Peter Brannen: "Deep Time, Mass Extinctions, and Today" | The Great Simplification

On this episode, Nate is joined by Peter Brannen, science journalist and author specializing in Earth’s prior mass extinctions, to unpack our planet’s geologic history and what it can tell us about our current climate situation. Humans have become very good at uncovering the history of our planetary home - revealing distinct periods during billions of years of deep time that have disturbing similarities to our own present time. How is the carbon cycle the foundation of our biosphere - and how have changes to it in the past impacted life’s ability to thrive? On the scales of geologic time, how do humans compare to the other species who have inhabited this planet - 99% of which have gone extinct - and will we end up being just a blip in the fossil record? How can an understanding of geologic and climate science prepare us for the environmental challenges we’ll face in the coming decades?
About Peter Brannen:
Peter Brannen is an award-winning science journalist and contributing writer at The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, Aeon, The Boston Globe, Slate and The Guardian among other publications. His 2017 book, The Ends of the World covers the five major mass extinctions in Earth's history. Peter is currently a visiting scholar at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He was formerly a 2018 Scripps Fellow at CU-Boulder, a 2015 journalist-in-residence at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center at Duke University, and a 2011 Ocean Science Journalism Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, MA.
For Show Notes and More: www.thegreatsimplification.co...
#thegreatsimplification #natehagens #climate #carbon

[@treefrog3349]

This is another in a long list of brilliant, intelligible, and informative conversations that are so germane to the present moment. Personally I think that the Great Simplification should be an academic requirement for all high school students, politicians, seminarians, and prospective parents. The truth IS out there.

[@leonstenutz6003]

Agreed! Great comment.

[@nunyabusiness9013]

Now Mulder and Skully are gonna do it doggystyle so they can both watch X Files! 🤣

[@tozobozo4142]

All true! It IS brilliant and informative. The mistake we make is in thinking any of this provides the means to anywhere better than where we've already arrived after multiple generations of exposure to this class of people and their works. For any of this knowledge to lead us somewhere exalted would require a driver of the bus. And as Hagens points out, there is none. There is simply this vast, insatiable, mindless amorphic mass that is humanity as a body. I suppose Hagens is hoping for a bus-driver. In which case he needs to showcase far less of the quasi-leisure class of academics and other pontificators and more of those few people actually LIVING the simplification. It's just more words otherwise. Get the Amish on here, chrissakes. There's your "great simplification." While legions of us are doing the talking, some are doing the doing, and have been all along.

[@PiaBros]

Thank you from an 81 year old Great Great grandmother. So informative and so easy to follow. Love all these podcasts …

[@Anyreck]

Hope every human older than 6 yrs gets to hear this discussion in full ASAP! Bravo Peter & Nate🙏

[@christopherhamilton3621]

As an earth scientist close to retirement, it’s great to finally get a global perspective on deep time and historical events & linking it all to our planetary crises. Much needed in many respects.

[@waynebollman]

Wow. This guy is a master explainer of these things even though you can tell he might not think so because he comes across with so much humility and open-mindedness. I love'm. Definitely one of Nate's best guests ever. Thank you, Nate.

[@ragereset2795]

Read his book, mate. It’s phenomenal, and there’s another one due anytime now, The Story of Carbon is The Story of Everything.

[@OldJackWolf]

Having watched the changes during my 35 years as a soil scientist, I think the process is more advanced than what many other scientists have suggested. Furthermore, now that the impacts are accelerating in very dangerous ways, I suggest a episode or two on how individuals can learn to evaluate their risks so that they can mitigate them asap.

[@publicdomain1103]

Mitigate, adapt will be shortened to adapt. the fux are going to lead the zombie world to an extinction. Human 2.0 will be knowledgeable and humble form of apex creature. Barring the insane gene..

[@isak9568]

Would love to hear more about your views on how the soil are changing and eroding away. Is it true that we only have about 50-100 good years left?

[@5353Jumper]

This is why I pair Geologists with Microbiologist on the topic of human caused climate change. Microbiologist know how fragile yet important the tiny things are. That they make the majority of our oxygen and food, yet can die in mass with a slight change in temperature. Or they have the potential to destroy all our oxygen and food but can bloom in mass with a small change in temperature.

[@OldJackWolf]

@@isak9568 I trained in upstate NY and worked in W PA and until recently (about 10 years ago), they froze in the winter. I first noticed it in the wetlands that I was delineating and on south facing hills. This has many implications, some good, but mostly bad, including more insect broods, a big concern for vintners and farmers. The increase in soil temps also decreases carbon sequestration while allowing more outgassing of carbon from the soil. I also have increasing concerns about organic soils. Once they dry out, they can burn. Those fires are nearly impossible to put out. Think Centralia, but closer to the surface, where the coal fires are still burning.

[@ragereset2795]

@@OldJackWolfI keep hearing that about organic soils, and it makes sense. I try to limit this by adding palagonite (or failing that, sand) but l work in curated gardens where drying out isn't really a threat, even in Australia. What's the solution, if any? I know a lot more commercial farms are watering with compost tea, due to huge results, lower costs and a healthier soil food web. But the organic soil thing is troubling.

[@LittleOrla]

Information like this is gold. We hear so many different narratives, at least half of them fictional, that it becomes difficult to discern what's real. Thank you SO much for this podcast and this amazing guest. Pure gold. 💕🙏

[@T.efpunkt]

What a wonderful, intelligent and humble guest! Looking forward to the next interview with him!

