Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Peter Brannen

@peterbrannen.bsky.social

1.6K followers 220 following 160 posts

Mammal 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-everything-peter-brannen?variant=42382167638050

www.harpercollins.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · May 21

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

7 47 190

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 2h

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.

Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD @ryankatzrosene.bsky.social · 2h

“[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.”

28 66

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 2h

Ferran Adrià failed to achieve hot ice cream 15 years ago, that way madness lies

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 22h

Was lucky to be able to talk to some people for my book who did foundational work on the origin of life while at JPL. Unfortunately, there’s not space for that kind of work anymore now that Everything Has To Be Bad for No Reason.

James Temple @jtemple.bsky.social · 22h

500 job cuts at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab.

NASAWATCH @nasawatch.bsky.social · 2d

A message from JPL Director Dave Gallagher announces a JPL layoff of 500 people has been announced that is "not related to the current government shutdown". www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-wor...

1 2 17

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, everyone I've talked to has been very skeptical of these fossils but I think the author does a good job conveying that skepticism while highlighting the genuinely strange features of the rocks

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 1d

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

1 4 29

Reposted by Peter Brannen

shane loeffler @shaneloeffler.com · 5d

This book is so good

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

2 4 9

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks Shane!

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 6d

They shouldn't have been allowed to do this imho

Rob Friedman @pitchingninja.com · 6d

All 8 of the Blue Jays Pitchers from Yesterday (overlay)

2 23

Reposted by Peter Brannen

Tad DeLay @taddelay.bsky.social · 6d

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

3 1 14

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 6d

Thanks Tad!

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 6d

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

2 72 160

Reposted by Peter Brannen

Gregor Semieniuk @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social · 7d

🚨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...

River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.

9 190 350

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 14d

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/...

1 11

Reposted by Peter Brannen

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 15d

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.

Franffurter Allgemeine
G › Feuilleton › Bücher › Sachbuch › Klimawan
F+
KLIMAWANDEL UND KOHLENDIOXID
„Zusammengefasst stecken wir in einer tiefen Scheiße"
Von Philipp Krohn
29.09.2025, 17:33 Lesezeit: 5 Min.

Insofern überrascht es nicht, welche zentrale Rolle CO2 im modernen Leben insgesamt spielt. Das ist auch für die Literaturwissenschaftlerin Genevieve
Guenther der Ausgangspunkt. Sie hat die Freiwilligenorganisation End Climate Silence in den USA aufgebaut. In ihrem weit schmaleren Band zur Sprache der Klimapolitik analysiert sie den amerikanischen Klimadiskurs anhand wichtiger Schlagwörter: Alarmismus, Kosten, Wachstum, „Indien und China", Innovation und Resilienz.
GENEVIEVE GUENTHER

2 16

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 17d

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

1 4

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

“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.”

Nature Geoscience @natgeosci.nature.com · 20d

⚒️ 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...

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

1 5

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 20d

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

1 18

Reposted by Peter Brannen

Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 20d

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

19 16 180

Reposted by Peter Brannen

Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 24d

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 ⚒️📚

1 2 16

Reposted by Peter Brannen

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 29d

Geologists and data scientists are building system models of Earth’s ancient past like we’ve never seen before. www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...

9 36

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 27d

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

Joshua Sokol @joshuasokol.bsky.social · 28d

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.

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 27d

I have to say, did not realize that the path to Turkmenistan as a country was so direct

2 10

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 28d

Some takeaways:

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 28d

Thanks so much Josh, thrilled you enjoyed the book and I really truly appreciate the generous words. Also, very happy to be the Karl Anthony-Towns of science writing

Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 28d

Thanks Elise!