Essay by Eric Worrall
But we can save the world by reducing meat consumption.
Scientists Are Mapping the End of the World. And Maybe, Just Maybe, a Way Out.
Positive climate action can have cascading effects.
BY DARREN ORF PUBLISHED: AUG 08, 2025 9:30 AM EDT
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
- Scientists are aware of planetary boundaries—a series of climate change thresholds that, once crossed, could cause a cascade of negative environmental effects.
- Now, scientists are developing a methodology to discover “positive tipping points”— a series of actionable green energy goals that could similarly compound in benefit once crossed.
- While we’re already well on the way to reaching some of these tipping points—i.e. lowering the cost of wind and solar energy—there’s still lots of work to be done to stay within the two degrees Celsius range stipulate by the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.
To live in an era of anthropogenic climate change is to be constantly reminded of the warming threat to our planet. One way scientists illustrate this threat is by using climate tipping points, also known as planetary boundaries, which showcase around nine critical ecological thresholds that could have devastating effects for life on Earth once crossed. These include things like biosphere integrity, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, and a relative newcomer known as “aquatic deoxygenation.”
Although these thresholds are discussed with deadly seriousness, scientists wonder if the reverse of these doom-and-gloom thresholds—positive tipping points, if you will—could help encourage people, communities, and countries to adopt more aggressive green policies. In a new study, published in the journal Sustainability Science, experts from the University of Exeter in the U.K. explain these positive tipping points would be moments in society’s adoption of green technologies or behaviors that could perpetuate a cascade of positive outcomes.
…
“Other transformations—such as a major shift away from meat consumption—might also be more likely than they appear,” Steve Smith from the University of Exeter said in a press statement. “In other sectors there is little sign of approaching tipping points and in a few, such as nuclear power and concrete production, we should not expect there to be tipping points at all.”
Read more: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a65616655/positive-tipping-points/
…
No mention of the 1.5C target. I guess it’s a bit embarrassing to talk about 1.5C these days, given we hit 1.5C and nothing bad happened.
As for the rest of the claims, there is zero risk global warming will have a major negative impact on oceans, even if several degrees of global warming were to occur, because last time the world experienced 5-8c of global warming, the biosphere and the oceans were fine.
Monkeys also did well during the PETM – which implies humans would also prosper in such conditions.
Stories like this make me seriously question the sanity of the people who write them. I mean, 5 minutes research could have turned up the fact that fish thrived during distant past extreme warm periods, that the entire biosphere thrived. Visiting hot climates to catch big fish is a major tourist industry in places like Florida and Australia’s far North.
Temperatures drop substantially as you move further from the equator. Any species which felt uncomfortable in a warmer climate would just relocate. All species are continuously adjusting their range, seeking out the best possible habitat, probing the edges of their habitable range.
So why write such nonsense? Why would anyone believe such outlandish claims? I wish I knew.
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Death wish: Mapping the End of the World
Teaser: Just Maybe, a Way Out. (If you do as you are told)
Scientists are more than aware that their careers are at risk if they don’t toe the [alarmist] line. Anthropogenic climate change is to be constantly bombarded at the public and any possible scare will do. Justin Rowlatt informed us that British sea surface temperatures have shot up by 0.2C. A figure that is probably smaller than the margin of error, knowing the Met Office.
Please… try not to laugh.
“The average surface temperature of UK waters in the seven months to the end of July was more than 0.2C higher than any year since 1980, BBC analysis of provisional Met Office data suggests.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05enyryqvmo
And this is “since records began”
As for the 1.5C target, they should have left it at 2C – bit more wiggle room.
I know, right? Another few centuries, and it might possibly be pleasant to swim in. The horror!
When I was a lad in the 1950s/60s growing up in Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsular I used to go swimming in Liverpool Bay part of the Irish Sea. IT WAS BL..DY COLD
I had the Yorkshire rivers. On really hot days, cool and refreshing. Afterwards, hair felt like it had had a shampoo. 😊
And “provisional”. Sounding more and more like economics statistics. To be revised later.
“A figure that is probably smaller than the margin of error, knowing the Met Office.”
Margin of error on a large proportion of their surface sites is 5C,
.. with their incompetence, there is zero possibility they can measure the SST around the UK accurately enough to get a real change of 0.2C
There is a market for panic porn. The nod to ascetics/vegans is an indication they are getting affirmation.