[@ramblingtothesun8969]

I watched it twice, the second time while thumbing through Peter Ward's "Under a Green Sky". Thanks for this Nate and Peter B!

[@davehendricks4824]

Another great podcast. Thanks Nate and Peter!

[@lahirurasnayake5285]

Nate Hagens, Sir, thanks a lot for your podcast. You are doing humanity a very great service.

[@Heidi2003]

Great topic. More on deep time please.💐

[@yokkaichi1]

"There is some failing in our science communication..." 0:57:10 That is an understatement. There are so many lies on every side that it's impossible for anyone who doesn't make it their full time job to parse the noise to make sense out of it.

[@lorilafferty4099]

I love people who care naturally

[@mischevious]

As someone with a lifetime in horticulture and several years study in reforestation and regenerative systems I find Peter to be well versed in the geological and chemistry aspects of earth systems collapse, and spot on about the rate of change being the critical factor for survivability of species. What he doesn’t appear to be aware of is that the threshold is already in the rear view. We’ve already passed dozens of climate tipping points, already entered a period of abrupt climate change. Annual crop yields are decreasing exponentially, every ecosystem on the planet *still living is already in a state of distress or collapse. In fact we’re already losing ecosystems at an alarming rate. Because all the many interconnected interdependent species that make those systems functional are already going extinct- at an alarming rate. What that amounts to, what all the educated studied minds humanity has to offer don’t seem to grasp(I believe because their time is spent staring at screens and hypothesizing instead of interacting with the natural living world, because modern humans no longer have a connection to the living world that affords us life) is very basic, very simple; loss of habitat = loss of species, loss of species = loss of habitat. We can expound infinitely on all we’ve learned, identifying the problems and imagining the solutions.. all the while the super organism is bombing and bulldozing and polluting and gobbling up the last vestiges of human habitat- the living world. Simple!: We save life on Earth because life on Earth is in sum human habitat, or we go extinct. Right on the heels of every other species we ourselves depend on for life. Of course we’re not going to do that, still too busy subjugating all other life so.. farewell my fair-weather friends! May you at least find keen awareness of what your own life depends on before it ends.

[@briansprung]

How does the Carbon reach the upper atmosphere?? It is coming in through a weakened magnetic field just as it has in the past when we have seen spikes in Carbon levels. Our magnetic field is currently changing rapidly and I believe it is allowing it in along with radiation and other elements. I’m a well versed indoor gardener and CO2 needs to be introduced above the garden canopy even with higher temperatures because it is that much heavier than air. Therefore the only way I can see it in the upper atmosphere is that it is coming in through the weakened magnetic field. Not saying we need to contribute more Carbon by any means but humans are not putting it into the upper atmosphere and our planet is constantly being bombarded by it from the sun and space in general.

[@mischevious]

@@briansprung Interesting, but it sends me down so many different paths I think it would require several hours by the fire with a good wine to travel them. I also have two decades in interior gardening, spoiled with estate homes and lots of orchids! But I’ve never had an interior gardening discussion about CO2, no need, light is the all important factor. I won’t deny magnetic field influence, because I’ve done little research on it so I don’t know diddly about it! What I was forced to research though was the scorching I started seeing in 2016, on foliage exposed to direct sunlight. This was in SoCal, it got noticeably worse every year and by 2020 we were ripping out entire landscapes we’d just installed and could no longer keep any plants but the hardiest of desert species in south facing windows. What I discovered was pages of studies on and measurements of UVC radiation now hitting the surface of the earth in levels on par with UVA & UVB. When it shouldn’t be making it past the ozone layer. UVC is damaging to all living tissue, stripping away the ozone layer would result in the death of all life on earth in very short order. This could easily happen with the ionizing radiation released if the meltdowns of just a handful of the world’s nuclear plants were to occur. Graphs also demonstrated that the UVC isn’t just punching through the ozone layer but also traveling laterally in the lower atmosphere, source/s unknown. A puzzle still being worked on. Though I have my suspicions that the $21T missing from the Pentagon budget and documented weather weaponry plans might possibly have something to do with it. Who knows! But none of it matters. Not CO2 or a thinning ozone, not the Earth’s climate or magnetic field. Because the primary problem is overshoot. Climate is just one aspect of that larger ecological predicament we’ve put ourselves in. We, all eight billion of with our globalized technological civilization, are desertifying the planet of all other life in very short order. Earth systems collapse is already well underway, already nearing the end. So all the rest is just extraneous, superfluous. Live life now while you can! Best idea any human ever imagined.

[@briansprung]

@@mischevious Type this into your KZbin search bar. galactic current sheet signs of the great shift It’s only 2 minutes but there is plenty of more to check out on the channels playlists about Earths disaster cycle.

[@Igel-jo8xv]

Thanks Nate for your covering questions and Pete for your informative responses.....one of the best overall.

[@carolspencer6915]

Good afternoon Nate and Peter 2024 for me is like being stuck in time for sure. For many crazy reasons. Think we are also experiencing the massive extinction of The Experienced Nurse in these times. Not a good situation for our health nation. Super grateful for you both. Sensemaking brain gym. 💜

[@erwin643]

Along with a massive extinction of intelligence, in general (Not to mention an extinction in younger people, skilled people, etc.). Instead of going out with a bang, I think our civilization goes out with a whimper (Can you say "Children of Men"?). My biggest priority right now as a professional Survivalist isn't beans, bullets and band-aids. It's in being more self-reliant in automotive and home maintenance (Along with the challenge of finding the skilled people to do the work that I'm not setup for), more homesteading skills, food growing.

