Guardian: “A climate of unparalleled malevolence”: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?
11 hours ago
Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently our pitiful atmospheric contribution is comparable to the 2 million year eruption which drove the Permian–Triassic Extinction, which wiped out most life on Earth.
‘A climate of unparalleled malevolence’: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?
Churning quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are going could lead the planet to another Great Dying
By Peter Brannen
Tue 19 Aug 2025 14.01 AESTLast modified on Tue 19 Aug 2025 14.20 AEST
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Put enough CO2 into the system all at once, and push the life-sustaining carbon cycle far enough out of equilibrium, and it might escape into a sort of planetary failure mode, where processes intrinsic to the Earth itself take over, acting as positive feedback to release dramatically more carbon into the system. This subsequent release of carbon would send the planet off on a devastating 100-millennia excursion before regaining its composure. And it wouldn’t matter if CO2 were higher or lower than it is today, or whether the Earth was warmer or cooler as a result. It’s the rate of change in CO2 that gets you to Armageddon.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/19/guardian-a-climate-of-unparalleled-malevolence-are-we-on-our-way-to-the-sixth-major-mass-extinction/
