Busting Climate Change Myths / How Climate Change Actually Works | GEO GIRL

I have been seeing the same comments/questions over and over again on my modern climate related videos, so I decided to make this video to answer and/or clarify the most common climate change questions and misconceptions that I have been seeing! I hope this helps clear things up for you guys, enjoy! ;)
0:00 Reason for video
1:00 #1 “Climate is always changing”
3:45 Importance of life ‘types’
6:41 #2 “We are in an ice age”
8:04 Rate vs magnitude of change
10:02 Does more CO2 = more trees?
12:24 #3 “Warming increases CO2 levels” (not the other way around)
15:49 #4 “Atmospheric CO2 is not increasing”
17:19 Harm of CO2 going into oceans & algae
18:30 #5 We need to “Save Earth”
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[@treelight1707]

It is kind of scary, that when you want to give an example about 'not understanding' climate science, whether intentional ignorance is involved or not, you can rarely think about something other than the mentioned debates in congress and senate. They freak me out.

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

Seems to be this violent mistrust of anything that would require a large federal solution. For conservatives it feels easier to deny the science until the world burns rather than give in to ' big government."

[@kayakMike1000]

Oh we understand climate science. We see intentional arrogance in the scientific community. We find the CO2 causes catastrophic warming narrative absurd. There's just no good evidence for this idea.

[@toastyburger]

Your carbon sequestration video is excellent. Explaining how we are releasing carbon from the lithosphere and into the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere was an eye-opener. Getting the carbon back into the lithosphere takes either millions of years or lots of energy. It makes me realize how urgently we need to stop taking carbon from the lithosphere.

[@markotrieste]

Exactly. I've read about silicate weathering in 2012. Up until then, I thought "CO2... well, let's plant some trees and drive hybrids, will be fine"... Then I realized how huge a damage we are doing, and I could not unsee it.

[@kayakMike1000]

Carbon has been sequestered in the ocean for many many millenia. Shell fish absorb CO2 and manufacture carbonate shells. Algal blooms die and deposited carbon rich sediment. We are in a carbon dioxide drought due to all of this sequestration. It's bad news.

[@nicknotis133]

Thanks Rachel. I know you want to stop making modern climate videos, but it’s worth clarifying what ‘hot adapted’ vs ‘cold adapted’ life means. Perhaps dealing with frozen water marks the distinction? As framed here, the categorization seems arbitrary. You’re doing a great service to society with this channel. Thank you!

[@kayakMike1000]

Please explain how a small increase of 2° C over several hundred years would cause a species to go extinct when the difference in day and night temperatures can vary as much as 10 to 50 degrees? At worst you might see some species get a larger range rather than a mass extinction. Use you head, man.

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

Many species are able to move.

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

@@kayakMike1000 There seems to be a lot of muddled thinking on the climate topic. The temperature scaremongers need to explain why species don't go extinct at tea time, when as you point out, the temperature can be far hotter than in the early morning.

[@donaldbrizzolara7720]

Rachel: Wonderful presentation. Thank you so very much for all the time and effort you put into your videos. Through you I feel like at last I’m getting current with a new geology that supersedes some of my antiquated thought processes and ideologies.

[@_andrewvia]

Thanks Dr Phillips for wading into this conversation with much-needed facts.

[@nyoodmono4681]

There werent many facts, ironicly she told myths herself. She just said "This is what the wrongdoers think and this is why they are wrong: Nevermind they are just wrong, next point". So where are the facts you are talking about?

[@_andrewvia]

@@nyoodmono4681 Apparently they're hidden from you. Sorry I can't help - you'll have to figure that out yourself.

[@nyoodmono4681]

@@_andrewvia That makes not much sense. How can you say that we got much-needed facts delivered and when i ask you which you say can not help me? I feel like you had nothing to say in the first place. I bet you did not even watch the video because you are not really interested and too lazy to think

[@_andrewvia]

@@nyoodmono4681 Please delve into the references provided in the notes below the video. The entire premise of the video is stated: "I have been seeing the same comments/questions over and over again on my modern climate related videos, so I decided to make this video to answer and/or clarify the most common climate change questions and misconceptions that I have been seeing!" Dr Phillips proceeds to list the time points at which she discusses various aspects of climate change. She also lists eight books, which, she points out, are not textbooks but are meant to inform the general public. Dr Phillips goes even further, suggesting several ways a person can get involved in a personal effort to help reduce humanity's effect on the climate. I have watched the video and clicked on a couple of the references. These aren't rabbit holes. These are real points to be made about reality. I hope you will avail yourself of the myriad sources available in this college-level presentation, to learn more about climate change. Having just pointed out the wealth of information referenced in this video, I fear my efforts are in vain. I have the distinct impression that my remarks do not make any noise in your echo chamber.

[@erikjohnson9075]

​@@nyoodmono4681did you even watch the video?

[@louren1951]

Everyone needs to see this video. Most people I speak with know very little about climate change.

[@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672]

Great video! It's astonishing to me that people can't grasp that we are just as subject to extinction as other species, and that extinction is probably not a desirable outcome. Loved your point that if the dinosaurs could have (understood and) stopped the asteroid, they would have.

[@a.randomjack6661]

I blame mass medias. They can't say anything worrisome about their advertisers , and neither can the Gvts for just about the same reasons...

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

Why would increasing crop yields cause humans to go extinct? Yes crop yields have doubled since the 1950s.

[@a.randomjack6661]

@@StabilisingGlobalTemperature Because overshoot. All that agriculture requires more fuel, fertilizers, water. Look up overshoot. look up planetary boundaries. Look up!!! 👁👃👁

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

@@a.randomjack6661 That is exactly the point I made elsewhere.

[@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672]

@@StabilisingGlobalTemperatureglobal Increases in crop yields have been due to increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, irrigation. If someone told you its because of increased CO2, they probably have an ulterior motive for wanting you to think that. Its fairly easy to do the research on it.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

"We all need to get onboard" (ageed), but when you can't even get 8 billion people to agree on the color of the sky, and a significant portion of they who legislate policy believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and many also think a 'new Earth' is going to be created by an imaginary sky genie, WTF are we going to do? I only wish for their sake that I hadn't had children who then had my grandchildren, because they will likely suffer unimaginable deprivations. (Yeah, I'm a pessimist, but I think that if you're not a pessimist, you're not paying attention.)

[@a.randomjack6661]

You are not alone. I'm not a pessimist, I'm a fatalist. Some say it's worse. I would not know. The problem is the system that rewards greed. Money begets power, power begets money. We are ran by junkies, "profit junkies". I should add, #narcissistic profit junkies. If you want clues. see Dr. Ramani. Probably the top expert on narcissism and anti-social Cluster b disorders. Fascinating topics 🖖

[@toastyburger]

If we can't keep Earth livable for humans, how can we expect to terraform another planet?

[@markotrieste]

Maybe because implicitly we assume we won't have fossil fuel shills on other planets...

[@kayakMike1000]

@@markotrieste CO2 isn't responsible for catastrophic global warming.

[@markotrieste]

@@kayakMike1000 Yes it is, no matter what you believe.

[@Draxynnic]

Pretty much what I was thinking. Compared to what it would take to make Mars habitable, or Venus, or one of the Galilean moons, or getting to a planet in another solar system, fixing the Earth should be child's play by comparison. That we HAVEN'T been doing so should demonstrate how flawed any "we can go somewhere else!" argument really is. To be fair, if humanity lives long enough, eventually moving will be necessary even if we do everything right - but if we can survive the millions of years it would take to reach that point naturally, we'll probably have figured out a way to cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, though, if we can't manage a planet that is already habitable, how can we imagine we can convert one that isn't?

[@nyoodmono4681]

Earth is fine, calm down

[@wernerviehhauser94]

Earth will be fine. We won't. Well, maybe Earth will be even finer that way....