[@tuckerbugeater]

i'm glad none of you will exist@@erwin643

[@drdr1957]

I've been going to a local VA for a long time and it doesn't work anymore.

[@GlobeHackers]

This was a trip. I loved it. Deep time is so interesting. I have yet to read Peter Brannen's book. I will next week. It is great to live in a time with access to these stories. That's something to be thankful for, indeed.

[@ragereset2795]

I’ve read it more times than l can recall, his writing style is just so readable. There’s a new book due “soon” called The Story of Carbon Is the Story of Everything. He told me on Twitter about a year ago that the manuscript was with the editor/publisher, can’t remember which. Cannot wait.

[@GlobeHackers]

@@ragereset2795 Can't wait. All the best

[@shannonwilliams7249]

Incredible session. Grateful.

[@Zanderzan1983]

Probably my favourite installment yet. The comment towards the end about nuclear waste in 100,000 years is something i think about a lot. Any nuclear enthusiasts i mention the waste problem too dismiss it as not a problem. But they think short term. With the literal tectonic changes on earth, nuclear waste will be spewed to the surface, leaving parts of the Earth uninhabitable in 100,000 years or so. What a way to treat our distant offspring. Can the nuclear activists address the deep time issue?

[@noahbrown4388]

Fascinating conversation. Thanks guys!

[@johnbanach3875]

Damn! All in all, this has got to be the most fascinating conversation yet, and there have been some great ones!

[@noahbrown4388]

@@johnbanach3875 Agreed. It's mind boggling to think about deep time on this planet, let alone our place in that progression

[@glendasutardycempaka2830]

Brilliant interview - Peter just sold some books! Well done Nate - your show is amazing and you choose great guests! Thank you💕

[@SeegerInstitute]

Awesome! The fact that life is nothing other than the second law of thermodynamics playing itself out in Aries of negative entropy. Love this guy.

[@dianewallace6064]

What a thorough deep dive into deep time.

[@guyfromthe80s92]

Peter Brannen seems like a really chill dude.

[@erikolsen6269]

Really interesting video. LOVE your work Nate!!

[@annethacker8292]

Thank you Nate and Peter! I too found it comforting in a strange way to hear that there were such massive changes in the nature of life on earth so many times before in the distant past... And that one of those massive changes was caused by trees?!! So I plan to read your last book Peter, and am looking forward to the next one. Nate, I feel like I should be paying you tuition, I learn so much from these podcasts. And you are bringing in experts that I would probably never come across by myself. If I somehow come in to some riches (right now my husband and I, in our late 60's, are living kind of month to month with a little cushion) those gains will be generously shared with you!!!

[@jamesrichey]

If you want to talk about co2 sequestation, then the person you need to interview is a gentleman by the name of Gabe Brown. He wrote a book called Dirt to Soil. He explains that if every farmer and rancher were to do what he has done on his ranch, a whole lot of Co2 would be locked up in the soil and contribute to cooling our planet.

[@publicdomain1103]

Also, Regenerative practice as another vernacular.

[@DrSmooth2000]

Colder sucks

[@neilmarsh8014]

Alan Savory is another one

[@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672]

Most people don't know this stuff partly because most high schools don't offer earth science classes.

[@antonyjh1234]

Most people don't know this because the govts are complicit in doing everything they can to keep the current system going. We are born into a monetary system, that runs on debt, that relies on a fossil fuel system and then most people don't know where money comes from and still think we are directly from god, that schools promote... We should be very mad this is the response we get from our tax dollars, all based around debt that get's paid to a private org, the central banks that they don't give anything back but more debt. The system has to change completely and schooling of children now, that are being conditioned to support this system only, starts from pre school imo.

[@Corrie-fd9ww]

It’s the paradigm/worldview we are raised with, the human-centered, human-supremacist worldview. Earth is the backdrop for our lives and supplies the stuff and accepts our waste. There’s no room for eco-literacy there bc this worldview inherently dismisses earth as anything other than resource for human consumption. The only other worldview to exist for humans is ecocentric/kin-centered- earth and life are family. That inherently allows for eco-literacy. But now we’ve got billions of people who don’t “believe” in that, and that a male dominator god is the ultimate truth who gave humans supremacy over earth and we have divine right to ignore earth and use it for our pleasure. And anything that challenges that belief is evil, demonic, oppressive, anti-whatever and can’t be taught to children bc freedom and rights, etc. It’s beyond a solvable problem, it’s part of the predicament. The only thing that would change people’s inner worldview is caring, on their own.

[@jefftheriault3914]

Slaves don't need extensive educations. That's how the people "in the club" as George Carlin put it, see people like you and me.

[@clarkdavis5333]

Most excellent!

[@A3Kr0n]

Deep time to me is knowing Wisconsin had two huge mountain ranges that got worn down to the nub. That's deep time.

[@dianewallace6064]

Nate, thanks for keeping the heat low in your office. I wear a snow cap at work also to save on heat use.

[@davidwalker2942]

Agreed. I have progressively lowered my home thermostat and werar a knit cap most of the time. I am reminded of the 'night caps' used for sleeping in houses of the past. Temperatures in homes with which I have direct experience were usually lowered into the 50's F or lower back in the 1940's, 50's and 60's.

