SHOW NOTES

Earth has nearly died five times. Not from asteroids - Earth did it to itself. Over the past 445 million years, massive volcanic eruptions pumped catastrophic amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, triggering cascading disasters: superheated oceans, toxic atmospheres, and the extinction of up to 95% of all species. These weren't slow declines. Some happened faster than the span of recorded human history.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: we're running the same experiment again. By burning hundreds of millions of years' worth of buried carbon in just a few centuries, we're replicating the conditions that caused Earth's worst mass extinctions. The geochemistry is simple and uncontested – rapid increases in atmospheric CO2 have never ended well.

But there's a crucial difference: ancient organisms couldn't stop volcanic eruptions. We can stop digging up and burning fossil fuels. We have something they didn't - knowledge of the pattern, and the power to change our trajectory. The question isn't whether Earth will survive. It will. The question is whether we'll use what we know to ensure humanity is part of the planet's future, or just another thin layer in the rocks.

Two "LET'S TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PLANET" Guides:

A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions. Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today.

Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

SHOW NOTES

Why Everything Feels Like It's Falling Apart at Once—and What That Actually Means

When wildfires, pandemics, refugee crises, and wars all seem to strike simultaneously, it's not just bad luck. This episode introduces "polycrisis"—the framework that explains why climate change creates droughts that destroy crops, driving migration that destabilizes governments, bringing climate deniers to power who worsen the original problem. These aren't separate disasters. They're interconnected feedback loops amplifying each other through the systems we've built.

But here's the breakthrough: the same connections that multiply problems can multiply solutions. Scientists have identified social tipping points where small interventions trigger cascading change across entire systems. When 25% of a population shifts behavior, cultural transformation becomes inevitable. When renewable energy delivers higher returns than fossil fuels, entire power systems transform within a generation. The UK went from 90% coal to under 2% in just decades. Norway hit 50% electric vehicle sales. Europe accelerated its renewable transition because the Ukraine war exposed fossil fuel vulnerability.

The polycrisis is real and overwhelming—but understanding how crises connect reveals where strategic action creates exponential impact. From deep geothermal energy to education that combats disinformation, from the 3.5% movement threshold to both/and thinking that transcends false choices, this episode maps the leverage points where your action matters most. The pens are in our hands. The story isn't written yet.

Two "Let's Take Back our Country and our Planet" Guides:

A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions. Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today.

Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

SHOW NOTES

Think we're doomed? The data tells a different story. More than half of young people worldwide believe humanity is headed for extinction, but when researchers examine the actual numbers, they find something surprising. Death rates from natural disasters have fallen tenfold since the 1920s. Child mortality dropped from 43% to 4% globally. And in 2012, something remarkable happened that most people still don't know about—the world hit peak per capita carbon emissions, and they've been slowly falling ever since.

This episode isn't about denying climate change—it's absolutely real and serious. It's about understanding why doomsday thinking paralyzes us instead of motivating action, and why the data suggests we have genuine reasons for hope. From the energy revolution that caught even experts by surprise to the "polycrisis" reshaping how we must think about solutions, we explore what the numbers actually tell us about our environmental future.

If you're tired of feeling helpless about climate change, this episode offers something different: active, urgent optimism grounded in real progress and real possibilities. Because the question isn't whether solving these problems is possible—it's whether we'll choose to do it.

A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions. Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today.

Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.