[@GEOGIRL]

Valid

[@scottabc72]

We're among the most adaptable organisms so we would be almost the last to go. A world thats back to being mostly populated by bacteria and some insects is a pretty sad prospect

[@wernerviehhauser94]

@@scottabc72 I would disagree. The technology dependent part of humankind would be dead pretty quickly. The more indigenous, the longer they would survive, but severe climate changes have already wiped out whole civilizations multiple times, and it does not matter how adaptable humans are if our food isn't.

[@scottabc72]

@@wernerviehhauser94 Well lets not test our theories in reality

[@hg2.]

Such incredible glibness. CO2/climate-change is the biggest fraud since communism. (See Henrik Svensmark for the cosmic-ray/solar-activity/cloud-formation/climate relationship.) CO2 is a ruse. Climate change the "Greens" are talking about is caused by changes in the cosmic-rays/solar-activity relationship and cloud formation (See the work of Henrik Svensmark.) Cloud formation by actual cosmic rays can be scene with the naked eye in Cloud Chamber demonstrations. KZbin has dozens of videos about them..

[@LesLess]

Thanks for continuing to cover this hugely important topic!

[@phil20_20]

Myth #6: Most of the methane is trapped in the polar ice and the permafrost. - Not for long it isn't! Unfortunately though, there's still plenty enough to keep emitting gas for several decades, so the conversion of methane into CO2 is not going to solve that problem in the present century.

[@ogrejd]

@9:20 - Assuming Randall Munroe got his research right in xkcd 1732, we've had more warming since the Industrial Revolution than we had during the previous 10,000 or so years. (xkcd 2500 showing warming since 1980 is also worth a look)

[@wolfgangpreier9160]

Yes, and since the 1950s it accelerates.

[@rjsonheim8786]

Amazing video!!! I’m always trying to explain this to people there is such a massive misunderstanding or a lack of understanding in the public when it comes to climate change you the goat for spreading the knowledge

[@LukeA1223]

Those dinosaurs “might’ve “ done something about that extinction “if” they could. Our dinosaurs won’t.

[@mattpotter8725]

Dinosaurs will be dinosaurs!!! Some things never change!!!

[@preppertechnicianee6013]

@@mattpotter8725 stupid birds

[@thomassenbart]

There really is nothing to be done, save to prepare and mitigate, which is what humans do best. Pretending we know anything about a potential future event, that may or may not happen in 500 years, is so dumb, it is hard to state the extent of assumption involved.

[@preppertechnicianee6013]

@@thomassenbart actually that literal what scientist say… we know one thing adding co2 increases energy retention It’s basic chemistry/physics What this does long term can be anything it will add energy and cause warming that’s just thermodynamics but how the environment will react is unknown overall But we do know we are surviving well at this climate It’s better not to risk it

[@thomassenbart]

@@preppertechnicianee6013 Sure the Greenhouse effect is basic but the subject in relation to the climate is vastly more complex and we/humanity do not understand that nor can it be modeled and we also do not have anything approaching complete climatic knowledge of the past. We have some knowledge and extrapolate from that. So, when advocating an exterminationist policy for future events, it is highly irresponsible and foolish to make such pronouncements based upon limited information about the distant future. Better not risk it you say. Again foolishness. You assume you know anything at all about the risk. But you/we do not. You also assume you/we can do anything to change the climate. We can't and if we try, we will destroy the engine of prosperity and likely gain nothing and or screw things up much worse than we imagined. That has been the history. The reality is, no one is going to implode their economy for the 'environment'. Even the Germans are figuring this out the hard way. This movement is at its core anti human and scolds mankind for progress, asserting simultaneously that destruction in nigh, using propaganda and scare tactics. Short term thinking mixed with cultish behavior and ideology...not good. It is pure ego to think otherwise. Three good books to read on this subject: 1. The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg 2. Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger 3. Unsettled, Steven Koonin All three writers have excellent environmental credentials and all three give practical analysis and advice.

[@toastyburger]

Great video. The misconception I see most often is this: "The CO2 we emit is being taken up by plants, causing the earth to green." While it's true the earth has increased its green leaf area by 5% over the past two decades, it's mostly due to farming in India and China. How effectively does agriculture sequester carbon? And is it true plants release more CO2 as temperatures increase?

[@wendydelisse9778]

On a year to year basis world agriculture typically releases CO2. One agricultural CO2 release mechanism is topsoil loss. Topsoil typically has a fairly high carbon content. Another agricultural CO2 release mechanism is peat loss. It has been fairly common practice to drain peat swamps in order to obtain more land for agriculture. Once drained, the peat gradually oxidizes.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Forest fires will nearly instantaneously put all of those carbon gains back into the atmosphere.

[@whatabouttheearth]

C3, C4 and CAM plants all have peak CO2 saturation rates, and we know what they are. It's simply ignorant for someone to think that plants can just keep taking CO2 in as if you can just overload the light independent reactions with CO2 and it'll be fine even though there would be an imbalance of the other elements required in photosythesis. It wouldn't speed up the rate of light dependent reactions that initiate the light independent reactions.

[@whatabouttheearth]

C3, C4 and CAM plants all have peak CO2 saturation rates, and we know what they are. It's simply ignorant for someone to think that plants can just keep taking CO2 in as if you can just overload the light independent reactions with CO2 and it'll be fine even though there would be an imbalance of the other elements required in photosythesis. It wouldn't speed up the rate of light dependent reactions that initiate the light independent reactions.

[@hg2.]

Such incredible glibness. CO2/climate-change is the biggest fraud since communism. (See Henrik Svensmark for the cosmic-ray/solar-activity/cloud-formation/climate relationship.) CO2 is a ruse. Climate change the "Greens" are talking about is caused by changes in the cosmic-rays/solar-activity relationship and cloud formation (See the work of Henrik Svensmark.) Cloud formation by actual cosmic rays can be scene with the naked eye in Cloud Chamber demonstrations. KZbin has dozens of videos about them..

[@joecanales9631]

Hi Rachel, thanks for your clarifications. It’s been a subject with many misunderstandings which are not helpful in building confidence for the science. Hollywood hasn’t been very helpful in many cases either. I guess apocalyptic needs to be extreme to be interesting along with its solutions.

[@winterlightstudios4340]

Hollywood has two major problems with its apocalyptic movies: idiotic science blunders combined with a colossal failure to understand even the basic parts of science that they get right. "This hurricane is the worst in history! See, it's category six!" Yet people can get out of a truck and WALK across the eyewall... which would be physically impossible, since the over 150mph winds in the eyewall of a category five hurricane would easily pick up the people and toss them around like ragdolls... Hollywood: "But it's category six!" Sigh.

[@neotericrecreant]

Another lovely video! So many lovely rocks on the shelves as well!

[@TerrythePhysicist]

"We could work together, but that's not our strong suit‼" No sh*t Sherlock. Simply the gentlest way to put that euphemism.

[@rebeccawinter472]

It’s too important an an issue to NOT do videos on. Kudos for talking about and continuing to talk about lots of other super interesting things. I hope we are around to talk about interesting things for many more generations for geo girls too. The fact that climate change is such an ephemeral thing and requires coordinated change really doesn’t play to humanity’s strengths. We will need to evolve in order to get out of this.

[@nyoodmono4681]

Out of what?

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

I presume you know how long took to humans to evolve to our present state, and that evolution, besides of being slow, it is not synonymous to "improvement." Parasites, for example, have evolved to be unable to live without being attached to something else. Expecting that evolution will somehow save us from extinction (and what about the other lifeforms on the planet?) is too high a bet. Picture this: Earth's surface becomes unlivable, scorched by heatwaves, devastated by floods, rising seas make water sources undrinkable, etc. Mass extinction ensues. The surviving humans go underground. After several thousands of years, they become like the creatures we now find living in caverns: white, blind, hairless, carnivorous. That would be evolution at its finest. Today's humans can plan for the future. Just take a look at the politics of China regarding electric cars. We also can coordinate for great movements, like D-Day - two world wars, if anything, prove that we can join together to do stuff. The ban on CFCs also proved that we can act to protect the planet and ourselves from dangers created by our technologies. This climate change issue does not need the acquiescence of every human on Earth to be solved, just the agreement of the ones who are in the position to effect actual changes. Rulers, lawmakers, who can exert pressure on CEOs and companies. Talk to and educate whoever is around you. Go and vote accordingly.

