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

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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.

There was a tone of annoyance shared among the physicists who tried to convince those outside of their field of the underlying science: Although the theories at first glance hint at a possibility for the apocalyptic scenarios, the outcomes are simply impossible in reality.The planet's surface temperature is estimated from measurements taken as it passes behind the star to be 712K (439°C; 822°F). [5] This temperature is significantly higher than would be expected if the planet were only heated by radiation from its star, which was prior to this measurement, estimated at 520K. Whatever energy tidal effects deliver to the planet, it does not affect its temperature significantly. [15] A greenhouse effect would result in a much greater temperature than the predicted 520–620 K. [14] It is impossible to reach such temperature unless fission bombs or thermonuclear bombs are used which greatly exceed the bombs now under consideration. But even if bombs of the required volume (i.e., greater than 1,000 cubic meters) are employed, energy transfer from electrons to light quanta by Compton scattering will provide a further safety factor and will make a chain reaction in air impossible."

The cause of this perplexing phenenenon is still unknown and, of course, the mystery of the missing methane still has astronomers scratching their heads. The Strangest Thing of All? Capitalism would create a desert and call it profit." Halfway through Planet on Fire, Mathew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn-Langton drop this devastating judgement—but they don’t stop at doom. Instead they offer blueprints, rally-points for energies, and chronicles of useful pasts for a decarbonized future. In the end, the climate crisis, they remind us, is not about individual morality or scientific authority but power and politics. This is a handbook for the fights to come. Quinn Slobodian

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In 2019, USA Today reported that the exoplanet's burning ice continued to have scientists "flabbergasted." [16] Its main constituent was initially predicted to be hot " ice" in various exotic high-pressure forms, [14] [17] which would remain solid despite the high temperatures, because of the planet's gravity. [18] The planet could have formed further from its current position, as a gas giant, and migrated inwards with the other gas giants. As it approached its present position, radiation from the star would have blown off the planet's hydrogen layer via coronal mass ejection. [19]

Gliese 436 b is a Neptune-sized planet that orbits a red dwarf known as Gliese 436, a star that is cooler, smaller, and less luminous than the Sun. The planet completes one full orbit around its parent star in just a little over 2 days. This short orbital period indicates that the planet is located remarkably close to its star, perhaps orbiting Gliese 436 from one-hirteenth of the distance between Mercury (the innermost planet in our solar system) and the Sun. 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! Gliese 436 b was discovered in August 2004 by R.Paul Butler and Geoffrey Marcy of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and University of California, Berkeley, respectively, using the radial velocity method. Together with 55 Cancrie, it was the first of a new class of planets with a minimum mass (Msin i) similar to Neptune. [1] 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 AronoffThis clear and incisive book starts from the immensely important insight that we cannot understand climate breakdown outside of the capitalist social relations that produced it. Planet on Fire reminds us that climate breakdown is intimately linked to all the overlapping crises humanity faces - from the rise of the far right, to growing socioeconomic inequality, to the COVID-19 pandemic - and that ecosocialism is the only route to an equal and sustainable world. Grace Blakeley Moffett Studio, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Weber Collection, W. F. Meggers Gallery of Nobel Laureates Collection Over the last decade, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets, and it seems like each new discovery is a little bit stranger than the last. Take TrEs-2b, it's a planet made of a substance that's darker than coal. Then there's Gliese 436 b (otherwise known as GJ 436 b). This alien world is located approximately 30 light-years from Earth towards the constellation of Leo. And it is made of excruciatingly hot ice. Wait. What?

At the time, Dr Heather Knutson, lead author on the paper discussed the significance of this atmosphere: “Either this planet has a high cloud layer obscuring the view, or it has a cloud-free atmosphere that is deficient in hydrogen, which would make it very unlike Neptune. Instead of hydrogen, it could have relatively large amounts of heavier molecules such as water vapor, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, which would compress the atmosphere and make it hard for us to detect any chemical signatures." 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 ] 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.Reading Planet on Fire feels like traversing a humming, interdependent ecosystem of ideas, porous to the post-crash movements and thinkers shaping today’s progressive environmentalism ... Starkly realistic whilst unflinchingly radical, Planet on Fire is a guidebook of hope for this crucial decade. Flora Parkin, LSE International Development Artist rendering of Gliese 436 b (otherwise known as GJ 436 b) (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCF) It is shown that, whatever the temperature to which a section of the atmosphere may be heated, no self-propagating chain of nuclear reactions is likely to be started. The energy losses to radiation always overcompensate the gains due to the reactions.