[@tinfoilhatscholar]

Why not just live and work in efficient buildings?

[@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner]

How about chopping wood for heat...

[@antonyjh1234]

Good to raise your personal heat levels as long as you don't burn it.... I had a conversation with someone and wood has a btu value of between 17 and 37 million, I used 20 million btu as a reference and btu can be converted online to kwh, when I worked it out, that was 1.8 years of my 24/7 electrical use according to my last bill. Global warming is more than CO2, it's heat being trapped too.@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner

[@AntonOfTheWoods]

Everyone harps on about China's CO2 but the vast majority of Southern Chinese people just put more clothes on. You get the occasional inefficient heater but it's anecdotal, not meaningful in terms of energy consumption. And there are more people in Southern China than North America. How many North Americans just put another sweater on? So let's just whine that China produced CO2 making the heaters that the global North heats themselves with!

[@pigstonwidget]

Thank you. Book ordered!

[@tedhoward2606]

Great discussion - thank you. Around 45:10 Peter talks of heat dissipative structures like hurricanes and compares them to life. There is some power in that, but it seems to me to be far from an optimal view of life. Around 1:35:00 Peter talks about working to unite disciplines, and at 1:38:00 about the bizarre series of accidents, and at 1:39:08 about how the society around us is constructed and at 1:40:00 about the importance of alkaline hydrothermal vents to the emergence of life. One of the many bizarre accidents in my life was being in the first undergraduate class on the planet devoted to teaching the theory of plate tectonics (History and Structure of the Earth - at Waikato University in NZ) - when my primary interest was biochemistry and the emergence and structures and systems of life. I now have a definition of life as: Systems capable of searching the space of possible systems for the survivable. Viewing evolutionary history, geological history, through that systems lens; has allowed me to see a lot of things that are not normally seen. So I agree with Peter that alkaline hydrothermal vents seem very probably to be a critical part of the emergence of life; but there is another critical part, that of PCR, which seems very probably to have been driven by temperature change delivered by massive tides (some 100m every 3 hours in that early time when the moon was much closer and the Earth was spinning much faster). It also seems very probable to me that a collision large enough to make a moon is an essential part of initiating plate tectonics - given that we do not seem to see it on Mercury, Venus or Mars. So that seems to be a reasonably big filter - right there. When you view life through that deep time lens, complexity is very slow to emerge. When you look deeply into why, then it becomes clear that it is new levels of cooperation that allow for the emergence and survival of complexity, and that competition tends to drive systems to local minima on the available complexity landscape. The idea that seems to dominate in economic and political circles - that competition is a good that promotes complexity - is wrong - it is a dangerous (potentially terminal) over simplification of something profoundly more complex. Getting cooperation to survive, long term, requires effective mechanisms of cheat detection and mitigation. Arguably cheating systems currently dominate most of our social institutions. And this is a deeply complex subject, and the idea of life as Search for the survivable is deeply, recursively, important. Search has a component that looks like freedom, the ability to go beyond the known. Search also has to develop systems that tend to avoid self terminating vectors in that highly dimensional vector space. Humans deliver a new level of search, beyond the mechanisms of replication with variation. We are exponentially faster and more powerful than any other life form; and our tendency to over simplify, is our greatest danger. Under this definition of life, life is an eternally open system. The degrees of balance and equilibrium we see in it are required to degrees at each level, and at every level, life is eternally exploring conditions at and beyond those boundaries. That appears to be a fundamental part of what it is to be alive. It is not surprising that most over simplify it. To me, there is one clear conceptual transformation that needs to happen within economic and political systems. They need to see the fundamental need for cooperation in diversity, or the human experiment self terminates. Part of that is seeing the need for cooperation in diversity, as the only possible way to explore beyond the known with any degree of long-term security. And we need to explore beyond the known, to solve many of the issues we have, that have no solution in the known, and for other reasons. Another part is seeing the need for cheat detection and mitigation systems at every level of complexity, as ongoing evolving ecosystems, and seeing any level of all out competition as instances of cheating. A useful definition of cancer in our bodies is: any set of cells that stop cooperating and start selfishly using resources without appropriate regard to communication from the systems around them. That seems to go well, right up to the point that everything dies. We seem to be close to that. Economic and political cancers seem close to bringing human society to an end - and that is through a general over simplification of what is actually deeply complex, of necessity. I have been one of those interdisciplinary autistic spectrum geeks for 60 years. It is all so clear and obvious to me, but so few people seem to be deeply interested in, or able to deal effectively, with the real complexity evidently present. Most seem to be trapped in the simplistic models that their subconscious systems assemble and deliver to their consciousness as experience, and don't appear to be interested in going beyond it.

[@earthlytable]

Great comment!

[@erwin643]

Wow, just to touch on various points made, another great guest! And no, I was not familiar with Peter Brannen. And... Yeah, it's amazing. The human experience on this planet so far doesn't even amount to baby shit, and yet we've had such an impact!

[@mrrecluse7002]

And as natural a consequence as microbial life, on this particular planet, where evolution allows it. We could have gone nowhere without help from the most humble life forms.

[@Corrie-fd9ww]

Industrial humans are psychopathic toddlers on meth- so much clearer when deep time is explored

[@rayoakley6669]

Best guest yet! Thank you Nate

[@AnniesEggs]

This has been a great listen and watch.