[@rebeccawinter472]

@@MariaMartinez-researcher thank you for answering that. I just couldn’t even begin. Your response is most excellent.

[@shadeen3604]

Great explanation dr geo girl thank you

[@cjimmersive6955]

It’s a lot cheaper to come up with reasons not to worry about the effects of our unprecedented industrialization of the planet; I suspect that’s where these misperceptions are coming from. If they were true, that would be great!

[@nyoodmono4681]

They do not become untrue by just calling them "misperceptions". If you listen closely you will notice that geo girl does not thoroughly explain why the "myths" ought to be wrong, she more or less just describes them, claims them to be wrong and then moves on to the next point. The main "myth" is not even mentioned: What is the actual CO2 Climate sensitivity? We have a guess of 1,5° to 4,5°C degree with a doubling of ppm since 1850, including the share of natural (uncertain) variability.. What kind of science is that? Uncertainty Dillema. It is all based on a very speculative effect of minor changes in "back radiation", a hopeless null sum game with a trace gas of 0,04% in the atmosphere. Not clear if we even accumulate CO2 in the atmosphere, even though she claims that it is certain.

[@alvaroacwellan9051]

As you mentioned the Chicxulub asteroid in the same sentence with our need to work together - I couldn't NOT think of the movie "Don't look up"... That's how good we are at these things...

[@lerikhkl]

"It's an optical illusion! It's actually not getting closer!" and "Yeah it's getting closer but it will pass us by, it's obvious if you look closely" and "yeah so what if it's getting closer? The earth has survived way worse before!" and "yeah it will probably hit, but do you know how big the earth is?? It won't affect anything" would probably be common phrases uttered...

[@michaeleisenberg7867]

Rachel 🌅, Thank you for compiling 📑 this information.

[@dancooper8551]

Excellent video! Would have loved to sit in on your class.

[@FlameofDemocracy]

Thank you, professor.

[@JW4REnvironment]

Hearty thanks to Geo Girl for authoritatively walking us lay persons through how our increased carbon dioxide and methane emissions have caused rapid global warming, accelerating extinctions of plants and animals, and ocean acidification. So great to hear a voice of reason when the Heartland Institute keeps putting out false propaganda and denies human caused climate change! As a father of two, I am truly grateful for this accurate information to support a better climate for young people in the future!

[@billyjones9907]

I'm glad that you emphasized in #1 that the rate of temperature change is important. I've heard people bring up the previous temperature maximus and say things were fine for life then. What they don't think about is how many 10s to 100s of thousands of years it took for the temperature to rise, compared to the centuries at our current rate. Life can adapt to almost anything as long as the rate of change is show enough for evolution.

[@kittimcconnell2633]

Yes, a day that is 3 days warmer than usual isn't bad, but that's just an average. It means that sometimes the day will be 20 degrees warmer than usual, and that can happen for weeks at a time.

[@SiqueScarface]

"Last time, I was going 100 mph, everything was fine", said the person falling from the skyscaper.

[@nyoodmono4681]

Can you show me where we can see which rise of temperature is normal and how our warming is uncommon? The funny thing is that you are pointing right at one of the key "myths" and the truth is we have no data that shows that our rate of warming is out of the order. Even instrumental data: The years from 1910 to 1940 already show a comparable rate of warming (0,4°C) with a fraction of human emissions.

[@SiqueScarface]

@@nyoodmono4681 XKCD did a nice graph once. Google "xkcd earth temperature timeline"! It's entry 1732.

[@luisostasuc8135]

Tell me you don't understand complex systems without telling me you don't understand complex systems @nyoodmono4681. Disingenuous trolling, or actual ignorance on your part? It's on you to clarify.

[@ts4743]

thanks for this video. i hope those who need to see it actually see it. i was having an argument with someone where they claimed that climate change won't impact food security. people need to know this stuff. i can't believe public school isn't teaching about it

[@preppertechnicianee6013]

It did when I was in school I think we let the repubs bs themselves real hard We need to fix that

[@nyoodmono4681]

Well here we are: How does climate impact food security negativly? This video does not tell me, so here is your chance. Earth got greener, crop harvest is better then ever. With a warming the poles are impacted the most, while the equator barely changes. This is why Canada and Russia gain farming land with warming. While the Kongo does not lose any.

[@preppertechnicianee6013]

@@nyoodmono4681 ok cool The greening of the earth is partly due to co2 but It also this is limited to water supplies and as we are seeing now the local water cycles and pathways for rain change And of course food supply increased that’s because machinery, which we can still use running on hydrogen etc Actually would be more effective and efficient But you can make your own hydrogen, it’s better to make you reliant on oil for the companies and government Anyway Areas like Russia honestly really gain a lot of land But Asia and Africa will have to fight deserts The Sahel of the desert is the best workable farmland where they can use cattle in Africa Besides the southern tip So if this shrinks the issue is obvious If we get rain cycles change in America Which we do see changing now The areas with farming infrastructure may no longer be optimized for rain So we will have food insecurity for decades while we attempt to adjust assuming we have good farm land after the change Large swaths of Mexico and Africa will be unfarmable without machinery Meaning we will see mass migration because of food insecurity there caused by us Resulting in food insecurity increases as they migrate north

[@preppertechnicianee6013]

@@nyoodmono4681 Have you not heard of the water insecurity risks lol global greening and higher crop harvest are not the same Why do you think that would be directly related are you dull You just believed prager u lol

[@mosquitobight]

​@@nyoodmono4681First, in geological terms northern Canada and Russia were only recently deglaciated. It will take many thousands of years of erosion to turn the bare rock into something resembling arable soil. Second, the melting of the icecaps will drown the most densely populated and agriculturally productive parts of the world. Billions of people will lose their homes, jobs and food supply. It is not an equitable trade to submerge entire countries like Denmark, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Cambodia etc. just so places like Canada and Russia can have warmer temperatures.

[@johnfitzgerald8879]

I particularly liked the graphics showing competing feedback loops at work, maintaining a balance between them. These feedbacks work both ways, driving away from equilibrium. The climate system has been cycling between two balance points, like many chaotic systems do. So what are the driving forces that are maintaining those equilibrium points?

[@a.randomjack6661]

The level of greenhouse gases is definitely an important. Orbital cycles are another one, but those operate on the 10, 000 + years timescale. As for feedback loops, water vapor is the most important one. - There's more of it as it gets warmer (7% per °C) - For every degree of warming caused by other greenhouse gases alone (CO2, CH4, etc,) it adds enough water vapor to double the warming they caused - More water vapor = greater likelihood of heavy precipitations

[@RolfStones]

Thanks for this series. I hope more people with experience in paleoclimatology will talk publicly about modern climate change. Now I have another video to share whenever someone says "the climate has always been changing".

[@rebdomine1]

Thanks for the video, even if it will attract unwanted attention from climate deniers. Your misconceptions/misperceptions series are my favourites.

[@LeftyScaevola]

And, we have the recent geomagnetic storm, that was dumping trillions of watts of energy into the atmosphere per second, most of which will eventually entropy itself into heat.

