Peter Brannen
@peterbrannen.bsky.social
Pinned
Peter Brannen
@peterbrannen.bsky.social
· May 21
The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...
www.harpercollins.com
Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
The hardening Beltway conventional wisdom about the tolerability of 3°C of warming (leaving aside the possibility of carbon cycle feedbacks kicking that up to around 4°C) is crazy. thebulletin.org/2022/07/extr...
November 9, 2025 at 6:06 PM
The hardening Beltway conventional wisdom about the tolerability of 3°C of warming (leaving aside the possibility of carbon cycle feedbacks kicking that up to around 4°C) is crazy. thebulletin.org/2022/07/extr...
It's the time of year when I think people are posting maps of isostatic rebound again.
November 5, 2025 at 8:48 PM
It's the time of year when I think people are posting maps of isostatic rebound again.
The arc of history is long but it bends towards a lethally hot supercontinent 250 million years from now
October 27, 2025 at 9:49 PM
The arc of history is long but it bends towards a lethally hot supercontinent 250 million years from now
Reposted by Peter Brannen
Just began @peterbrannen.bsky.social's new book and already came across this gem 🤌 „If you really wanna have good fun, be a geologist. Geologists often know 2 or 3 languages and they always know the best places to drink.“ followed by a shout-out to IODP, the JR, and Exp399. Promising start!
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October 25, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Just began @peterbrannen.bsky.social's new book and already came across this gem 🤌 „If you really wanna have good fun, be a geologist. Geologists often know 2 or 3 languages and they always know the best places to drink.“ followed by a shout-out to IODP, the JR, and Exp399. Promising start!
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if you’re a Boston Brahmin, Masshole or even a chowderhead, come out to the Boston Book Festival today at 4:30 for my panel with @dagomardegroot.bsky.social on placing humanity in its geologic and cosmic context bostonbookfestival2025.sched.com/event/28bfb/...
Boston Book Festival 2025: Science: Planetary and Cosmic Histories
View more about this event at Boston Book Festival 2025
bostonbookfestival2025.sched.com
October 25, 2025 at 3:08 PM
if you’re a Boston Brahmin, Masshole or even a chowderhead, come out to the Boston Book Festival today at 4:30 for my panel with @dagomardegroot.bsky.social on placing humanity in its geologic and cosmic context bostonbookfestival2025.sched.com/event/28bfb/...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
I listened to this on the commute today. Highly recommend. Brannen and Wyman both influenced my chapter in Future of Denial on the history of Earth told through CO₂ levels
Had tons of fun talking to @patrickwyman.bsky.social about the past few hundred million years or so for his great Tides of History podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Tides of History
History Podcast · Updated Weekly · Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we s...
podcasts.apple.com
October 24, 2025 at 2:51 PM
I listened to this on the commute today. Highly recommend. Brannen and Wyman both influenced my chapter in Future of Denial on the history of Earth told through CO₂ levels
Had tons of fun talking to @patrickwyman.bsky.social about the past few hundred million years or so for his great Tides of History podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Tides of History
History Podcast · Updated Weekly · Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we s...
podcasts.apple.com
October 23, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Had tons of fun talking to @patrickwyman.bsky.social about the past few hundred million years or so for his great Tides of History podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
It can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
October 17, 2025 at 4:23 PM
It can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The fact that not only is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, but the *rate of CO2 increasing* in the atmosphere is still increasing is true nightmare stuff.
“[Last year] CO2 in the global surface atmosphere increased by 3.5 ppm, the largest one-year increase since modern measurements began... This increase was driven by continued fossil CO2 emissions, enhanced fire emissions and reduced terrestrial/ocean sinks… which could signal a climate feedback.”
October 15, 2025 at 6:33 PM
The fact that not only is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, but the *rate of CO2 increasing* in the atmosphere is still increasing is true nightmare stuff.
Really enjoyed this @asherelbein.bsky.social story on maybe the most enigmatic and controversial rocks in the geologic record: the bizarre, premature-by-a-billion-years-or-so fossils[?] of large complex life[?] in Gabon. @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/comp...
These Enigmatic ‘Fossils’ Could Rewrite the History of Life on Earth
Controversial evidence hints that complex life might have emerged hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought—and possibly more than once
www.scientificamerican.com
October 14, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Really enjoyed this @asherelbein.bsky.social story on maybe the most enigmatic and controversial rocks in the geologic record: the bizarre, premature-by-a-billion-years-or-so fossils[?] of large complex life[?] in Gabon. @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/comp...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
This book is so good
Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...
www.harpercollins.com
October 10, 2025 at 12:56 PM
This book is so good
They shouldn't have been allowed to do this imho
October 9, 2025 at 4:50 PM
They shouldn't have been allowed to do this imho
Reposted by Peter Brannen
I’m really into @peterbrannen.bsky.social’s new book. If you’ve most read anything I’ve written in recent years, it’s indebted to his prior book The Ends of the World
October 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
I’m really into @peterbrannen.bsky.social’s new book. If you’ve most read anything I’ve written in recent years, it’s indebted to his prior book The Ends of the World
Just remembered this jaw-dropping graph by @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social showing the rate of change in CO2 during the previous two deglaciations of the Pleistocene (which, as a fun aside, featured ~400 feet of sea level rise) as compared with today
October 9, 2025 at 1:30 AM
Just remembered this jaw-dropping graph by @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social showing the rate of change in CO2 during the previous two deglaciations of the Pleistocene (which, as a fun aside, featured ~400 feet of sea level rise) as compared with today
Reposted by Peter Brannen
🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
October 8, 2025 at 4:50 PM
🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Fascinating line in new Hülse & Ridgwell paper about how our gigantic pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere--after tens of thousands of years of warming--could kick off an overcorrection of organic carbon burial in the oceans and hasten the descent into an ice age www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
September 30, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Fascinating line in new Hülse & Ridgwell paper about how our gigantic pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere--after tens of thousands of years of warming--could kick off an overcorrection of organic carbon burial in the oceans and hasten the descent into an ice age www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
Pretty tickled that my book was reviewed alongside @peterbrannen.bsky.social's brilliant "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" — and in Germany, no less, for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Peak moment, that.