[@TennesseeJed]

Global Industrial civilization failure‽ I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue!

[@janklaas6885]

don't stop, level up 😊

[@dianewallace6064]

LOL, Jed. I drink like 8-10 cups of coffee a day. It helps my arthritis/nerve pain/aches. Hopefully, I'll go the way of the Dodo B4 there's no more coffee. Keep on keeping on, my friend.

[@LittleOrla]

​@@dianewallace6064 I hear you and agree! 😊

[@TennesseeJed]

@@dianewallace6064 Yes, it's hard to imagine a world sans coffee!

[@dianewallace6064]

@@TennesseeJed Agreed.

[@NickBurgoyne]

Superb discussion. Thank you 🙏

[@stephangleiner1333]

REally soothing to listen to. Pleasant voice , clear description . At the same time a strange situation to listen to our enfolding catastrophe and enjoy the narration. But I suppose, thats the stage we are at meanwhile.

[@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner]

I loved Peter's qualified conclusions.

[@Twisted_Cabage]

Yup, he said it at the end..."maybe i dont know what I'm talking about." When it comes to our future, this journalist is super high on hopium. I predict he will be very surprised as he actually digs into our current predicament and grasps the immensity of the term "poly-crisis."

[@mathematrucker]

Great guest!

[@trenomas1]

Love the conversation. Weird music though. Maybe something a little less dungeon dark?

[@phil3768]

Fascinating discussion Peter and Nate. Thank you! I read your book Nate, "The Ends of the World". Now I'm really looking forward to your next book.

[@georgeshepherd3381]

Contrasting day-to-day to evolution time scales deserves its own episode!

[@antonyjh1234]

Nate, I'm wondering, is the world going to be a El Nino or La Nina world? * I realise this is the wrong question, but more it should be are we just all going to be hot and wet for a very long time instead of the current idea I think in most people's minds of just dry and hot. Australia was planning for a super hot, drier summer, the warmer oceans around NZ and AU, east coast, a marine heatwave in nz for ages, has meant some major rain instead. The severity of the storms on xmas day ( summer ) meant tens of thousands without power, still today 11k, tree's down all over the place, then storms ever since, 300mm of rain, people are cut off, with no food, no air conditioning and no neighbours to put the xmas pavlova in their fridge, only yesterday the rescued 44 people by helicopter from camping ground. Couple of the days were 35c afterwards. The amount of lightning strikes in the last xmas period was 38,000, this same xmas period it was 3.5 million. The point I made to a friend who is very hard to convince in this, is every 1c hotter the atmosphere holds 7% more moisture, so if the days storm is on a day where it's 5 degrees warmer than normal, then it's 35% more volume because what goes up must come down, what if it's 10 degrees and 70% more volume and all drainage is based on exceptions of the past, not the future, what will 70% more volume mean, on a normal basis.. 5% more volume in some people's house gutters could be the difference between flooding or not, and is more volume like the difference between categories of cyclones. 70% more volume means a 70% increase in weight, will retaining walls, roads, bridges etc etc handle this? I'm starting to wonder if we will be 100,000 years of rain?

[@Corrie-fd9ww]

I think the AMOC is a factor- as it slows and when it stops, where it stops.

[@ansonstiles]

Awesome chat, looking forward to the new book!

[@bonnittaroy]

New Music! New Year.

[@erwin643]

Really. I hated the previous stuff, that sounded like it came from an old 1960's B horror film.

[@publicdomain1103]

Great tension and depth, shared and explored at a patient pace. Master courses of direct and balanced discussions pertaining to most divisive yet critical to get right in the early stage. Doh! ShakeUp XR Entropy sucks and the current regime is sucking the life out of us. double whammy.

[@sadfacts7751]

Amazing podcast. Just hope we make it

[@chrismullin8304]

0.1% will!

[@Deebz270]

Excellent interview. Couldn't reallty see too much to disagree on with Peter Brannen, except I'm far less optimisitic about the outcome for all life, when one takes the preceding collapse - by whatever forcing - of industrial civilisation, subsequent loss of service industries and the impact that might have on the 440+ nuclear power facilities peppered around the globe; my concern not being the direct impact, reactor meltdown, or even localised irradiation (Chenobyl), more the effect that those radioacitve aerosols released from nuclear waste, spec; spent fuel rods, reaching the sparse stratospheric ozone shield, where it is now being realised there is a correaltion between increased atmopheric radionuclide aerosols and O3 depletion [post 'Cold War' - atomic weapons testing era research] Strip away the O3 shield and we really will be talking - GAME OVER. For EVERYTHING that lives on the Earth's surface; terrestrial and marine euphotic. NOTHING survives pronlonged exposure to intense high-frequency UV. . One thing we share passionately is the study of 'Deep Time' and especially to use that perspective to lend scale and credence to the less well informed. To understand the current biospheric dynamics; largely outside modern human frames of reference - one must start with 'Deep Time' - there it is all foretold.... --------------------------------------------------------------- Once again - great work Nate!

[@everythingmatters6308]

Agreed. I was thinking of Jim Anderson's presentations about that, too. Nate should get him on. But I don't think he really wants to hear that point of view.

[@nicholaskostopulos8631]

thanks for giving me another scientisti/author and thoughtlleader to follow - Peter Brannen

[@Sanulay]

I really loved this episode. I'll go check out his books.