[@Dragrath1]

Relating to this my advisor in Grad school who does work on atmospheric coupling has shown it is atmospheric gravity buoyancy waves which are predominately responsible for cooling the upper atmosphere i.e. thermosphere and ionosphere through joule heating feedback effects. One of the things global warming has been causing to occur more and more frequently are "Sudden Stratospheric Warming" events where planetary or Rossby waves start to break in the stratosphere causing the energy momentum exchanges between the troposphere the thermosphere and mesosphere to decouple from each other. This ultimately leads to some strange effects like the winds that drive weather systems inverting their directions relative to the the thermosphere and mesosphere, the collapse of the polar vortex into a dipolar configuration with two smaller polar vortices forming at lower latitudes allowing warm air from the mid latitudes to flow into the polar latitudes even during the polar winter. These events used to be rare but in the recent decades they have become much more frequent to the point that during the last decade or so they are almost a certain annual occurrence during late winter with the atmospheric state occurring earlier in the year and persisting longer into the spring so I wouldn't be surprised if they might at some point extend for years at a time in the future. Anyways the presence of an SSW event means that atmosphere takes longer to recover from the heating by solar activity, this likely played a pretty significant role in why Space X lost a whole bunch of satellites during an SSW event in the winter of 2023 as the atmosphere staying hotter for longer up at those altitudes means the drag wouldn't drop off at the expected rate for normal solar activity.

[@erikjohnson9075]

That's not really how that works. The upper atmosphere, which is cooling due to humans trapping the heat closer to the surface, absorbs that energy and expands. This causes issues for satellites via drag but doesn't affect the climate. What does is during high solar activity the sun is slightly brighter. This effect is dwarfed by the increase in co2, however.

[@elzabets]

I very much appreciate your content in general, but this recent series has been absolutely delightful in clarifying so many concepts that I knew existed, but never had so tidily explained. One thing that might be helpful for communicating to the general public is mentioning now and then that when you're talking about "positive" and "negative" cycles and loops, that you don't mean "positive" as in good and "negative" as in bad, they're about increase and decrease, et c.

[@Edgarbopp]

Thanks for doing this type of video. I know you said it’s the last one for a while but I’d definitely be interested more “common misconception” videos on important issues.

[@johnp9988]

Thank you for clearing that up for us! 🍻

[@oker59]

I remember requesting to go to the library during lunch break in junior high school. Instead of messing around for half an hour or so, I'd go to the library. Amongst the few things I saw during that time was a Science New article about William Thurston - Mathematrician that 1) solved how to turn a sphere inside out topologically(kind of related to the Poincare conjecture) and 2) solved the classification of four dimensional space(the way he did it was rather remarkable - a combination of knot theory and hyperbolic geometry. Knot theory alone is a field not solved by Mathematicians to this day - even though there's remarkable "theories" if you will. There's a great video about this from a William Thurston team. I think it's called "Not Knot." You have to see this!) The other thing I found was a 1800s(late 1800s) book about species that went extinct in their lifetimes(the 1800s). It said "we live in the sixth mass extinction). I've been so disappointed that I forgot the books title. But, it was like 300 pages of species that went extinct back then!

[@oker59]

When I first found your channel, and going through your videos, I was struck by the carbon sequestration videos. A natural solution to Global Warming. Believe it or not, but I agree and wish we could get the world to do that. I don't know; write the President? There is the technological solution. And, believe me, I prefer to just clean things up instead of going the technological route to keep the ants away(namely, use a chemical spray). I think the Carbon sequestration method is the method of just cleaning up the food to keep the ants around instead of the technological solution. But, there is a technological solution to Global Warming - Drexlerian Nanotechnology. I found Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation" back in Junior High School as well. Well, maybe slightly before. We had just moved to Poway from W.S.M.R. -New Mexico around 1989. Me and my sister would hike four miles to the nearest main shopping center. There was a small private bookstore. This was before the Bookstar/Barnes and Nobles big book store revolution. There was Waldenbooks and others that always had small science sections. They'd have one stack of science books. And most of these books are nature collection books - Birds/Butterflies, and one row of this stack would be Astronomy/Physics books. And most of that was just constellation maps. And, then out of all of those, was one book called "Engines of Creation." I took a look at it, and didn't know what to make of it. I like to point this story out because I like to point out that I had associated advanced futuristic science/technology with space exploration. And here was this guy saying "technological revolution to the power/exponent technological revolution." But, the back cover of the book was saying cells and computes. I was like "what does cells have to do with computers?" And what does information have to do with futuristic technology?(hardware!). I put the book down. I know that I read Alvin Toffler's books "FutureShock", "The Third Wave", and Powershift in the meantime. I don't know if that helped me to think maybe Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation" maybe had something. But, I went back to that little private bookstore like two or three years later, and Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation" was still sitting there. Nobody in two or three years had picked it up! This time, something hit me, I bought it. I don't know how well I digested it; but, I digested it enough to know the full magnitude of Drexlerian Nanotechnology. This is getting long; so, hitting the reply button and continuing this with another reply . . .

[@oker59]

I understood that being able to make things to atomic specification would make a technological revolution comparable to the iron age compared to the stone age(in fact, several times greater!). I could see that you could solve all medical problems(including aging!) and! Global warming! You could make everything to a Star Trek technology quality - emissions free. And, you could recycle the industrial age(as Eric Drexler puts it)! All a technological solution. We are not there yet; but, there has been a second best thing to Drexlerian Daimondoid/vacuum chemistry level Nanotechnology revolution in the last few years - they solved the Protein folding problem. There's several routes to Drexlerian Nanotechnology(to distinguish from mere chemistry and semi-conductor chip making nanotechnology) - Electron Microscopes(Richard Feynman's idea. Richard Feynman actually thought of Drexlerian Nanotechnology back in 1957 - two years after Sputnik! And his idea to make it happen was through Electron Microscopes. There's been exciting breakthroughs here; but, this is getting long!), S.T.M's(Scanning Tunneling Microscopes - there's things to explain about this; but once again, to try to shorten this, I'm skipping this as well!), DNA, and Eric Drexler's favorite idea! Protein folding. Each of these methods had their "Unobtaineum." Well, I guess I am going to point out some of the above. The Electron Microscopes "Unobtaineum" was not being able to see individual atoms. They solved in in the 2000s. They used Metamaterials to break a natural physics diffraction law. Now, Electron Microscopes can see atoms. I've seen them move atoms around; i don't know why they can't make Drexlerian Nanotech happen with Electron Microscopes anymore. I just had a conversation with a guy a few weeks ago about this. I said "you can't get do single atom chemistry with Electron MIcroscopes." The other guy said "yes we can; but, we can' only make small things." I said 'okay, why can't you use multiple beams" - No response! The S.T.M's Unobtaineum is they can't do massive parallelism(they kind of can with semi-conductor industries. But we have to wait till they get advanced enough to do atomic resolution structures - for which there's been exciting developments there recently. Protein Folding's Unobtaineum is being able to predict how a set of amino acids can fold into a protein - which turns out to be an astronomically large combinatorial problem. They solved it about four years ago with A.I.!

[@oker59]

There's been tremendous progress in Protein folding softwares ever since. For awhile, there was like a new Protein folding software per week(or two!). That seems to have cooled down. But, after Alphafold 3 came out just a week or two ago(as of writing this), I remember them saying "actually, we plan on many advances over the next couple of months"! But still, we are in the Protein Nanotechnology era. Drexler's Protein pathway might still prove to hard to get from Proteins to full scale Drexlerian Daimondoid/vacuum based chemistry; but, Protein Nanotechnology, remarkably, can solve 1) all medical problems(including Aging!), energy(it can solve photosynthesis), and! Global Warming! They can clean up all the pollution(except Nuclear waste which we could just launch out to space and into the sun . . .). So, we can solve Global Warming with a technological solution. I certainly prefer to just learn how to live in sync with nature. But that won't happen!

[@nyoodmono4681]

@@oker59 Dreams are your reality. The opposite is true: There is not much to come, all the biggest inventioned have been done. This is why we fantasize about new milestones. We even make up problems, like viruses and climate catastrophy. And here you are just believing everything and believing in technology as a solution. Your dreams of organizing atoms and proteins.. Nature does all this by itself. You make up a lifeless world you believe that man should and will control everything.

