Back-Together-Best-Of.mp3
Back-Together-Best-Of.mp4
Back-Together.mp3
Back-Together.mp4
Back-Together-intro.mp3
[Intro]
I’m wondering whether…
We can get it back together
[Verse 1]
Right from the start
(Started falling apart)
Piece by piece
(Losing the peace)
[Chorus]
I’m wondering whether…
We can get it back together
Oh, please don’t cry….
(Let’s give ‘er a try)
[Bridge]
At least
(Let’s pick up the peace)
[Verse 2]
Are you watching pieces fall off
(Is it making you scoff)
Piece by piece
(Losing the peace)
[Chorus]
I’m wondering whether…
We can get it back together
Oh, please don’t cry….
(Let’s give ‘er a try)
[Bridge]
At least
(Let’s pick up the peace)
[Chorus]
I’m wondering whether…
We can get it back together
Oh, please don’t cry….
(Let’s give ‘er a try)
[Outro]
At least
(Let’s pick up the peace)
We’re skilled
(Let’s build)
We’ll find a way
(What do you say?
A SCIENCE NOTE
Permafrost: From Slow Thaw to Year-Round Fire
The permafrost offers one of the clearest examples of the widening gap between theory and reality:
- Old assumption: Permafrost would thaw gradually over thousands of years, steadily releasing CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere.
- Observed reality: Vast regions are no longer “permanently” frozen. Instead, they are catching fire and burning year-round, releasing greenhouse gases on far shorter timescales than predicted.
This introduces new scientific uncertainties:
- Combustion of organic matter accelerates CO2 emissions.
- If methane is burned in situ, some fraction may be converted into CO2–still harmful, but less potent than CH4 — effectively acting as a limited “natural flare.”
- Yet much methane escapes unburned, and the net balance between flaring vs. direct release remains poorly constrained.
The key point is clear: the pace of greenhouse gas release is orders of magnitude faster than earlier models assumed. These feedbacks are not hypothetical–they are already active.
Ozone: Intertwined Feedbacks with Hidden Costs
Permafrost fires are only one piece of the puzzle. Another, less understood feedback arises from tropospheric ozone. While CO2 is essential for photosynthesis, fossil fuel combustion does not just add CO2–it also drives chemical reactions that increase ground-level ozone, a powerful phytotoxin. Unlike protective stratospheric ozone, tropospheric ozone damages living tissues, including crops, forests, and grasslands.
Decades of research show that ozone exposure can reduce plant growth by 10-40%, depending on species and exposure levels. In many cases, ozone exposure doesn’t merely stunt growth–it kills plants outright, either through direct poisoning of leaves and roots or by weakening their resilience to drought, heat, pests, and disease. This compounds ecosystem vulnerability, undermining the agricultural and natural systems that sustain humanity.
We are already observing the consequences: much of the world’s vegetation has experienced significant losses in net primary productivity (NPP) due to ozone stress. Multiple peer-reviewed studies confirm that ozone pollution’s effect is far from negligible — particularly in key agricultural regions and forested ecosystems — where NPP reductions have been measured at 20-70%, depending on species sensitivity and exposure levels. Even more concerning, in just the past two years, global forests have shifted from acting as net carbon sinks — absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere — to becoming net sources of emissions. This reversal not only accelerates global warming and destabilizes the climate system, but also undermines food and water security on a planetary scale.
Our own long-term field studies in Pennsylvania illustrate these dynamics with stark clarity. Since 2003, old-growth trees have consistently lost approximately 40% of their foliage over multi-year intervals, ultimately leading to premature death. This decline is evident both in canopy density and vertical structure: the height of the canopy has diminished by roughly 33% over the same period. These localized findings mirror the global pattern — demonstrating how ozone stress, coupled with warming and other feedbacks, is eroding the resilience of even the most established ecosystems.
These feedbacks are deeply interconnected. Fossil fuel combustion increases CO2, which drives warming, while simultaneously producing tropospheric ozone, a potent plant toxin. In fact, all forms of carbon combustion generate ozone precursors — and less efficient forms, such as ethanol and other plant-based fuels, can produce even more ozone per unit of energy released due to incomplete combustion. Ozone-stressed ecosystems lose resilience, making them more vulnerable to drought, pests, and wildfire. Wildfires then feed back by releasing massive amounts of CO2 and generating additional ozone, compounding the stress on vegetation. These intertwined feedbacks are pushing Earth toward a state of compound, cascading instability, where multiple reinforcing processes accelerate climate disruption beyond linear prediction.
But ozone does not only devastate plant life — it also strikes directly at human health. Tropospheric ozone is a leading cause of asthma and other respiratory illnesses worldwide, triggering millions of hospital visits and premature deaths every year. Chronic exposure damages lungs, increases cardiovascular stress, and disproportionately harms children, the elderly, and those with preexisting conditions. The emerging runaway ozone feedback, therefore, is expected to have a devastating dual effect: weakening ecosystems that support life while simultaneously worsening human disease and mortality.
The critical question is no longer whether runaway feedbacks will manifest, but how quickly and at what scale. Mounting evidence shows these processes are unfolding at rates orders of magnitude faster than once assumed, compressing what was believed to be a centuries-long trajectory into mere decades — or even years. Already, ozone pollution, escalating wildfires, and other human-driven disturbances have, for the past two years, transformed the world’s forests from carbon sinks into net sources of CO2. Yet, the precise math and physics governing the interactions among permafrost thaw, wildfire combustion, tropospheric ozone, and ecosystem collapse remain deeply complex and poorly constrained. Because these are nonlinear systems, thresholds can be crossed abruptly, triggering sudden and irreversible shifts rather than gradual change.
This is the true frontier of climate science: not simply tracking emissions, but mapping the cascading, self-reinforcing loops already reshaping the Earth system. Our current research is focused here — on quantifying the pace, scale, and tipping dynamics of these runaway feedbacks — in order to illuminate how close we are to thresholds that could define the future of human civilization.
The Climate Crisis: Violent Rain | Deadly Humid Heat | Health Collapse | Extreme Weather Events | Insurance | Trees and Deforestation | Rising Sea Level | Food and Water
From the album “Discombobulated“