-acting fossil fuel industry at this point.

To the conspiracy theorists saying the Soup Van Gogh action was "funded by an oil heiress to make climate activists look bad," you DO realize that the action cost all of the price of a can of tomato soup, don't you? Also I've known the director of the Climate Emergency Fund for years, and there's no one more dedicated, down to her bones, to stopping Earth breakdown. Unlike almost every politician, CEF would never take money from the fossil fuel industry.