[@dr.t87]

Thanks for another great video, Rachel! I think "Save Earth" is also problematic in another way. It is similar to "Save Polar Bears" or something like that, many people perceive it as charity from humans towards nature. In many cases this will not have an effect on human life, when we stay with the polar bear example: nothing will change for us except there are no polar bears anymore (yes, I know, the artic eco system might suffer as well to an extend we might not be able to grasp). Many people might therefore think, that we don't need charity and economic wellfare is much more important for human society. They miss then, that climate change has the potential to end our functional society.

[@andreehobrak1425]

Thank you.

[@BethBarany]

I agree! Save the Earth is not helpful when we need to focus on maintaining/saving our current habitat. The Earth will be fine even if we kill our livable habitat and ourselves.

[@whatabouttheearth]

I've never seen "Save the Earth" as implying that it would be utterly and forever gone, but as a euphemism for "Save the Biosphere from us causing another mass extinction". I mean, maybe some think that it means it would be utterly destroyed but do most?

[@whatabouttheearth]

I've never seen "Save the Earth" as implying that it would be utterly and forever gone, but as a euphemism for "Save the Biosphere from us causing another mass extinction". I mean, maybe some think that it means it would be utterly destroyed but do most?

[@adrianopaparoni5584]

Did some googling on that tilt wobble thing that earth's got going on. Wanted to quantify it intuitively, which for me translates to the distance on surface in the north south direction, which correlates to at least on average a similar shift in hardiness regions for plant species, think of how arctic, temperate or tropical any region is. Turns out the total shift is about 266 km or 165 miles. The tilt wobbles between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees, so a difference of 2.4 degrees. Earths polar circumference is 40008 km, one degree is about 111 km on earths surface. My conclusion is that 266 km to the north or the south has on average, if not a significantly, at least a markedly different climate. We are currently at about the half point of these extremes, so for any location the shift in climate directly attributable to tilt wobble will only shift to either extreme by half the stated distance of 266 km, from the current climate. The tilt changes at the geologically rapid pace of about 20500 years from one extreme to the other (the cycle is 41000 years). Important to note that this works in both directions, north and south. More tilt makes not only the summers warmer but also the winters colder. Tilt affects directly variability of climate. I suspect it does plenty of things indirectly too.

[@carlosgaspar8447]

for a more mathematical and historical take on the subject i would suggest the yong tuition channel. very sincere but also fun approach to the subject.

[@aff77141]

18:30 this section just made me realize why i can't STAND the trope of "earth is destroyed/uninhabitable and unfixable" in scifi, and why I love Wall-E so much. The lost cause fallacy assumes that we'll somehow be fine without Earth and treats it as disposable, and frankly encourages a lot of this ideaology to not care about (or at least not really acknowledge) climate change because 'we'll just move to mars' in scifi fan circles. I'll be borrowing that.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Earth is the only known place in the universe with a habitable, interwoven biosphere. Mars is a boondoggle, as there is no possible way we can terraform it and introduce a viable biosphere conducive to life. Elon Musk is an idiot.

[@danielmcardle3476]

Thank you for a brilliant presentation. Great to see another sane voice in the great debate. I hope the media giants promote your channel.

[@GEOGIRL]

Thank you so much! I appreciate the support and kind words :)

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

Detail. We don't need the agreement of every human on Earth to fight climate change. We just need to have rulers and lawmakers willing to do it. They can pressure CEOs and make companies to change. Therefore, talk to and educate everybody in your reach. *Then, go and vote accordingly.* The remaining people who never understood climate change will be saved unknowingly, same as when they never knew what the fuss about CFCs was about.

[@modalmixture]

Question about the Pleistocene temperature chart at 8:11 - it looks like warming often happens more rapidly than cooling. Is there a reason for this?

[@GEOGIRL]

It’s not always the case throughout Earths history, this is just for the most recent ice age and its associated interglacial cycles, so I imagine it is because the astronomical changes and positive feedback mechanisms associated with the warming during this time were more intense and rapid than those associated with cooling (aka: positive feedbacks like ice melting during the warming is faster than ice forming during the cooling). But in the rest of the timescale there have been periods of cooling that have occurred much more rapidly and have also caused mass extinctions (like snowball earth ~700 million years ago and the end Ordovician extinction ~445 million years ago). Hope that helps! :)

[@modalmixture]

thanks! it’s interesting (and concerning) that some of the feedbacks may be asymmetric.

[@hg2.]

CO2/climate-change is the biggest fraud since communism. (See Henrik Svensmark for the cosmic-ray/solar-activity/cloud-formation/climate relationship.) CO2 is a ruse. Climate change the "Greens" are talking about is caused by changes in the cosmic-rays/solar-activity relationship and cloud formation (See the work of Henrik Svensmark.) Cloud formation by actual cosmic rays can be scene with the naked eye in Cloud Chamber demonstrations. KZbin has dozens of videos about them..

[@deepashtray5605]

Unfortunately there are well funded PR campaigns working very hard to propagate those myths and misconceptions. Thanks for making this.

[@JW4REnvironment]

Very true! Like the Heartland Institute propaganda!

[@fahadqassim3473]

Hello Rachel, great video! Speaking of climate change, I think it would be great to put together a Carbon Capture and Storage 101. As a CCS regulator, I get a lot of questions about CCS, and the public is really confused about it. I will be happy to help if you have any questions.

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

She already has some videos on this, or are you thinking of some additional coverage she does not yet have? Specifically she has videos titled "What is Carbon Sequestration, Why is it Important, & How does it Work?", "The Ocean Fertilization Plan & Its Potential Consequences", and "Using Life, Rocks & Big Mirrors to Combat Climate Change (+ Potential Consequences)"

[@sjzara]

You are absolutely right, but when dealing with climate change denial there is a bigger problem with how to respond, as it’s basically conspiracy theory thinking. It’s very different from accepting climate change but seeking explanations and discussing consequences.

[@RockiesSweden]

Great video! Curious about one thing, it seems we've been in an interglacial period for a little while now and the trend is that Milankovitch cycles occur regularly and, under normal circumstances, we'd end up in another glacial period within a few thousand years. Would these orbital cycles help slow down rising atmospheric temperature levels or even completely negate them if we got a hold on a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions?

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Milankovitch cycles are 26,000, 40,000, 100,000, and 400,000 years. Do you really think we can wait that long?

[@RockiesSweden]

@@toughenupfluffy7294 That's the time they take to complete a full cycle. I'm referring to graphs produced by climate scientists that show regular interglacial cycles of around 110k years, with those interglacial periods lasting about 10K years. If we're currently reaching the close of an interglacial phase (produced by Milankovich cycles), then wouldn't we expect a cooling effect due to astronomical patterns under normal circumstances (ie without humans producing greenhouse gases)? And since these effects are astronomical, they'd serve to counteract global warming, at least in small part, but to what extent?

[@curtisblake261]

I'm keeping an eye on how El Nino and La Nina affect Northern California as human-caused global warming progresses. We're just coming out of an El Nino and a La Nina is taking hold. I have a theory about what that's going to mean but it's too soon to say.

[@zachary37]

I really appreciate your final point. I had a lovely greek professor once who would say "Earth is FINE. WE are FUCKED," in a thick accent and I always quote that to myself haha. And I think that's what we need to focus on, in our messaging to people who are less convinced and to each other. Ultimately we should be focused on us! Mass extinctions have happened before, but we're the first species that are aware that we are doing this, and have the means to course correct. You're right that dinosaurs probably would have preferred not mostly going extinct due to an asteroid! We are incredibly intelligent and resourceful, we have the means and the tools to make our lives more comfortable while also protecting the ecosystem, which we depend on! I think the "Save the Earth" messaging becomes dangerous, even though it's extremely well-intentioned, because it still implies that we are above our environment, that we should save the Earth because it's the right thing to do. We are not above the ecosystem, we are a part of it, we are not saving the Earth, we are saving ourselves. That's the aim, at least in my view. Great video!

[@stevenbaumann8692]

Thanks for doing this. I do that too. Say I'm not going to do a lecture then I go and do a lecture.