Peak moment, that.
September 29, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Pretty tickled that my book was reviewed alongside @peterbrannen.bsky.social's brilliant "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" — and in Germany, no less, for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Peak moment, that.
Peak moment, that.
If you’re in midcoast Maine today I’ll be shucking for my brother’s oyster farm at the Pemaquid Oyster Festival, come on by and say hi
September 28, 2025 at 1:55 PM
If you’re in midcoast Maine today I’ll be shucking for my brother’s oyster farm at the Pemaquid Oyster Festival, come on by and say hi
“The Arctic Ocean became a net CO2 source…contributing to prolonged carbon input, temperature rise and ocean acidification during the PETM. These findings highlight potential major perturbations to Arctic carbon cycling under future climate change.”
⚒️ Article: Enhanced aerobic oxidation of methane in the Arctic Ocean intensified carbon dioxide emissions during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, potentially extending the event
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Arctic CO2 emissions amplified by aerobic methane oxidation during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum - Nature Geoscience
Enhanced aerobic oxidation of methane in the Arctic Ocean intensified carbon dioxide emissions during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, potentially extending the event, according to biomarker records from an Arctic sediment core.
www.nature.com
September 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
“The Arctic Ocean became a net CO2 source…contributing to prolonged carbon input, temperature rise and ocean acidification during the PETM. These findings highlight potential major perturbations to Arctic carbon cycling under future climate change.”
Had a fun, in-depth talk about my new book on the Decouple podcast www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEq3...
The Molecule That Transformed Earth – #294
YouTube video by Decouple Media
www.youtube.com
September 25, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Had a fun, in-depth talk about my new book on the Decouple podcast www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEq3...
Reposted by Peter Brannen
NEW SEASON of Tides of History starting soon, so stoked!
Oct 9: The Ancient Economy from Assyria to Augustus
Oct 16: Living and Working in Imperial Babylon
Oct 23: Interview with @peterbrannen.bsky.social on his new book
Oct 30: The Ancient Egyptian Economy
Nov 6: Interview with Eric Cline
Oct 9: The Ancient Economy from Assyria to Augustus
Oct 16: Living and Working in Imperial Babylon
Oct 23: Interview with @peterbrannen.bsky.social on his new book
Oct 30: The Ancient Egyptian Economy
Nov 6: Interview with Eric Cline
September 24, 2025 at 11:26 PM
NEW SEASON of Tides of History starting soon, so stoked!
Oct 9: The Ancient Economy from Assyria to Augustus
Oct 16: Living and Working in Imperial Babylon
Oct 23: Interview with @peterbrannen.bsky.social on his new book
Oct 30: The Ancient Egyptian Economy
Nov 6: Interview with Eric Cline
Oct 9: The Ancient Economy from Assyria to Augustus
Oct 16: Living and Working in Imperial Babylon
Oct 23: Interview with @peterbrannen.bsky.social on his new book
Oct 30: The Ancient Egyptian Economy
Nov 6: Interview with Eric Cline
Reposted by Peter Brannen
I've started reading @peterbrannen.bsky.social's "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" and I'm going old school by underlining and jotting down notes in the margins
here are a couple of excerpts in the section introducing silicate weathering and the carbon cycle ⚒️📚
here are a couple of excerpts in the section introducing silicate weathering and the carbon cycle ⚒️📚
September 21, 2025 at 4:45 PM
I've started reading @peterbrannen.bsky.social's "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" and I'm going old school by underlining and jotting down notes in the margins
here are a couple of excerpts in the section introducing silicate weathering and the carbon cycle ⚒️📚
here are a couple of excerpts in the section introducing silicate weathering and the carbon cycle ⚒️📚
Reposted by Peter Brannen
Geologists and data scientists are building system models of Earth’s ancient past like we’ve never seen before. www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...
September 16, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Geologists and data scientists are building system models of Earth’s ancient past like we’ve never seen before. www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...
Feels weird promoting a book in this moment, but very touched by this thread in which Josh implicitly compares my work to the versatile game of Utah Jazz stretch-5 Lauri Markkanen
Otherwise I really enjoyed, and admire, when he wanders away from geology (his starting superpower) into other domains, putting this book in a rare circle of nominal pieces of science writing that are equivalent to the positionless 7-foot NBA "unicorns" who can step out of the paint and drain 3s.
September 18, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Feels weird promoting a book in this moment, but very touched by this thread in which Josh implicitly compares my work to the versatile game of Utah Jazz stretch-5 Lauri Markkanen
I have to say, did not realize that the path to Turkmenistan as a country was so direct
September 17, 2025 at 11:55 PM
I have to say, did not realize that the path to Turkmenistan as a country was so direct