• N.B.1: 14 July 2025: I originally posted this on 12 August 2024. But the content is now new and improved.
• N.B.2: A small discussion can be found underneath this Lemmy post.
• N.B.3: To skip the explanation, and immediately create and download your own version of the new graph, click here: https://mishathings.org/co2-graph. It runs on a small server, so you might need to have a bit of patience. Also it works better on a desktop/laptop than on a phone 😬).

A powerful but problematic graph

For some years now, I have seen this graph go around on social media. I think it’s a powerful image, because it shows us so clearly that it is happening in our lifetime and under our watch.

Hace algunos días estabamos en Zea Maíz, en Cali. No solo es un restaurante construido y gestionado en torno a los principios de la soberanía alimentaria, sino que también ofrece un espacio para que artistas y escritores anarquistas compartan su arte.

Encontramos este librito hermoso, escrito por Viviana Gutièrrez e ilustrado por Lina Ipia, quienes nos dan permiso para compartirlo con ustedes.

Next time you have to explain to someone why it’s better to not eat meat, you can tell them that it is to make sure that the next asteroid impact will not prevent electronic life from knowing the universe.

Let James Lovelock be a vehicle for the universe to say crazy things about itself.

Renegade scientist, deranged technocrat

I have always had a hard time making up my mind about James Lovelock. On the one hand, his Gaia hypothesis has really changed the way I (and many others) think about the remarkable equilibria we are born into. On the other hand, the way his ego and his (largely self-acclaimed?) engineering credentials have consistently manifested in confused appeals to technocracy - “it may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while” - has been misguided and dangerous.

Link to article.

You are probably not used to an Indigenous woman calling you ignorant and, less so, on a platform such as this. But for Indigenous peoples it is clear: the less you know about something, the less value it has to you, and the easier it is to destroy. And by easy, I mean: guiltlessly, remorselessly, foolishly, even righteously. And this is exactly what you are doing to us as Indigenous peoples, to our rainforest territories, and ultimately to our planet’s climate.

It took us thousands of years to get to know the Amazon rainforest. To understand her ways, her secrets, to learn how to survive and thrive with her. And for my people, the Waorani, we have only known you for 70 years (we were “contacted” in the 1950s by American evangelical missionaries), but we are fast learners, and you are not as complex as the rainforest.

Our little apartment in Medellín is on the 7th floor. But that doesn’t prevent nature from doing its thing.

The food chain starts with a banana. We cut it up and put it on a wooden feeder. So far, we have been visited by Guacharacas (see video), Mieleros, Bichofues, Candelarias, Azulejos, Verdulejos, Mayos and today even a Carpintero.

No matter how hard these birds try to scrape the last piece of banana from the feeder, there is always something left. But it doesn’t go to waste! Because, believe it or not, ants find their way up to the seventh floor. And they feast on what is left of the banana.

Yo tenía hoy años cuando supe por qué los nodulos que fijan nitrógeno en las raíces de las legumbres tienden a ser rojos cuando los abres. Tiene que ver con la Gran Oxidación, que ocurrió hace unos 2.500 millones de años, y está directamente conectado a la razón por la cual nuestra sangre es roja.

(Este articulo también existe en Inglés: link).

El nitrógeno es naturalmente escaso. Podría representar la mayor parte de lo que llamamos “aire”, pero este nitrógeno existe como N₂, y la mayoría de los organismos no tienen ni idea de qué hacer con eso. Digo “la mayoría de los organismos” porque hay algunas bacterias que han evolucionado la capacidad de capturar nitrógeno de la atmósfera, y convertirlo en moléculas biológicamente útiles, como NH₃.

Nodules are red, violates are blue

I was today years old when I learned why the nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots of legumes tend to be red when you open them. It has to do with the Great Oxidation Event, which happened around 2.5 billion years ago, and is directly connected to the reason why our blood is red.

(This article also exists in Spanish: link)

Nitrogen is naturally scarce. It might make up the bulk of what we call “air”, but this nitrogen exists as N₂, and most organisms have no clue what to do with that. “Most organisms”, because there are a few bacteria that have evolved the capacity to capture nitrogen from the atmosphere, and turn it into molecules that are biologically useful, like NH₃.

If you like to go down a Python rabbit hole with me, to explore some of the basic dynamics of the greenhouse effect, Please continue. If not, get out while you still can!

Ok, so this page of Kump et al.’s “The Earth System” (third edition, 2010) briefly presents a simple model of the greenhouse effect: the “greenhouse effect of a one-layer atmosphere”.

It basically shows (with interesting, but ultimately, unnecessarily complex equations) that if…

We often say “climate change is here. We have no time to lose.” This is very true, in the sense that we have to act now. In the sense that we cannot afford to lose or waste more time. But it is also not true, in the sense that - with climate change - we have so much to lose, including, not in the least, time.

Imagine what we could have done with all the time that we (and future generations) will have to spend on repairing, adjusting, relocating, rebuilding.