[@Alexnz935]

those happy little dinos at 5. have no idea just chilling loving life

[@a.randomjack6661]

Ignorance is bliss. Might ne why it seems popular 🤷‍♂

[@mikemorgan4432]

Your calm rational explanation reminds me of a funny/sad fictional story. I am picturing you explaining, in an on ship lecture hall, how cold water and shock pressure from solid ice can damage plate steel, and rivets, all the while your ship is grinding along an iceberg. (Titanic effect)

[@gregoryhajek118]

Hello, in the 7th minute there is a diagram showing changes of temperature and CO2 level in time with a high blue spike in modern history. Where is the diagram taken from? What was the method of measuring CO2 level and in what/where? Arctica ice layers? kind regards

[@hg6996]

Indeed. The Vostok ice core from Antarctica reaches back 800.000 years.

[@docdissent]

Excellent! I'll emphasize that climate doesn’t change willy nilly but that it changes only due to physical ‘forcings’. The magnitude and direction of these forcings is well understood today, and only man-made CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels explains the data. Even simpler: If you add teratons of an until then buried & locked climate gas on top of the natural carbon cycle it must get hotter. You can’t get around the laws of physics.

[@nashaut7635]

Thank you for this adjustment, Rachel. I'd like to suggest a slight vocabulary change though, in order to stress on the anthropic nature of these facts: instead of "climate change", let's talk about "climate alteration" and instead of "mass extinction", let's say "mass extermination", the both of which IMHO better reflect the truth.

[@yancgc5098]

I have two questions, if gases like oxygen and CO2 dissolve less in warmer water, wouldn’t the oceans warming up slow down ocean acidification because less CO2 would be dissolved in the ocean? Also if there’s more water available to the oceans because of melting glaciers, wouldn’t that dilute the acidification a bit?

[@br7693t]

I've taught Earth History labs to Gen Ed students for the last 5 years. I've been telling them that it's fine if they data-dump everything we've learned over the semester, but please remember the lessons we learned in the Paleoclimate lab. I think it's important to point out that K-T aside, none of those mass extinctions happened over the course of 150 years. They were over geologic time.

[@alienoverlordsnow1786]

Good reporting, GeoGirl! Another thing to remember, is that 7c of rapid global heating, is locked in by the current co2 and methane ppm in the atmosphere. Reducing emissions wont reduce ppm co2, because its recalcitrant, staying in the atmosphere for a thousand years. So what we have to do, is stop emitting greenhouse gas, and remove the three trillion tons that we have put into the air allready. instead of doing that, we are putting another 40 billion tons into the atmosphere annually. Most scientists believe agriculture will collapse between 3-4c global temperature rise. Please do a video on your calculations, (considering all dozen climate feedbacks,) of when we will hit 3c, 4c, 7c and 15c?! Thanks! Dont forget that when civilation collapses, global dimming will be lost and the temperature will rise by 2.5c within a few months. It seems likely to me that agriculture will collapse within a couple of decades.

[@wmpx34]

I tend to believe a similar timeline, however we must remember that different crops can withstand different temperatures, and geographically speaking there will be winners and losers when the patterns shift. So I don’t think we will get to the point where nothing can be grown anywhere. But without a doubt, modern industrial-scale agriculture is about to be a thing of the past. And when that falls, so will a sizable chunk (majority) of the global population. It would be interesting to see where the population stabilizes at after that. Also there are probably confounding factors that I’m not fully considering, such as if the pollinator population craters then agriculture is gonna get real dicey, real quick.

[@antonyjh1234]

7c and 2.5c within months? Scare mongering. There is no way 2.5c can happen as an average for the planet in months.

[@jayleeper1512]

There has already been a total collapse of pollinator populations in my area and a corresponding collapse in the bird population locally. The climate moving to long term and sustained drought also is a big factor. I think the collapse will be in years, not decades. It is already happening here with the loss of pollinators. Many of my fruit trees no longer produce since they are no longer being pollinated. Here the collapse began in about 2017.

[@alienoverlordsnow1786]

The predictions offered by the IPCC are bogus. They ignore all the climate feedbacks and they ignore global dimming. They do so in order to provide politically acceptable observations and recommendations. They also assume that geoengineering is possible, without evidence, and when it should be obvious that humans cannot artificially control the climate of a planet. We can wreck the climate, (we just did), but there is zero chance that we can control it.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

@@wmpx34 I've yet to see anyone address the problems that climate change-caused trophic cascades will cause. When the insects all die, the birds and other species all die, and on up the food chain, ending at us.

[@footfault1941]

This is cool! (Or hot?) The footage is obviously not to refute denialism, but for those who are conscious of it to enhance proper knowledge deeper & wider. A climate issue level 2 (or higher, as I might have missed foregoing ones.) Misuse, intentionally, of science is just disgusting, incredible & unacceptable. In that sense, the video is very well structured, illustrative & intriguing, as well as scary though. An excellent work!

[@Richard482]

Thumbs up Geo Girl!

[@tnoldforester]

Really good video. I do enjoy your work. This is not a BUT, only additional information to consider. Misconception #2 graph says more than most comprehend. In relatively recent times CO2 bottomed out at ~180ppm. Plants need a minimum of ~150ppm to survive. We came dangerously close to another extinction event. Bioaccumulation of carbon in the form of carbonates has depleted the available CO2, the food for plants. Without plants we die. There are few man made sources of CO2. We are returning the long sequestered carbon found in fossil fuels or limestone, calcium carbonate. Some argue we have been in a CO2 drought. I would rather be in an 800ppm world than a 150ppm one. If we are truely concerned about “saving” human life, more CO2 will be needed. Carbon Balance is really a misconception. You mean status quo. The balance has been trending against carbon as Earth has evolved. I am not convinced of most population predictions. We really don’t know and worse, have not been very good at such predictions so far. We do know it will change for a whole variety of reasons. Some are human, but most are not. The first step is to instill an acceptable level of credibility in the study of climate. Policy/political driven “science” is unacceptable and the real threat to a free society and human existence. I do enjoy your practical approach to your videos.

[@garypasko5314]

The state of California used to publish a magazine, of course called California Geology. They stopped publishing it in 2001. But I remember reading an article in it from a soil scientist talking about the rise in carbon dioxide from conversion of prairies and woodlands to farmland. I finally found the article and was written in 2000. Scary numbers noted then. Even more scary now.

[@markotrieste]

14:15 I think you should also mention solubility of gas in water. Warmer oceans hold less CO2, another huge positive feedback loop.

[@GEOGIRL]

Oh yes! Thanks for pointing this out! It also holds less oxygen, which exacerbates the anoxia.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

Warmer oceans hold less CO2 which is why with our warming oceans the CO2 in the oceans increasingly forms carbonic acid leading to more acidic oceans. That in turn threatens sea life faster than they can adapt.

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

If CO2 were cut too rapidly, there would be a collapse of crop yields, and mass starvation on a huge scale. We need to stabilise temperature rapidly now, before various tipping points are reached. The only practical way to do it is Solar Radiation Management.

[@GEOGIRL]

That is a great question! Again, no, because CO2 is not the 'limiting nutrient' for agricultural crops (or really any plants), it's drawdown (even rapidly) will not heavily affect the crop yields. That said, if there are any side effects of our drawdown efforts on the soil phosphorous (P) and nitrogen (N) concentrations, then maybe crop yields would be affected, but this would depend on what method(s) we use to drawdown the carbon. :)

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

@@GEOGIRL There has been a significant greening of 5% over the last 2 decades. Since 1950 (when CO2 really started increasing) there has been a doubling of crop yields in many countries. And a very significant reduction in starvation, despite an increasing human population. If people like you had control of the CO2 level you would put it back to pre-industrial levels. And if that means crop yields halve, then around half the poulation of the world would starve. Is that what you want? To kill 4 billion people, for the sake of a few thousand polar bears. In fact, polar bear numbers have increased significantly over the last several decades, and they evolved some 400,000 years ago, and survived through 4 cycles of glacial and inter glacials. Stop worrying about polar bears, they are excelent swimmers, and are doing just fine.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

​@@StabilisingGlobalTemperature You are claiming the increase in CO2 is the sole cause of agricultural yields which is false. Most agricultural yields are due to refinement agricultural practices not CO2 not an increase in CO2. And a rapid decrease in CO2 is not planned nor is it possible. CO2 can only be reduced gradually. The massive amount of CO2 in the atmosphere won't allow for a rapid decrease. Your last bit about 4 billion dying because of decline in CO2 is hyperbolic and catastrophizing and thus not credible.

