Breaching the Mainstream

It’s hard to overestimate the influence of John and Hank Green on the Internet, particularly among people my age. John (who writes books for teenagers) and Hank (who maintains the website EcoGeek and sings songs about particle physics) run a YouTube channel that celebrates nerdiness. This Internet community is now a huge part of pop culture among self-professed teenage nerds.

Hank’s new spin-off channel SciShow, which publishes videos about popular science topics, has only being going for a month but already has 90 000 subscribers and 1 million views. So I was very excited when Hank created this entertaining, polished, and wonderfully accurate video about climate change. He discusses sea level rise, anoxic events, and even the psychology of denial:

5 thoughts on “Breaching the Mainstream

  1. http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/33/5/397.abstract

    Cause you like citations

    here is another one
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7196/full/nature07072.html

    Now when do we start getting the real worst case scenario out of the climate models? The paleo record is looking like 1,000 ppm is critical. Oh that’s right now is different. Except that we will run out of stuff to burn, then the skies will clear and the fun will really start. (Geo engineering, we are already doing it.)

    Your friendly local Doomsayer (not so local)
    PS. Thanks for bringing the science show to my attention, I hadn’t seen it before.

  2. That video is just amazing and I’m going to be borrowing it in a few loci! Odd how interconnected, came back to you via RC and Mann and Amazon and your review there. Thanks again.

  3. Tony – it is tough to get a full picture… because no scientist wants to comment outside their field of specialty- It up to use to stitch it all together.

    So one would collect Cryo projections- added to paleo-climatology conjectures – mix in some high level atmospherics, some tropospheric biochem, chemical oceanography, marine biology – oh and two or three geology specialists. Garnish with some computer modeling and statistics. Then try to keep out the behavioral economists – only then does a very grim picture of doom emerge. So call the psychologists and politicians.

    Somebody should collect more and tie them all together. Mark Lynas came close in his book “Six Degrees… “

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