Why are the top 20 US cities where they are? (including metropolitan areas): 🧵

1. New York: It became the trading hub between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic regions when it built its canals through the Appalachians

https://x.com/tomaspueyo/status/1645489760222289937

2. Los Angeles:
• Trading hub between the world (Pacific) and the US (railways)
• Weather + biggest coastal valley on the Pacific➡️agriculture & cheap building
• Oil
• Landscapes + far from the East Coast centers of power➡️Attracted the film industry

https://x.com/tomaspueyo/status/1641853749931933704

People think we must shrink the world's population to be happy, but they're wrong

A world with shrinking population would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless

A world with 100 billion people would be dynamic, rich, innovative, peaceful, hopeful
🧵 1. In the last 2 centuries, the world got better as the population exploded:
• Richer
• Live older
• Lower child mortality

We can raise our population on Earth from 8 billion to 100B humans if we want to

Would we starve?
Be too crowded?
Would pollution explode?
Ecosystems collapse?

No! Don't believe alarmist degrowthers. This is why they're wrong: 🧵 Degrowthers put a label to "how many humans can the Earth sustain": carrying capacity

Their estimates vary wildly
Wait, what? What a surprise, the mode of their estimates is 8B—exactly the current number of ppl on Earth

WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

Can desalinated water deliver a future of infinite water?
Yes!
• It's cheap
• It will get even cheaper
• Limited pollution
• Some countries already live off of it

We can transform deserts into paradise. And some countries are already on that path:🧵 Crazy fact:
Over half of Israel's freshwater is desalinated from the Mediterranean!
And the vast majority of its tap water is desalinated too!
And it costs less than municipal water in a city like LA!

President-elect @realDonaldTrump could own the environmentalists by solving global warming on his first day in office, and do it for 0.1% of current climate investments

Here's how: sulfate injection 🧵 1. GLOBAL WARMING
2024 is the 1st year we pass 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels
This is caused by CO2
Some side-effects of this CO2 are good, but it's undeniable that the planet is warming fast, and it could create some nasty pbms

Should you be able to experiment on your own cancer?

This expert virologist did. It was the 3rd time her cancer appeared. It didn't bode well. So she injected viruses in her tumor and it shrunk.

But most journals didn't want to publish her results. Why? Because they're dumb 🧵

https://twitter.com/Nature/status/1855079763129299141

Beata Halassy got cancer in 2016, then again in 2018, and again in 2020. That looked awfully bad. She knew if she continued in the traditional route, her cancer might eventually prevail. So she decided to try what she knew about: viruses

Now that Starship can land, it's ready to go to Mars in 2026

Why then?
How will it go?
Why don't we need a Moon station for pit stops?
When will humans go?
🧵 1. Why 2026?
As the Sun travels through space, its planets follow it

Starship is going to change humanity well beyond going to Mars: It will transform the Earth too because the cost of sending stuff to space is about to drop by 10x

A tip of this future comes from the Silk Road [1/6] Why was it called Silk Road? Because silk is expensive & light

Transportation costs depend on distance and weight: The longer the distance and the heavier the goods, the more expensive transportation

So over long distances, only light & valuable goods could be sold—like silk

Lebanon could be rich, but it's chaotic. Why?
Geography, which is reflected on its flag
You can understand it with just these maps:
🧵 Here's the population density in the Middle East

Lebanon is in the small region of the Levant, surrounded by 4 traditional superpowers:
1. Asia Minor—now Turkey
2. Mesopotamia—now mostly Iraq
3. Persia—now Iran
4. Egypt
5. And also has sea access for Mediterranean superpowers

Every American is poorer because of longshoremen's position

The worst is not the $1½-5 Billion per day the strike would cost the US economy

The worst is not their outsized salaries It's not even the known ties they have with organized crime, or their extraction of rents for work they never did

Conflict between 🇲🇽Mexico and 🇪🇸Spain, because 🇪🇸 hasn't apologized for its invasion of 🇲🇽 500 years ago

Here's what happened, and why this is ignorant and hypocritical:

1. When the 🇪🇸 arrived to Central America, the Aztecs were in the middle of a brutal conquest (green below) Ppl don't realize how recent this had been before the arrival of the 🇪🇸
• Tenochtitlan was formed less than 200y earlier
• The 1st king of the Mexica was crowned just 150y earlier
• The Aztec Triple Alliance formed less than 100y earlier

Massive floods across the Western world. What pattern do you see?