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 What on earth do you think is powering "refined agricultural practices"? Fossil fuels of course. Without fossil fuels there will be no more tractors or combine harvesters. No grain driers. No nitrate fertilisers. Sri Lanka abolished nitrate fertilisers and yields plummeted. It went from an exporter of rice to an importer, and there was great hardship. The policy was quickly reversed but the damage was done. And yes, oilseed rape can be grown to make biodiesel. To power tractors etc. But that takes land area, so the effective yield of the food crop is halved, if you add in the land area to grow biodiesel crop. Or it will be back to using horses or oxen. And using horse manure instead of nitrate fertiliser. Crop yield will be down, maybe by half as I stated. You are correct and wrong at the same time.

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 Or maybe there could be electric powered tractors and combine harvesters. But how are they charged up? SOlar panels? But these take large areas of land. So the area for food crops is reduced. If you add up the solar land area and the food area, even if the yield per hectare in the food area remains the same, the overall yield is reduced if you add up both areas. But without nitrate fertiliser the yield will collapse.

[@hg6996]

This is a very good summary of key aspects of climate change 👍

[@platypao]

Great video! Thank you

[@rjlbex1968]

Thank you so much for this, it's just what I needed to confront a few deniers that I know😂

[@toastyburger]

One of your slides mentions the Anthropocene. In March 2024, the IUGS voted against ratifying the Anthropocene as a geologic epoch. Despite the vote, is it still commonly used in academia?

[@altanativeftw2625]

The Anthropocene is not an epoch. It’s an event. You don’t have a separate epoch just for the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event for the same reason.

[@TheDanEdwards]

The vote did not surpass the threshold needed, even if the majority wanted the Anthropence to be accepted.

[@GEOGIRL]

Yea, even though it isn’t ‘official’ we still use it often colloquially at least when we refer to the time since the Industrial Revolution :)

[@hg2.]

Such incredible glibness. CO2/climate-change is the biggest fraud since communism. (See Henrik Svensmark for the cosmic-ray/solar-activity/cloud-formation/climate relationship.) CO2 is a ruse. Climate change the "Greens" are talking about is caused by changes in the cosmic-rays/solar-activity relationship and cloud formation (See the work of Henrik Svensmark.) Cloud formation by actual cosmic rays can be scene with the naked eye in Cloud Chamber demonstrations. KZbin has dozens of videos about them..

[@whatabouttheearth]

C3, C4 and CAM plants all have peak CO2 saturation rates, and we know what they are. It's simply ignorant for someone to think that plants can just keep taking CO2 in as if you can just overload the light independent reactions with CO2 and it'll be fine even though there would be an imbalance of the other elements required in photosythesis. It wouldn't speed up the rate of light dependent reactions that initiate the light independent reactions. Plants also release CO2 from respiration which they do with or without light.

[@evane8155]

I wish everyone would watch this.

[@kaijen2688]

Yes we are a cold adopted climate, and the real question is how are crops can handle this heat and droughts. Excellent video.

[@user-nn9cq5xu1d]

Like she said - nature adapts. It always as and always will.

[@kaijen2688]

@@user-nn9cq5xu1d Usually global warming and cooling take place over time. This time man has accelerated the change.

[@OscarBernhardt]

Excellent! Many thanks. 🙏🏻

[@Mivoat]

Given that CO2 during the Cretaceous was about 2000 ppm, does anyone know if the oceans were acidified then? Certainly coccolithophora seemed to do well, as seen by the vast chalk deposits in England’s north and south downs, exposed at the white cliffs of Dover.

[@GEOGIRL]

They were more acidic, the key was that they weren’t changing fast. The thing about ocean ph, even today, is that it is not like the increase in co2 is making it super acidic (the most it would change is from like 8 to 7) but the problem is rapid change. Back in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, co2 levels got so high but on geologic timescales which were long enough for life to adapt to the warmer and slightly more acidic oceans. However, when they increase so rapidly like now or at the end Permian, the slight temperature and ph changes (even just from ~8.15 to 8.0) can be devastating. Again “warmth” is different than “warming” just as “acidic” is different than “acidification”. Hope that makes sense! :)

[@Mivoat]

@@GEOGIRL Thanks. We are writing a paper on this. Do you have a reference to the oceans being more acidic during the Cretaceous? (We can’t find one.) We very much agree with you on the dangers of rapid warming, which you probably know is stratifying the ocean surface, which is curbing the flow of nutrients for phytoplankton growth. And phytoplankton raise pH by their photosynthesis.

[@jeanne-gord7685]

Thank you for being a great communicator. Your science vids make things so clear, Also thanks so much for your gentle but persuasive arguments based in current research. I saw in your last vid many commenters giving you flack for their perception, of you being apologetic. Those commentators seem to misunderstand the difference between being sensitive and being weak. You can't persuade someone who has closed their ears to you when a person begins the discussion with disdain and arrogance. It is far more persuasive to seek agreement than victory. Thank you.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

The orchestra was playing when the Titanic hit the iceberg...

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

@jeanne-gord7685 For what little it's worth, I agree. ​@@toughenupfluffy7294 If the goal is to convince the greatest number of people that climate change is real and dangerous, you WANT a variety of tones and methods of communication in play. There are other people being more strident, and people can do that without Dr. Phillips' unique qualifications and in-depth knowledge. Dr. Phillips is fairly uniquely qualified to use rational details as her mode of argument. Her being more strident would only get in the way of that. Also, as humans, we react in built in ways to people we perceive as genuine, to people we perceive as nice, to people who are being polite. Those personal touches are what might break through someone's doubt or intransigence. Therefore, if you are arguing that Dr. Phillips shouldn't be so nice about this, I STRONGLY disagree, both because Dr. Phillips should have the freedom to be how she wants to be, and because in asking her to be less nice you are also asking her to be less uniquely effective at persuading the people SHE might reach that a more strident voice might not. Hopefully I didn't miscontrue your comment.

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

@@toughenupfluffy7294 Are you agreeing with the people saying that Dr. Phillips is being too apologetic or too nice? If the goal is to convince the greatest number of people that climate change is real and dangerous, then we should have a variety of tones and styles of communication in play. There are other people being more strident, and pretty much anyone can do that. However, only someone with in-depth knowledge like Dr. Phillips can use rational details as her mode of argument. Being more strident would just get in the way of that. Also, humans often react better to kindness and politeness, and almost always find someone more believable when they are being genuine in their beliefs and how they present their personality. Those personal touches are what might break through someone's doubt or intransigence. Therefore, if you are arguing that Dr Phillips shouldn't be so nice about this, I strongly disagree, both because she should have the freedom to be how she wants to be, and because asking her to be anything else is asking her to be less effective in reaching the people she is uniquely positioned to reach, the people who might ignore a more strident voice. And, as stated, those more strident voices are still out there anyway. Hopefully I didn't misconstrue your comment.

[@herman452]

In the year 2525 . . . .

[@rebeccawinter472]

@geogirl it’s a great video. You implicitly suggest that a runaway greenhouse effect is not a possible end scenario for the current situation. While there are the positive feedback mechanisms, you generally seem to suggest that our fossil fuel addiction will lead to a hothouse. Is a runaway greenhouse effect a possible outcome?