[@graemetunbridge1738]

To get a sense of the importance of CO2 level, realise that the blackbody equilibrium temperature of the earth is -18C (1) the only thing making the earth a cozy average of 15C is the greenhouse gasses CO2 and H2O. So 250ppm of CO2 elevates the temperature by 33C. An extra 170ppm of CO2 is definitely NOT trivial. Cutting down the forests ( significantly changing CO2 levels 8000 years ago) was our first really big mistake. (1) We have known the radiation equilibrium temperature of earth since the 1850s. It is the temperature of the upper atmosphere ( look at the outside temperature as the plane climbs).

[@Stuart.McGregor]

Thanks for this perspective. It’s the best broad discussion on this topic and the first I’ve come across (in over a decade) that ranges from mass extinctions to Milankovitch cycles in its analysis. Looking forward to the discussion when his next book is published. I’d happily pay for a copy to be sent to Greta Thunberg.

[@dankoepp68]

I love to see the bookshelves of smart people!

[@zerochance8581]

Outstanding guest and discussion! Well done.

[@lomotil3370]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🌍 *Civilization may be more fragile than the biosphere; a regular climate event, not just mass extinction, could threaten it.* 02:35 🌐 *Geologists shifted from asteroid impact explanation to intrinsic Earth system causes for mass extinctions.* 04:18 🚨 *Earth is showing early signs of stress, similar to historical mass extinctions; geoscientists are the "mechanics" to address it.* 06:34 🕰️ *Deep time helps understand Earth's history; human perception is limited, but geologists use mnemonics like fossil raindrops.* 10:42 🌐 *Earth's history involves vast time scales; human actions today are unprecedented over this span, highlighting the importance of responsible actions.* 23:03 🌋 *Volcanic gases, not lava proximity, caused mass extinction, releasing CO2, mercury, and ozone-depleting chemicals.* 24:14 🌍 *End-Permian mass extinction, caused by volcanic CO2, saw a 10°C temperature rise, ocean oxygen loss, and acidification.* 25:06 🔄 *While unable to match Siberian Traps' CO2 emissions, current human emissions are about 10 times faster, impacting climate and ocean acidity.* 26:57 🔥 *Humans emit about 100 times more CO2 annually than all Earth's volcanoes combined, influencing the planet's carbon cycle.* 30:36 🦖 *End-Cretaceous mass extinction linked to asteroid impact and Deccan Traps volcanic activity, with ongoing research on their relative impacts.* Made with HARPA AI

[@jenniferl8714]

Whatever the cause of climate change, we are still heading for a great simplification 😢 Preparation is surely what is needed.

[@EricVulgaris]

Great interview. The guest mentions the role of volcanos and co2 for life. The other time i heard that was in Frankopans's The Earth Transformed postulated a relationship between climate and plate tectonics. Think ice ages crunches the plates and warmer periods loosen them causing volcanism and warming up the earth.

[@john1boggity56]

Brilliant !!!!

[@briansprung]

Although Ben Davidson from Suspicious 0bservers is a bit of a Bell End, his model for extinction cycles is pretty close to actuality.

[@georgeshepherd3381]

Best in show!!!!!

[@andywilliams7989]

If it is El Niño we need to build the cycle into our replaceables programme..i'm off grid at a spot where clouds from the Atlantic tend to shed their loads..2023 has been hot and wet. We have had almost a year of rainfall in 2 months. No sun and little wind. No power tool use and reduced to using the diesel truck as a charging point for phones.

[@barrycarter8276]

Thank you for another great guest Nate, just keep them coming, I’ve put Peter Brannen’s book ‘The Ends of the World’ on my book list and noted he’s working on another, I’ll keep a look out for it🤔

[@bonnittaroy]

Buzz Holling says that the entire Holocene is merely a front loop phase of a larger planetary panarchy cycle

[@dianewallace6064]

45:00 The Gatekeeper and the Keymaster. "We gotta get these two together." "I think that would be a very bad idea."

[@mrrecluse7002]

Yeah, Nate. It's amazing that we, as one single species among 8-10 million, can comprehend Earths history, and fate. But it's not that we are so special, but because the evolution of complex brains will always go this far, and much further, unless, or until, it destroys itself. This situation is something I suspect may be very common throughout the cosmos, whenever the conditions of a planet allow such a thing to take place. Our bizarre intelligence is as natural an evolutionary outcome, as is microbial life, and the best evidence is that we exist.

[@antonyjh1234]

Us being evolved primates that came from microbial life, could mean our intelligence is just designed to look after these microbes, by the time I think 50, we are more microbial cells than human cells. Maybe the evolution of the amygdala is what was needed above the other versions, next it might be heat tolerance.

[@theowright765]

Stateing the obvious truth hidden from the masses still wadeing through religion and politics. How fragile and precious we were How blind those who can see how deaf those whom hear ❤

[@cg000gc]

Wonderful podcast. Peter is extremely knowledgeable and knows how to explain scientific knowledge.However, my main takeup is the fact that the Earth does not need humans to stage mass extinctions, which means that we might starve ourselves to death to reduce CO2, but then an unexpected event may create a "natural" CO2 pulse, and fuck up the live on Earth anyway. So, maybe we should abandon the idea and pride of control, and just try to leave as long and as happy as we can.