“There is a market for panic porn”
Not any more in the UK 😄
Story tip: Mapping the decline of the species
“How stupid can academics be? These clowns are prepared to unleash a proliferation of ticks on the general population because one side effect of a bite happens to induce an allergy to red meat, notably beef, pork and lamb. What is proposed is a deliberate tick injection of the sugar molecule alpha-gal into human tissue, leading to an immune defence response causing a syndrome known as AGS. This leads to potentially fatal allergic reactions to red meat and many associated products including dairy products such as milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter.
…
So who are these temple-of-learning thickos, these climate-bothering cretins who are promoting a widespread Net Zero fantasy to abolish the eating of meat? Step forward Parker Crutchfield, a professor in the Department of Medical Ethics, Humanities and Law at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine. He is also an adjunct assistant professor in the university’s philosophy department. Our second bright spark is Blake Hereth and he is an assistant professor at the university’s medical ethics school. Of course, the full force of investigative journalist techniques have been employed (Grok) to assert the paper is genuine and not some bored academic’s idea of a lark. It appears to be 100% genuine and has been published in the John Wiley publication Bioethics. Just to be sure, it can be confirmed that Western Michigan University exists, although annual in-state tuition fees of $15,000 seem a little steep if this anti-human tosh is an example of the teaching on offer.”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/08/12/net-zero-nutters-suggest-a-plague-of-ticks-whose-bite-leads-to-a-potentially-fatal-red-meat-allergy/
What a pair of lunatics.
Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin’ ethics. Dear God. Of course, those loonies could test their ideas on themselves, and write another paper-you know, put your money where your mouth is!
Take a leaf out of Barry Marshall’s book.
Strat, for us troglodytes, who is Barry Marshall and to what book do you refer?
This posting is at the same level as someone posting a link for me to follow without explaining what the webpage is about.
Just Google Barry Marshall and you will get it at the top.
A medical scientist with the courage to back his research findings with his own life.
His main battle wasn’t with the reviewers of his work, it was breaking down the “settled science” prevailing in the medical establishment.
Helicobacter…
As soon as you see the word “ethics” in biological science…. run away, very fast !
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bioe.70015?af=R
read the abstract-made my head hurt-too early, need more coffee…will come back to it.
So it is morally obligatory to modify human biology to embrace an ideology (red meat is bad for the climate).
Just more evidence that we need the return of the village common stocks—a little public humiliation and focused contempt could bring an end to all this nonsense.
Apparently the Climate Scientologists have reached the Stupid tipping point.
Thank you for that appropriation. It needs widespread attention.
Sorry to say this, but I am pretty certain they have much more “stupid” they can call on. !
They seem to treat “peak stupid” as a ceiling to break.
Eric asked:
A better question is why would Popular Mechanics publish an article authored by a sci-fi reporter:
Claim to fame is having a cat.
One of my early employees subscribed to popular mechanics and I ended up the sole reader of the journal. I had a 4 year collection before I tossed them in a subsequent move. Lots of interesting articles on new machines and technology. now the USD192 for annual subscription would be a waste of money. How do they survive?
Why would anyone believe such outlandish claims
I would argue that they all have read their Goebbels and taken it onboard…
“If you tell a lie, tell a big one”
“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth”
In the case of climate science you can make that several trillion times…
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
“The masses need something that will give them a thrill of horror.”
“It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.”
Etc.
However, I think they overlooked this one:
There will come a day, when all the lies will collapse under their own weight, and truth will again triumph.
I used to subscribe to Popular Mechanics. They had a lot of interesting articles.
The human-caused climate change narrative did finally pollute their publication.
It costs $192 for a yearly subscription?!
Does that include a printing, distributing etc Carbon tax? Or is it a data centre?
Yeah, I dropped Popular Science and Popular Mechanics when they went overboard on the climate change references.
Popular Propaganda…in both cases.
Tom, there were a lot of magazines in the 70s that blokes bought, only for “the interesting articles”.
(nudge, nudge, wink, wink – say no more . . . )
All substantively replaced by internet porn.
$40 on sale for $35. All access.
Darren Orf CV check: a BA in English and a masters in Journalism.
Why write such nonsense? As usual in the media, Darren is someone with a knack for vivid writing and for nothing else, needing to put food on the table.
I’ve been keeping track of these CVs for about a year now, and there is a crystal clear pattern. Out of almost 100 I’ve checked, only 10 have a science or science-adjacent education (and in saying science-adjacent I am casting the net wide enough to include Geography.)
And the quality of education for “journalism” is clearly in the toilet, just like many “science” courses.
Much indoctrination, little education.
