Societal Collapse

When I talk to people about societal collapse, one thing often comes up that rubs me the wrong way: that isolating yourself from collapse is a realistic strategy. The most extreme version of this is the idea that it is a reasonable approach to these dangerous times to hunker down... [Read More]

The Montreal Protocol is the poster child of environmental agreements. It is seen as a stunning success, as it reduced the substances in the atmosphere it was meant to manage by almost 100 %. Without it the ozone layer would be massively depleted by now and we would have seen... [Read More]

What would happen if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) collapses? A frozen Europe or just somewhat cooler seasons? It seems like the scientific opinion differs wildly in their assessments and public concern seems to be on a strong upward trajectory. Iceland even flagged AMOC collapse as a potential national... [Read More]

You are likely familiar with visions of doom. It is hard to avoid them these days. It’s scary, for sure. But are they helping? Looking at the world, they do not seem very effective. The USA left pretty much every environmental agreement you can think of, the EU always seems... [Read More]

This post was originally an invited contribution to the United Nations Independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War. I’m also sharing it here as an overview of the current state of nuclear winter research (+ related topics) and the open questions the field is grappling with. It was... [Read More]