[@GEOGIRL]

That’s a great question! Yes it is entirely possible. That said, there are negative feedback mechanisms (balancing out the current trend) and other mechanisms (like mass extinctions) that help Earth kind of bring back balance when things get rapidly perturbed. So the ‘runaways’ don’t necessarily last forever, at least not in the past events, but they certainly last long enough to cause mass extinctions. Hope that makes sense!

[@altanativeftw2625]

@@GEOGIRL Would enhancing silicate weathering on a scale large enough to sequester carbon dioxide back to preindustrial values be viable?

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

@@altanativeftw2625 How in the heck are we going to do that on the massive scale necessary? Acid leaching? THAT'LL be good for the environment...

[@mani24k86]

Hi geo girl can you make a video on Anorthosites, their types, associated rocks etc. it would really help me as I am doing a small project on lunar Anorthosites.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

if the earth is getting hotter then why is everyone around me still ugly

[@isacbrito5065]

This video is exclent. Can you please put the main references that you used? I'd like to lean more about. You should do like Kurzgesagt, a little reference on the video ;)

[@thedon1262]

why isnt this been watched more... this hould have atleast 10 million views, such a small percerntage of all humans of earth it would be a shame if it is less

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

Most people prefer to stay in their comfort zones and avoid challenging long held beliefs. And many of those same people are caught up in a kind of hedonistic lifestyle by surrounding themselves with pleasurable activities, travel, a materialistic lifestyle etc.

[@thedon1262]

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 yea they are all dopamine addicted! what makes life wurth it anyway if you cant find happiness

[@rapauli]

Wow -=- and YOU were the one who bravely defined ice as a rock. Brilliant and thank you. Alas, that means eve more rapid geological changes.

[@rapauli]

Melting ice to water, and evaporation and cloud formations -- means that yes, clouds are just melted rocks. Your geology studies now are fully unlimited. Thank you!

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Ice is a mineral, not a rock.

[@longdang2681]

15:36 Why did the increase in CO2 not lead to a continuation of the positive feedback loop during the other mini ice ages? Is it because CO2 is not the dominant cause of global warming? (what caused the spikes in the graph to turn down at the points 400K years, ~330k years, 230k years, 110k years etc.)

[@GEOGIRL]

Because during the interglacials the astronomical changes in Earths orbit, etc more strongly controlled climate; however these cycles are on timescales of 100s of thousands of years; whereas, on shorter timescales, like the next several decades or centuries (between the big changes in orbit or tilt) greenhouse gases play the biggest role in controlled climate. What’s important about this too, is that if the ice completely melts or near-completely melts before the next scheduled glacial advance (cooling/mini ice age) that will greatly change how that (or if that) even happens because it will cause somewhat of a ‘runaway’ effect in which albedo or surface reflectivity will decrease so much that solar radiation will warm Earth too much for ice to form to the same extent as previous glacial advancement periods. Hope that makes sense! :)

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

@@GEOGIRL Also, there were great increases in carbon sequestration at low latitudes due to the increased growth of carbon-capturing marine species at shallow depths (the world's photic zones). How they overcame the oceans' acidity is something I'm not aware of.

[@chinookvalley]

EO Wilson. Sociobiologist. Amazing.

[@zonerunner9614]

Can you do another dinosaur video and wear that adorable yellow hoodie with the blue dinos? 😍

[@rogerdudra178]

I agree with your call, it is the rate of change more so than the change, itself that changes climate.

[@irenafarm]

I’ve been emphasizing _”rapid_ climate change” in my discussions with doubters and deniers. It’s difficult to argue with mass extinction events.

[@KoRntech]

Even for the first part climate is always changing if you just had a slideshow of 30 hotspots that have images from about 30-40 years ago the change is very obvious. Now up here in the north, we've had two winters of no snow pack, let alone snow on the ground lasting more than a few days after a storm before it's melted away again. When I was a kid in the 80's seeing 10+ feet plowed snow piles in the store parking lot still melting come March was normal, by the late 90's they had shrunk to the point the mall was selling it's wxcess snow removers because they only saw use one week a season.

[@EeDuncStar]

A great summary. Now can you please tell the European parliament et al to stop their insane Net Zero plans such as planting trees instead of growing food! (I like trees but I like food better). And how we don't need to go vegan or vegi,as grass feed beef is fine (especially if supplemented with a bit of seaweed) and Deer is an even more sustainable meat source. Thank you.

[@crimsonlobster1223]

i renember seeing multiple thunderstorms and winterstorms, because sometimes, i see 2 common types of weater that are common in not only the united states, but other countries.

[@Siansonea]

Yeah, I have no faith in people's ability to understand things like "save Earth". People do not pay attention. I'm worried that phrases like "positive feedback loop" could lead people into thinking it's a good thing because it's "positive". 🙄

[@GEOGIRL]

It does, I had to clarify positive vs negative feedback mechanisms to my students like 50 times this semester 😅

[@PurpleNoir]

Commenting for the algorithm

[@basilbrushbooshieboosh5302]

I love it that you're bodily amused when you say you "don't think (we) will" go extinct with this mass extinction that we're currently managing to happen full speed ahead, on auto-pilot. And no, I'm not taking a poke at you. It may be a pre-catastrophic stage we're currently in, but if we couldn't be sardonically amused, we'd be crying to sleep at night and not able to function well otherwise. So, bravo Ms GG.

[@Richard482]

I've read from sources including Skeptical Science and Katharine Hayhoe, that the planet should be naturally cooling right now, not naturally warming. Climate scientist/KZbinr Simon Clark has said in one of his vids that the climate would either be naturally stable or naturally cooling.

[@rlmillr]

Leonard Susskind and Sabine Hossenfelder are the only persons I have seen who actually addressed how CO2 actually works in the atmosphere although both were incomplete. These numbers are not real because I am not a climate scientist but for example 100ppm to 500ppm has a dramatic affect on temperature but 500 to 1000 has a much reduced affect due to how much CO2 can see the radiation and can reflect it back to earth. I would like to know much more about this.

[@davidday388]

Could you do a video about the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, how it effected primate evolution?

[@rogerlong6969]

I know if all the nuclear reactors meltdown that the ozone layer can be stripped away, and could take approximately 15 years to recover… However, I was wondering if the atmosphere itself could be stripped away by such an event?

[@stever4881]

Everyone is an environmentalist until a shiny bobble comes along, like a Ferrari.

[@glacieractivity]

Actually, the Ferrari is pretty environmental! They are so expensive and people see them more as collector's items than cars. I checked the second-hand listings in Norway and models from the 1980s and 1990s typically have less than 50,000 miles on them. That is not a lot :-). This is how the ICE car will survive, just as the horse before it among the wealthy enough. We kept the horse, not to work in London or New York by the hundreds of thousands every day, but as a hobby to enjoy. Similarly, Jay Leno will take one from his crazy collection out every weekend when the weather is nice for a short drive. Good for the horse, and good for the streets of cities filling up with manure every day. A fun story: Rolls Royce wanted to be electric from the start (comfort is king), but the technology was not there. Thus they spent a century developing the engine with the least amount of vibrations. Now the tech they have waited for is ready. R-R asked their clientele what range they wanted in the first electric R-R. The customer base said that anything over 300 miles was too much (presumably they use their private helicopter/jet for journeys above 200 miles). A Rolls costing +300k is hardly an environmental proposition, but at least it allows the wealthy to go downtown to their business meeting without emissions in the densely populated areas of the peak financial districts of the world. :-D

[@antonyjh1234]

All these cars using fuel other people have been killed over should make them re-think their shiny bobbles.

[@philochristos]

Don't you mean misconception? I thought a misperception is when you perceive something incorrectly, like when a shadow of a tree is mistaken for a human, or something like that. A misconception is when you have the wrong idea about something, like when you think granddaddy longlegs are venomous spiders that can't bite you because their mouths are too small.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

From the online Oxford dictionary: Myth- a widely held, but false belief or idea. Myth used in this video fits perfectly!