Social ‘sciences’ are nothing more than tricked-out mental masturbation, attracting the hysterical and easily-led no-talents. It is telling that the fields are populated by mainly females.
Hey! I’m an old fashioned Geographer with good education concentrated in soils and climate… non of this we’re all gonna die BS about global whatever. I can map (a lost art now), survey, do math and lab work, and was taught to “do” science, as in the scientific method, as it was called once. Of course that was 60 yrs ago before our Ed system went to Hell and gone. But I digress-according to the Greeks, who invented it, Geography was the mother of all science.
It used to be just the crazy cat ladies. What happened? Increasing consumption of soy?
Cats are the most environmentally unfriendly species of house pets, unless they’re locked indoors 24 x 7 x 52.
Curious…how are cats environmentally unfriendly?
Somebody always talks about the bird kill supposedly attributed to cats. An outside cat’s diet is-according to “experts”-mostly small vermin, lizards, other small mammalian critters…which I consider very good ‘cuz it helps keep snakes away-no prey, no snakes. I can live easily with that.
Across Australia’s natural landscapes, feral cats typically consume 272 million birds yr− 1 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 169–508 million).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717302719
Statistically wind turbines take more Bats and Birds per capita than all cats (not just feral), automobile windows AND building windows …combined.
Indirectly, my point exactly…now if those giant bird blenders killed venomous snakes I might have to reconsider my opinions on them. Just kidding-I hate the damned things and what they stand for.
They should build them horizontally on the ground and take care of venomous snakes
600,000,000 cats
2.2 B cars and trucks with 11B windows.
Hundreds of millions of buildings with Trillions of windows
But 545,000 wind turbines take over 750,000 birds and 1.5M bats yearly
If there were enough wind turbines to power global demand…some 250M+ would take 750M birds and bats every year or 7.5B in 10 years
Maybe, maybe not-were all the wee birdies counted, or is this number an “educated” guess? Remember, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics… Anyhow, I don’t care here at El Rancho Mio-I hate snakes.
True, that is for “reported” bird incidents.
Actual numbers will likely be higher
Void where prohibited by law
From the article: “To live in an era of anthropogenic climate change [propaganda] is to be constantly reminded of the warming threat to our planet.”
There, corrected it.
There is no evidence, none whatsoever, that humans are causing the Earth’s climate to do anything it wouldn’t normally do.
Claiming humans are causing the Earth’s climate to change is just climate crisis propaganda. Those making these claims couldn’t prove them if their lives depended on doing so.
Incomplete correction. Should read:
“To live in an era of anthropogenic climate change propaganda is to be constantly reminded of the beneficial warming of our planet as if it were a threat.”
From the article: “No mention of the 1.5C target. I guess it’s a bit embarrassing to talk about 1.5C these days, given we hit 1.5C and nothing bad happened.”
Good point. Let’s see if the rest of the climate change propaganda media drops the 1.5C crisis narrative, and switches over to a 2.0C crisis narrative.
From the article: “So why write such nonsense? Why would anyone believe such outlandish claims? I wish I knew.”
Well, I’m sure he got paid for doing it. That is motivation enough for some people. And he sounds like a “True Believer” which explains why he would write such nonsense and make such outlandish claims. True Believers do a lot of that.
“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
– Bertrand Russell
The 1.5C limit has been memory holed.
Well it was more than “2 degrees above (so-called) “pre-industrial” temperature” during the warmest period of the current epoch, The Holocene, and they called it “The Holocene Climate OPTIMUM.”
Nonsense, indeed.
“Scientists are aware of planetary boundaries—a series of climate change thresholds that, once crossed, could cause a cascade of negative environmental effects.”
Any change in environment is going to be bad for some, good for others. That’s just the way it is. There will always be change, in one direction or the other, in any given region. To think that the planet should be perfect for all, or ever has been, is just lunacy.
Tippy Story: Trump’s shadow ignites new climate initiatives
It took 22 ‘experts’ to write this nonsense, which ends with the suitably frightening “action to find and trigger positive tipping points is now imperative.” There are too many academics sloshing around with nothing useful to do.
I’ve been considering a paper on the “Effects of Climate Change on the Lifetime of Nickel Guitar Strings” ie reduced due to increased perspiration of the musician etc…
Gotta be a few quid in it.
That’s what happens when your society becomes too wealthy. The Roman empire probably collapsed because of this. Our current one (born of the British Empire) will probably go the same way.
Close.
The Roman empire collapsed because they gave up building for elite wealth accumulation. The money started rolling in during and after the Punic Wars. Money became the goal.
