Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown

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Rather than risk this contingency, I take the liberty of noting that, contrary to Dr. Dudley’s assertion, the hydrogen plus hydrogen reaction does differ in kind from that of deuterium plus deuterium, to the extent that this reaction requires temperatures and pressures comparable to those occurring in the interior of the Sun. Dr. Bethe’s point about the impossibility of a fusion chain reaction in the oceans therefore remains well-taken." There was never any possibility of causing a thermonuclear chain reaction in the atmosphere. There was never "a probability of slightly less than three parts in a million," as Dudley claimed. Ignition is not a matter of probabilities; it is simply impossible." Exactly," Compton said, and with that gravity! "It would be the ultimate catastrophe. Better to accept the slavery of the Nazis than to run the chance of drawing the final curtain on mankind!"

Trump may have left, but Trumpism is here to stay. In response, a transformative Green New Deal is more urgent than ever, charting a course beyond fossil fuel capitalism and deepening eco-apartheid and inequality. This vital contribution is a roadmap for how we get there and a political guide for the times ahead. Kate Aronoff In August 2022, this planet and its host star were included among 20 systems to be named by the third NameExoWorlds project. [12] The approved names, proposed by a team from the United States, were announced in June 2023. Gliese 436 b is named Awohali and its host star is named Noquisi, after the Cherokee words for "eagle" and "star". [2] Discovery [ edit ] Moffett Studio, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Weber Collection, W. F. Meggers Gallery of Nobel Laureates Collection We now face an environmental crisis that has to be confronted. This book sets out the scale of the emergency as well as marks out the route to a better society. This is an essential read. John McDonnell, MP

If, after calculation, [Compton] said, it were proved that the chances were more than approximately three in one million that the earth would be vaporized by the atomic explosion, he would not proceed with the project. Calculation proved the figures slightly less -- and the project continued." Reignition in the 1970s A practical starting point for reworking power structures that are dependent on extraction and initiating the new, society-oriented systems ... essential reading. Martha Dillon, It's Freezing in LA!

In summary, extremely conservative calculations have demonstrated that it is completely impossible for either the earth’s atmosphere or sea to sustain fusion reactions of either thermonuclear or nuclear chain reaction type. In particular, such reactions cannot be triggered by the explosion of nuclear weapons, even those having unrealistically high yield and impractically high yield-to-weight." By the time Enrico Fermi jokingly took bets among his Los Alamos colleagues on whether the July 16, 1945, Trinity test would wipe out all earthbound life, physicists already knew of the impossibility of setting the atmosphere on fire, according to a 1991 interview with Hans Bethe published by Scientific American.And therein lies the second mystery — carbon monoxide should not be present to this degree, as it becomes scarce when temperatures soar above a certain threshold. The idea was again brought into the spotlight in 1975 when Horace C. Dudley, a professor of radiation physics at the University of Illinois Medical Center, published a letter of concern titled “ The ultimate catastrophe” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The letter outlined a doomsday scenario where an unintentional chain reaction would destroy the entire planet, igniting all the nitrogen in the atmosphere and all the hydrogen in the oceans and melting our planet all the way to its core.