Todays guest on Nature Bats Last was Dr Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University. Dr Andrew Glikson is a geologist living in Australia. He is an Earth scientist and paleo-climatologist currently serving as Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. He is the author of dozens of articles and ten books, notably including his 2015 masterpiece Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene.
Put your feet up, relax and enjoy, episode 129 of Nature Bats Last which is embedded here;
I’ve posted below corroborating links to the discussion.
We discussed Dr Glikson’s recent article titled: Beyond Climate Tipping Points: Greenhouse Gas Levels Exceed the Stability Limit of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets
I additionally quoted an article from Scripts Institution of Oceanography titled ; Research Highlight: Loss of Arctic’s Reflective Sea Ice Will Advance Global Warming by 25 Years
“The 4.3 million hectare fire – an area now larger than Denmark – is contributing significantly to climate change.
Since the beginning of the year, a total of 13.1 million hectares has burned.” A climate catastrophe that can not be stopped by human means! Russian fires now bigger than Denmark: 13 million hectares gone
I mentioned that both Dr Glikson and Professor McPherson are concerned about the methane threat and how they both respect the work of Dr Natalia Shakova and her colleagues. A link to a recent paper from Dr Shakova titled ” Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf”can be found here; A video interview with her courtesy of Nick Breeze is embedded here;
As well as discussing the scientific aspects of what we are witnessing, we discussed the psychological roller coaster we are all on and Dr Gliksons’ Poetry and the role it plays in absorbing and expressing the psychological challenges this knowledge of the predicament we find ourselves in entails. Finding an emotional and artistic outlet we believe is imperative.
Mine is to volunteer at the not for profit Rakino Island Nursery on a rewilding program. It’s both my “Antidote to despair” as Edward Abbey wrote but also proof that just because I recognise the severity of the multiple crises we face it doesn’t mean I have ‘given up’, an accusation often leveled at Professor McPherson and myself.
Guy spoke about “Scientific Reticence”, he has covered it previously on his You Tube Channel and blog Nature Bats Last Here is an excellent edit on the subject via the Tim Bob Channel featuring Guy.
“At the risk of seeming ridiculous let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” Ernesto Che Guevarra.
Feel free to share this blog with family and friends, hit the subscribe button for regular updates.
Look after each other, be gentle, time is short, Only Love Remains
Q&A: Dr Andrew Glikson on the Plutocene age
My former guest on Nature Bats Last documents a new “Tipping Point” in Antarctica:
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Europe Is The Fastest-Warming Continent, Report Says :30
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2024-04-22-europe-fastest-warming-continent
____
There sure seems to be one hell of a lot of people trying to flee north from the dying burning hell that Africa is becoming, and this short says that, eventually, it won’t be the best idea. Then what, eh Kev?
Of course the same thing is happening in this hemisphere as the Centro Americas become uninhabitable…
___
I keep catching snippets tucked into other articles about how coffee, tea, cacao/chocolate, bananas, and other ‘Equator-grown’ crops are getting harder to grow due to temperatures rising and lack of/unpredictability of rainfall. If I’m still on this planet, I’m sure going to miss tea and chocolate…
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Orwellian rules-based Climate
By Andrew Glikson
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake” (James Joyce)
Arctic News: The Orwellian rules-based Climate (arctic-news.blogspot.com)
LikeLike
Another feedback loop in the Antarctic accelerating the sea ice melt and decreasing the amount of CO2 uptake in the oceans.
Means of Extinction: Antarctic “Super Vortex” is Accelerating (substack.com)
LikeLike
(292) Watch a HUGE chunk of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica Break Off: Ongoing – YouTube
LikeLike
Another feedback loop compounding our predicament.
Professor Peter Wadhams pointed out that feedback loops aren’t additive, they are multiplicative.
Antarctica Just Lost a Greenland’s Worth of Ice — And That’s Not the Scariest Part
LikeLike
As always, Dr. Wadhams brings disturbing information to the table for us to ponder…
And ignore the under-educated Trump voters that infest the blogosphere like bedbugs in a cheap hotel. They probably didn’t understand all the big words he used in ‘Farewell to Ice,’ either. What a shit-show, eh?
Big sigh.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
The pools fill with water, get warmed by the sun and then hydro-frack their way through the glacier or sea ice speeding up the melt!
Study reveals increasing surface meltwater in East Antarctica – News – University of Liverpool
LikeLike
At 2:05 reporter asks why nobody saw this coming, and the bozo ‘official’ replies YOU CAN’T PREDICT IT.
Yes you asshole, it WAS predicted for the last 30 freaking years!
At 5:43 this happens and JR starts lamblasting these Texas MAGAts:
Texas Official BOLTS From Press After Reporter Demands Accountability
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiN9wWSW_lQ
__
Gee, do you think the climate is suddenly going to ‘heal itself?’ Or maybe jeezuz will be showing up to make it all better down in the land of pumping oil Texas??
Freaking morons.
And this Texas pediatrician comes out and she says what I’m thinking:
Texas pediatrician ‘no longer employed’ after post about pro-Trump flood victims
Physician made a post wishing that Maga supporters in Kerr county ‘get what they voted for’ amid flash flooding
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-pediatrician-maga
__
The trouble being is that nothing is going to change in these MAGA minds. They’ll just beseeching their god demanding to be saved from disaster after disaster as their children and family and friends and themselves suffer from what our industrialized civilization has wrought. Me, too, for that matter as I’ve fallen back under 37’F temps since the small rainfall of the 4July washed out the wildfire-creating fireworks and gunfire that traditionally happens in these mountains.
I was, however, grateful for the exception to them this year because the water from the sky felt and smelled so good that night sitting out on my front porch with the two dogs and the cat puffing on a fattie drinking cold tea. It was a wonderful late evening!
Today is going to be damned hot again.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLike
A masterpiece of Antarctic imagery.
I applied for a job at McMurdo after I finished my electrical apprenticeship, with the support of my boss who had worked down there. Someone with more experience than me snagged the role. C’est la vie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DQ93Dbez_o
LikeLike
Via: Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD on X: “😔This new paper is really something else… “A regime shift has reduced Antarctic sea-ice extent far below its natural variability of past centuries, and in some respects is more abrupt, non-linear and potentially irreversible than Arctic sea-ice loss.” “The tipping point for https://t.co/CDp3IIdju2” / X
Emerging evidence of abrupt changes in the Antarctic environment | Nature
LikeLike
What are we losing?
Latent heat from the melting ice, lower Albedo, so more heat uptake, habitat for algae, penguins, seals, the list goes on.
World’s biggest iceberg breaks up after 40 years: ‘Most don’t make it this far’ | Environment | The Guardian
LikeLike