It was Hubris that brought down the Roman Empire.
Italians have never forgiven that Greek fvcker.
Its called ‘decadence.’ The Western World has it in spades. One of it’s indications are mass protests, even riots over trivial or contrived issues. Another is falling labor market participation rates coupled with rising welfare participation rates.
panem et circenses
well he was pretty hungry
“Its called ‘decadence.’ The Western World has it in spades.”
Yes, it does.
Although some of the young of the Western World seem to be going through a religious revival. A reaction to the decadence. The Pendulum swings back and forth.
The Pendulum swings back and forth.
Sorta like the climate, eh?
There were multiple reasons for the collapse of the western part of the Roman Empire. There was near continuous civil war, mismanagement, excess taxes (toward the end), a smallpox epidemic, crop failures, lead poisoning, widespread parasitic infection by tapeworms, the collapse of the old religious consensus, an ethnic change, depopulation, and the collapse of the urban elite. The education system was a joke, emphasizing empty rhetoric over substance, the sciences went backwards in their understanding of nature, and the art became gaudy and lacking in skill. And of course while the western part of the empire was gradually lost, the eastern part of the empire lasted another 1000 years. In college I wrote a research paper on the collapse and found it fascinating.
I would love to read your paper Marty.
“The education system was a joke, emphasizing empty rhetoric over substance”
Well, THAT sounds familiar.
Apparently the monkeys are doing so well under current warming conditions that they’ve taken over as reporters at Popular Mechanics. You know what they say, an infinite number of chimpanzees banging away at an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce an issue of Popular Mechanics.
😄 once again I’ve got that image in my head of the transmission repair shop commercial where the counter guy is assuring the customer that “our mechanics are EXPERTS” as a bunch of chimpanzees in white lab coats beat on transmissions with sticks behind him. 😆
Note for climate scientists.
Fish can swim.
Response from Climate Scientologists:
Sincere apologies to J J Cale
And they usually go where the water is warmer…
“Why would anyone believe such outlandish claims?”
The appeal to Authority is very effective to those who prefer to let others think for them. Media is big on appeal to authority “Scientists say…”
Story tip
Delete old emails to save water, say officialsEnvironment Agency releases new guidance to reduce water usage as five areas of UK are in drought
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/11/southern-england-heatwave-amber-alert/
The article says your emails use up space in the Cloud, and the Cloud requires a lot of water to keep everything in the Cloud cool and operating smoothly.
So, presumably, if there are less emails in storage, less Cloud storage would be needed, so this would allow the Cloud to shut off part of its operation, and this would require less water to keep less working equipment going.
Have I got that right? Do Cloud services operate in this way? Do they spin up and down with demand? Would shutting down part of the equipment really save much water?
No. Clouds cause rain.
I always stop at the first “could”.
This summer has been too dam hot here in the American Northeast. Not saying it’s climate change. It’s climate variability. But it sucks.
No, its weather variability.
Right!
This summer has been just right for me here in Oklahoma. Plenty of rain. We got an inch last night (in the middle of August!), and the temperatures haven’t hit 100F yet this year. A normal summer we would have days and weeks of temperatures 100F and above, and we would start getting them in June. Not this year. I’ll take a summer like this every year.
Here on Whidbey Island, WA, it’s been a pretty mild summer, high 60s low 70s. Except for the last two days, been in the 80s.
Stories like this make me seriously question the sanity of the people who write them.
Won’t you please feel for those suffering eco-emotions-
The new link between climate change and mental health struggles
No
“Stories like this make me seriously question the sanity of the people who write them.” Their purpose is not to inform, but to convince. Besides, it pays.
I would say the purpose is to coerce, through guilt.
What was the name of that magazine again?
Straight out of the WEF playbook.
Just a thought,
“probing the edges of their habitable range”
Isn’t that an evolutionary process?
I’ll enjoy reading that Popular Mechanics article—just gotta read about the mechanics involved with the end of Earth!—as I am enjoying my meal at Milliways, “the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.”
To avoid falling from it?
They are so enthralled with the expression “tipping point.”
A tipping point is the threshold that when exceeded causes a system to go out of equilibrium.
Not now. The mondernized definition is whatever the writer/speaker wants it to mean.
Since the Earth energy systems are never in equilibrium, use of “tipping point” is bogus.
1.5 vs 2.0.
CO2 is the “control knob” or the primary driver.
Look at the temperature charts on the right.
Why do the fluctuate so wildly if CO2 is controlling them?
You don’t suppose there is more to it than an innocent molecule?