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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 1h

I'll still be at Oxford half time.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 1h

MIT just rejected the compact decisively, so you can cut off that part of the snake. It will live.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 1h

Too Crowded At L2

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 1h

Here is the full text of Kornbluth's response, as sent out to the MIT community:

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 1h

Breaking: MIT president Sally Kornbluth decisively rejects Trump's coercive "compact" for higher education. Here is an excerpt from her letter, following on a description of the principles by which MIT has already abided. I'm proud to be re-joining their faculty in 2026.

Sally Kornbluth's response to Trump "compact" for higher education. (Excerpt)

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 2h

Their life is so short, but the experience, and give such joy while they are around. And do no harm while they are at it. I wish more of humanity could do as well with the time they are alotted on Earth.

ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 10h

was the one who boasted of taking a "chain saw" to government programmes. And look where that led. So, who will bail out the U.S. when we go the same way as Argentina?

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 10h

We can give $20 billion to Argentina to bail it out from the ravages wrought by its governments Trump-like policies but we fed USAid to the wood chipper, keeping it from saving the lives of countless African babies, among many other critical functions provided. Argentina's Milei , before Elon Musk,

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 1d

“We can give $20 billion to Argentina but we can’t afford the CDC’s measles experts” is a hell of an argument

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 10h

(according to site conditions) on all the land currently used for biofuels, we could easily supply all the world's energy needs. Richard appeared to be talking about energy in total, not just electricity; I haven't yet re-done the calculation myself, but Richard is usually careful and reliable.

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 10h

This makes a lot of sense, because photosynthesis is far less efficient than photovoltaics, even before you factor in the additional overhead in producing biofuel from biomass. At the Comer Climate Conference, Richard Alley offered up the sound bite that if we just put photovoltaics or wind ...

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23h

Psst: Stop burning stuff on Earth for energy. Let the burning fireball in the sky be your energy source.

T&E @transportenvironment.org · 3d

NEW: Biofuels globally emit more than the fossil fuels they replace, our latest study shows.

The first-of-a-kind study looks at global biofuels production today and the potential impacts of government biofuel targets.
🧵⤵️

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 3d

It's preposterous and tragic that there is no governance that can control this kind of deployment.

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 3d

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital's fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky, is going to launch.

A bunch of astronomers and I have sent out […]

Original post on mastodon.social

mastodon.social

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

(I say perovskite-structure, because these things are not made of the same mineral that geologists call "perovskite," though they do have a related structure.)

ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

Tip of the hat to Oxford Physics, which has been in the forefront of developing perovskite-structure photovoltaics. Another reminder that cutting edge transformative technology comes from curiosity-driven basic research, not from short-term programmatic funding of research on yesterday's tech.

Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · 6d

Exciting developments in solar.

Just read this fascinating FT article on perovskite solar panels – the next-gen innovation that's lighter, more flexible, and up to 20% more efficient than traditional silicon ones.

Imagine panels turning everyday surfaces into power generators

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

No, I'm not the one panicking you're the one! (Now where can I put that 200GB of exomol line lists I suddenly find I need???)

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

ocean than K2-18b, in fact probably less likely. A problem with the conventionally defined HZ is that it's too often forgotten that this applies only to a particular form of Earthlike habitability maintainence, which may not even apply to all rocky planets, and certainly not to subNeptunes

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

through suppression of convection, as shown by work in my group led by then-student Hamish Innes and confirmed by further calculations. This newly characterized planet is an interesting one, in that it's undoubtedly on the cooler end of subNeptunes, but is no more likely to have a habitable

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

generally hydrogen-rich atmospheres of subNeptunes. Hydrogen itself is a powerful greenhouse gas which can render a planet too hot to be habitable, and when present in conjunction with water vapour can further increase the temperature of a hypothetical liquid water ocean,

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

according to my work. However, the usually defined habitable zone should never be applied to subNeptunes. The conventional HZ is defined based on a carbon-dioxide and water vapour system, with CO2 controlled by a silicate weathering thermostat of some form. None of that applies to the

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

Now even for rocky planets this would only be in the habitable zone under very optimistic conditions, as its equilibrium temperature is 330K, even assuming a 30% albedo. That's generally enough to trigger a runaway greenhouse, a threshold which is relevant to a water-dominated subNeptune as well,

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

A while back, a Bluesky post highlighted a subNeptune TOI 293 c which is claimed to be in the habitable zone of its star. I didn't comment on the post at the time (and can no longer find it-- Bluesky needs much better search facilities!) but I think this is the article to: arxiv.org/abs/2510.0029

A planetary system with a sub-Neptune planet in the habitable zone of TOI-2093

Aims. We aim to confirm and measure the mass of the transiting planet candidate around the K5V star TOI-2093, previously announced by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) project. Methods....

arxiv.org

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

in that the more obvious abiotic pathways are not available there. Brown dwarfs, like gas giants, are hydrogen rich, and the conundrum for brown dwarfs was more that phosphine is chemically expected, but hasn't been detected until now.

ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

been known at least since 1975 that there is phosphine on Jupiter, with abiotic pathways made possible by its hydrogen-rich atmosphere. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... While the detection and interpretation of PH3 on Venus remains dicey, the context on Venus is somewhat more favorable,

Phosphine on Jupiter and Implications for the Great Red Spot

A study of the chemistry and photochemistry of the recently discovered phosphine in the atmosphere of Jupiter suggests that the red colorations on this planet result from photochemical production of r...

www.science.org

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

This is a good reminder, and a great accomplishment, but the message is somewhat off the mark regarding biosignatures. The key point is that nominal biosignatures always depend on context. You don't expect oxygen on a lava planet to be an indication of photosynthesis. Similarly, for PH3,

Keith Smith @drkeithsmith.bsky.social · 6d

The phosphine molecule, PH3, has been proposed as a biosignature in rocky planets. In @science.org, Burgasser et al. report phosphine in a brown dwarf atmosphere. "We therefore caution against the use of phosphine as a biosignature". #stellarastro #exoplanet ☄️
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Observation of undepleted phosphine in the atmosphere of a low-temperature brown dwarf

The atmospheres of low-temperature brown dwarfs and gas giant planets are expected to contain the phosphine molecule, PH3. However, previous observations have shown much lower abundances of this molec...

www.science.org

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Reposted by ClimateBook

Aarne Granlund @aarnegranlund.bsky.social · 19d

"Our findings demonstrate a gap between governments’ expected reliance on land and the role that land can realistically play in climate mitigation."

Offsetting failed, climate targets have massive amounts of CDR, and now some want to modify the atmosphere directly.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Over-reliance on land for carbon dioxide removal in net-zero climate pledges - Nature Communications

Achieving net-zero climate targets requires substantial land for carbon dioxide removal. This paper quantifies the land area in countries’ climate pledges at approximately 1 billion hectares, often in...

www.nature.com

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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 6d

disadvantaged for other means. (I myself would say that if conservative scholars have been disadvantages it's because their thinking is flabby and reality itself tends to have a liberal bias -- not that there is a shortage of flabby thinking among some progressive academics.)