1. Massive floods in Vienna, carrying cars and everything else on its path.
The Danube is mostly embanked, no floodplains
2. Budapest is underwater
The city is also built on the Danube's floodplain. In fact, most of the Danube has embankments, and the floodplains and dams upstream are not enough to absorb all the water

If wetlands prevent floods and straight rivers are bad, why do we keep doing it?

Here's why, and how we can do better, along with the most AMAZING visualizations of rivers: What LA did to its river is the worst you can do: A line of concrete devoid of life, replacing nature with brutalist geometry

One event made these things possible:
Roman civilization
Industrial Revolution
The oil wealth of Arab countries
Russia's invasions
The Mongol Empire
Globalization
Southern Europe richer than Northern Africa
And more

What was it?
The death of an ocean I'm super excited about this! AFAIK, nobody has put all these facts together. You're learning about it here 1st!

To understand what happened, we need to start in this region of the world. Do you notice something special?

I've been banging my head on a pbm and I need help, Twitter

Why are there huge dunes on some coasts and not others?

You have dunes like these ones in the Namib desert in Namibia. Why? How do they form? Why only here?

I'll update this thread as I get answers! Apparently strong, dry winds blow from the interior towards the Atlantic ocean, accumulating the sand. As it accumulates, it blows or falls into the ocean, creating these huge slopes. OK.

Can solar energy costs keep shrinking?
The wealth of humanity and health of the environment are at stake

Solar allies: Costs will keep shrinking!
Skeptics: They're can't! They're already growing!
Who's right?

Here's the story of the biggest energy revolution of the decade: 1. Solar is already the cheapest source of electricity!
It's also one that most ppl love, so few ppl block it—unlike nuclear or fossil fuels

So solar energy is the best candidate to get us cheap energy and with very little CO2 emissions to stop global warming

Pumpkins can grow to over 2000 lbs (1 ton) for the same reason the Dutch countryside is purple at night: Because plants are green. Thread 🧵 These pumpkins come from Alaska
Why? Because in the growing season, it gets 20 hours of sunlight
More sunlight, more energy, more growth

🌱Vertical Farming is about to change dramatically our relationship to food, agriculture, land, and rural areas, as it replaces traditional farming:

It's superior in dozens of very important ways and just has one obstacle: economics, but they're improving every day
Thread 🧵 The amount of land dedicated to crops has grown incessantly over the last few centuries

Why is Mexico City (CDMX) the way it is?
Why does it get flooded?
So many droughts?
Such aggressive earthquakes?
Why is it sinking?
The key is in Tenochtitlan and how it managed its water

A thread on how Tenochtitlan explains present-day CDMX, with maps and animations You can see how a lot of present-day CDMX matches the low-lying areas of the Valley of Mexico, which is where the ancient Lake Texcoco used to be—and where Tenochtitlan emerged

How did the Aztecs structure their capital?
Handle its water?
How does it determine CDMX?

Here are the most FASCINATING facts I could find about Mexico:

1. Mexico is so huge it’s hard to comprehend. You can fit 30 European countries in Mexico and still have room to spare Here's another way to look at it: Mexico vs Greenland
(from @neilrkaye)

8% of Mexico hosts over 50% of its population
Why?
Understanding it also explains the Aztecs & their pyramids
🧵 This map shows crisply this area of high population density. Why there?
(cc @researchremora)