peterbrannen.bsky.social
I write about stuff that happened a long time ago.
1st book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-ends-of-the-world-peter-brannen?variant=32121859801122
2nd book (Aug, 2025): https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-story-of-co2-is-the-story-of-eve
54 posts
1,156 followers
125 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Indeed it is!
comment in response to
post
Marvelous
comment in response to
post
No, am very sad that I missed that though. If I remember right it’s some patronizing jib-jab style animation now
comment in response to
post
Of course
comment in response to
post
This is the site of said 1st commercial gas well in North America, in the parking lot of a dentist’s office nearby (because I’m a sicko I’ve done a bit of this kind of fossil fuel history tourism)
comment in response to
post
A few years ago I was lucky enough to tag along with the director of the museum on a tour of the extraordinary geology of upstate NY, which the museum celebrates www.newyorker.com/science/elem...
comment in response to
post
If you want to read up on the PT Extinction event, other planetary-scale extinctions and have these put into context of what human-cause climate change is doing, I can recommend @peterbrannen.bsky.social's fantastic book "The Ends of the World".
PS: Already excited for his upcoming book on CO₂.
2/2
comment in response to
post
Thanks Thomas!
comment in response to
post
About an hour in I accidentally misspoke about ¹⁴C, which decays to nitrogen. Management regrets the error.
comment in response to
post
They love that House Range goodness
comment in response to
post
Another, somewhat more spectacular proposal for that bottleneck was an explosion of patrilineal clan warfare news.stanford.edu/stories/2018...
comment in response to
post
Not sure I get this example. Lighting got something like 90x more efficient since Edison, consumers spend 1% as much on it as 1900, it went from luxury good to widespread adoption & the night side of the planet now glows (i.e. demand⬆️). Meanwhile emissions went from negligible to 2 gt CO2 a year
comment in response to
post
Thanks George!
comment in response to
post
(actually the Cow Head group, in western Newfoundland)
comment in response to
post
I think my radical Neoproterozoic views have moderated with age
comment in response to
post
Thanks Cameron!
comment in response to
post
I think about 2,000 words on it got cut down to a sentence or two😔
comment in response to
post
Thanks Connor!
comment in response to
post
🙏🏻
comment in response to
post
Thanks Nick!
comment in response to
post
Thanks Tony! Head still attached
comment in response to
post
Definitely!
comment in response to
post
Thanks Lou!
comment in response to
post
Thanks Ben!
comment in response to
post
Thanks Benjamin! If I got anything grievously wrong in it be gentle
comment in response to
post
If you want the tldr version though, this, from the oceanographer Roger Revelle in 1985 pretty much captures it
comment in response to
post
Thanks Alisa!
comment in response to
post
Thanks Brendon!
comment in response to
post
Thanks Jesse
comment in response to
post
Alas, summer
comment in response to
post
Hey thanks John!
comment in response to
post
Think I wrote that one too www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...
comment in response to
post
Very funny how mad the Anthropocene Working Group got at me when I suggested this 5 years ago
comment in response to
post
I used to joke that after every Christmas someone should collect all the Christmas trees in the world & dump them in the anoxic Black Sea for CDR. Then I found out, other than the holiday theme, there's actually a startup that wants to do this www.rewind.earth