[@achenarmyst2156]

We probably don‘t have to starve ourselves to achieve a meaningful reduction of CO2. But if we don‘t reduce we’re almost certainly going to starve.

[@zleo9923]

I am a geologist, a fairly frequent commenter on your programmes, and very skeptical of the "climate-change" narrative being used to herd us into a dystopian Reset World, for all of the same reasons, Nate, that you asked Peter, IF the problem wasn't couched as "climate-change" but instead as the Carbon Pulse Problem, which is easy to understand how Peter explains it, then, as a result of everything I have learned from Peter on this programme, this the very best programme you have done, and the best argument for why we should all change our lives to minimise the chance of a runaway Carbon Pulse.

[@OldJackWolf]

I think the fossil fuel industry would have dissed Carbon Pulse too, anything to keep the oil and gas flowing.

[@keithomelvena2354]

Huh? What's the difference with what you call it? The cause is the same, the outcome is the same, regardless of carefully manufactured ideogical sensitiveness.

[@tyfode224]

Yep, you will own nothing and eat bugs. No thanks........

[@keithomelvena2354]

@@tyfode224 That's what happens when you vote for intellectual minows every election, none with any concept of physics. If the global economy keeps growing in a finite space, eating insects and owning nothing is guaranteed.

[@jamestiburon443]

Am a 60 year old educator. Since "Covid" (Thanks China) began, I have studied Climate Change. I take a pessimist understanding of our future. The out of control feedback loops: Arctic Ice, Methane Explosion, Loss of Amazon, Desertification of most Farmland Tierra, Geo-Political Chaos from millions trying to flee VARIOUS Humidity Kill Zones, throughout the Equator. Not to depress anyone, but should this present EL NINO result in Arctic Ice less than 1 Million Kilometers, I think WE, THE EARTH, lose the ability to grow food because of drought. I hope I am wrong.

[@mr.makeit4037]

Great program, Nate and Peter. Since we are discussing past extinction events and how we can draw some conclusions as to what to expect in the decades ahead, i wonder how the climate change anthology series 'Extrapolations " on Apple tx applies here?

[@adambazso9207]

Very interesting and a little bit (?) scary, how fast humanity changes everything and doesn't want to realize it.

[@jefftheriault3914]

2% drop in ocean oxygenation since 1960. ( I was 4 years old in 1960.) That's terrifying. Regardless of the source of the shift. Even if that change is largely concentrated in dead zones. It's an unmistakable signal of a general degradation of of the biological systems that our civilizations depend on.

[@bonnittaroy]

there's a reason why aligators are cold-blooded

[@glenschleyer3498]

Amazing, thanks. Just ordered The Ends of the World paperback from Thriftbooks.

[@mvondoom]

awesome conversation as usual, Nate definitely gets the prize for most interruptions ever!

[@davidpetzer5725]

Nate , read Growth of the soul , by A P Sinnette , for the inside story

[@shanemulligan669]

Really interesting talk between you two. It's fascinating to ponder the notion of life being a sort of energy dissipation mechanism "invented" by Earth to help maintain system equilibrium. Life in the service of the second law of thermodynamics. Wondering who's written about this explicitly... so now I'm reading Life as a Manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics by E. D. SCHNEIDER and J. J. KAY (1994). Thanks for the nudge.

[@crowlsyong]

Audio is in left channel only until ~ 1:20

[@charlesbond4413]

I wish you had not cut him off in your discussion about 2% lower oxygen in the ocean and the effect of lower oxygen in the atmosphere.

[@Deebz270]

'Deep Time' can be defined as the entire history of the Earth prior to the evolution of Hominidae primates [~6.5My - 4.5Gy BP] Though more commonly taken as the Earth's history prior to 'modern humans'; more loosely refered to as 'prehistoric'.

[@mikegray1946]

I can't watch nature documentaries any more - they make me sad, too.

[@anakissedboyle3067]

This is such a good video. Great to share . I wonder if you would have Paul Elkins , who just wrote “Stopping Climate Change” It’s a huge overview, the like of which only your talks covers. I wonder what Nate Hagens thoughts would be?

[@danavisalli3467]

Great conversation, thanks guys. The one dynamic that never gets addressed is, how much of the Earth's carbon can be buried in the crust and the mantle before life on the surface is extinguished? You mention that CO2 went down to 180 PPM in the Pleistocene; I've have read that that is near the point of collapse for photosynthetic organisms. Homo sapiens have been roaming around for 200,000 years--the proverbial blink of an eye--and releasing carbon from its tomb for what? 150 years. An immeasurbly small span. Perhps humans are a blip in service to the biosphere. Also hydrocarbons below and oxygen above is a battery; nothing more natural than the incipient chemical reaction.

[@nickt6627]

Excellent guest and a fascinating perspective. Certainly better than the fanatical/delusional McKibben. Too bad Pete didn't expound about deep ocean floor rifting, tectonism and the subsequent contribution of heat emanating from these geological features. You both touched on RCP8.5 yet as a UC Boulder guy, Pete didn't mention fellow Boulder professor Pielke Jr. Pielke has a disdain for any use of RCP8.5 in climate discussions bc it's so unrealistic.

[@CriticalThinking236]

The Canadian Prepper is trying to get Alex Jones on his show. You might want to distance your brand a bit, your initial instincts and hesitancy there were correct

[@heidi22209]

Good stuff again Nate. Curious why the transcript stops at 41 min in? The borg is coming for ya.

[@timeenoughforart]

Making deep time relevant is hard. I'm trying to figure out how to shift from a wood burning stove. (Fearing the electric bill) Getting old I spend more time becoming ok with joining deep time. Such a hard task, to let go and to love more.

[@JamesFitzgerald]

I read this book - very entertaining. To his credit, Peter Brennan interviewed paleontologist Douglas H. Erwin for his book. Douglas said he doubted we are currently in a mass extinction.

[@thegreatsimplification]

It’s clear we are not CURRENTLY in a mass extinction. Just look at the data. But is a mass extinction possible or probable by what’s baked in -that’s a much tougher question to answer

[@JamesFitzgerald]

@thegreatsimplification -a future mass extinction is not only probable but certain since we already know many have occurred in the past without humans present. The real issue is whether our current practice of burning hydrocarbons will produce a mass extinction. I believe with our current skill and knowledge we are unable to reliably predict the nature and extent of future climate change nor a future mass extinction. I could say more about this but not now. I love your podcast and have seen you many times on other podcasts. I always enjoy your discussions, even when you push my buttons. Good work.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@thegreatsimplification have you even ever googlescholared the phrase "biological annihilation" - you are disproven. E.O. Wilson in 1992 published that we are in a mass extinction crisis. I learned that while reading his book in 1992 at School for Field Studies in Costa Rica for a semester - with Pia Paaby as my conservation biology professor.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@thegreatsimplification "If this continues, Wilson has predicted, one-fifth of all plant and animal species will be either extinct or endangered by 2030. It was forcing the biodiversity he so cherished into the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history, and the first one caused by an animal: us." Thanks for ignoring conservation biology as usual in the Finance Driven fake world of academia! Corporate Junk Science! Conservation biologist Michael Soule pointed out that evolution ended for large mammals in the 1970s due to "lack of habitat" - we are large mammals!

[@justcollapse5343]

@@thegreatsimplification Whilst we may not have yet lost the requisite 75% + of global species to date (in order to 'technically' qualify as a mass-extinction event), the rate of extinction is (as I'm sure you already know) some thousands of times the natural background rate - and like so many other aspects of our predicament, this process is accelerating. The extraordinary rapidity, (outstripping even The Great Dying for sheer pace) of species loss and the vulnerability of so many endangered key species, suggests pointedly that the sixth mass extinction is underway, if just not fully realised yet.

[@giannidoro1598]

We are the happy part of a cruel experiment. Enjoy!

[@byronwindhorst3220]

Everyone praises the interview but the tough question doesn't get asked. I'd show the graphs and charts where the global sea surface temperature is at 6 sigma, records being broken by wide margins.. Earth Energy Imbalance where at least 4 Hiroshima size explosions of energy is going into the system every second. . Rate of change far faster than previous extinctions. Yet the guest hesitates slightly at minute 48 when the interviewer says something like, did you really mean Centuries, how about Decades.. Guess I'm missing the charts and graphs which show how quickly this is going exponentially. I'd appreciate conversation over on my Facebook group Extinction Education, where we only present the actual Science about Near Term Human Extinction.

[@tozobozo4142]

The world today is awash in PhD's, academics, researchers, expert witnesses of every stripe imaginable. A quasi-leisure class that is itself a byproduct of the carbon-pulse. They produce libraries full of information that i would argue is an end unto itself, much of it being of fascination. Yet here we are. The mistake we make is in thinking any of this provides the means to anywhere better than where we've already arrived after multiple generations of exposure to this class of people and their works. For any of this knowledge to lead us somewhere exalted would require a driver of the bus. And as you point out, Nate, there is none. There is simply this vast, insatiable, mindless amorphic mass that is humanity as a body. That's all there is, and all there will be. It's already been as good as it will ever get for us, somewhere along the way, and we blew right through it like a drunk running a traffic-light.

[@j.s.c.4355]

It’s appropriate for Peter to talk about the planet balancing us out over centuries. We already know that global temperature and arctic ice will be changing for centuries based on what we’ve already done, plus what we will do. It will also take centuries for our population to come into balance (hopefully! It’s a really bad outcome for us if that is abrupt.) And it will probably be centuries before we truly figure it a sustainable energy system. That’s what he’s talking about. None of that will be resolved by 2050.

[@dianewallace6064]

44:00 Entropy. The Universe is balancing around us.

[@coweatsman]

My hunch on human future is that complexity predicts brevity because complexity entails so many contingencies. Complexity erodes resilience and increases dependencies. We have become an extractive species and exhausts entropy as waste products. Much of these can be recycled but the quality of energy, using the term to include minerals, decreases. We turn up the earth crust like crabs at low tide sifting beach sand looking for food and leaving little piles of wasted sand except we do this at a planetary scales. To live a deep future humans will have to downsize and simplify and our institutions are not built for such a solution, having evolved to cope with, and enable, growth. Can we live in a geologically deep future simplisticly or will such be a game of "prisoner's dilemma" with the advantage going to the first cheat. Is this what happened 10,000 years ago, swinging from long term deep future sustainability to short term advantage?

[@jenniferrayburn1011]

I think the pores in plants Peter Brannen is referring to are called stomata.

[@anthonytroia1]

i dig the new music

[@graemetunbridge1738]

'...just blind thermodynamic processes....' exactly. 'but I like my car' trumps all reason.