#Climate Feedback Loops

[collapseofindustrialcivilization]

Last Rites for a Dying Civilization

When the Black Death struck Europe in the Middle Ages, the fundamental values that held society together broke down. Husbands and wives abandoned each other and mother’s abandoned their children. This void of ethics that overtook the population is described in Boccaccio’s Decameron, considered a masterpiece of Italian prose and a documentary of life during that time. The book describes the…

[zentarablog]

10 Signs of Climate Change Happening Right Now

Climate change is no longer a distant threat; it is a present reality, reshaping our planet in profound and undeniable ways. While scientific models and long-term data sets provide the overarching picture, many of the changes are visible right now, impacting ecosystems, economies, and human lives across the globe. These aren’t just abstract concepts; they are observable phenomena that serve as…

[thoughtlessarse]

A third of the Arctic’s tundra, forests and wetlands have become a source of carbon emissions, a new study has found, as global heating ends thousands of years of carbon storage in parts of the frozen north. For millennia, Arctic land ecosystems have acted as a deep-freeze for the planet’s carbon, holding vast amounts of potential emissions in the permafrost. But ecosystems in the region are increasingly becoming a contributor to global heating as they release more CO2 into the atmosphere with rising temperatures, a new study published in Nature Climate Change concluded. More than 30% of the region was a net source of CO2, according to the analysis, rising to 40% when emissions from wildfires were included. By using monitoring data from 200 study sites between 1990 and 2020, the research demonstrates how the Arctic’s boreal forests, wetlands and tundra are being transformed by rapid warming. “It is the first time that we’re seeing this shift at such a large scale, cumulatively across all of the tundra. That’s a pretty big deal,” said Sue Natali, a co-author and lead researcher on the study at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. The shift is occurring despite the Arctic becoming greener. “One place where I work in interior Alaska, when the permafrost thaws, the plants grow more so you can sometimes can get an uptick in carbon storage,” Natali said. “But the permafrost continues to melt and the microbes take over. You have this really big pool of carbon in the ground and you see things like ground collapse. You can visually see the changes in the landscape,” she said.

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[eruditic-akechi]

WAOT AS I WAS EDITING OUT MY USERNAME I REMEMBERED THAT I MADE THE DUMBEST ALCHEMY JOKE ON MY ECOLOGY TEST JDKSKFKDBDJSJ

[theapacheviking210]

Exponential Growth 2: The Resource Boogaloo

You know what’s great about being the douchebag? I’m usually right about things. You know what sucks about it? I’m usually right about things that are bad. Case in point, in my previous video, I talked about the report from MIT scientists that was eventually turned into a book entitled Limits to Growth, by Dr. Donella H. Meadows. Now in my last video, I mentioned that the predictions that were made in the original report from 1972 were being overly generous. Remember that? Remember how I said that it was probably going to be a lot worse than that?? Yeah, that’s why I hate being right about things. And a lot like the expected outcomes for most of my current dating prospects, it’s most likely not going to be good. 

Case in point, the original Limits to Growth report was updated in 2023, and a lot like scientists in the movie that try to warn us of an impending catastrophe and go completely ignored, the scientific community slapped us with one big fat “I fucking told you so.” Imagine a night at the neighborhood cantina and after too many shots of tequila, you get into your car so you can go play a game of chicken parallel to a fast moving train on its tracks. You manage to weave in front of it a couple of times, with a few thrilling but dangerously close calls. However, by the third attempt, that’s when you underestimate and the train plows right into your vehicle, slicing your car in half and killing everyone inside! So basically in this scenario, the human race is the drunk driver playing chicken with the train of our own consequences. 

So it turns out that in the 1972 report, it was expected that we would overshoot our ability to carry our population's capacity by the mid to late 21st century. But in the revised 2023 report, it seems like we have overshot our capacity already. So like a restaurant that’s over crowded, with a bunch of hungry and angry customers demanding more drinks and food. Except there aren't even plates or silverware now, never mind drinks or food to eat. Well now the restaurant has over 8.1 billion of us and the owner is ready to collect on the tab. We’ve overrun our credit limit and it’s not going to be a lot of fun when the bill collector comes to take it out on all of our collective kneecaps. We fucked up folks. Yep, we sure did.

One of the most glaring pieces of information in this revised 2023 report is our hopeless addiction to fossil fuels. We knew for a long time now that it wasn’t sustainable. But like the kid that didn’t study for the test, the day of the final exam is here and we didn’t fucking study at all. And a lot like parents who neglect their children by sticking a tablet in their face so that they can watch Skibidi toilet, brain rot content, we collectively said to ourselves "well we tried not changing anything, but that didn’t work.” And once again, the scientific community collectively shook their heads and said, “nice going, you dumb bastards.”

But in words of the late TV infomercial salesman Billy Maze when he read about the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Faucet, “but wait, there’s more!” There is hope in this report as well. It’s only a flicker, but hope nonetheless. We can still switch to renewable energy technologies. However, the updated 2023 report also says that we need to stop suckling at the golden tit of perpetual economic growth. We’re like a reality star of My 600-lb Life on a diet of lard straight out of the bucket and chugging pure high fructose corn syrup, then complaining why our diabetes insulin isn’t fixing the problem and our knees are literally buckling under our gargantuan weight. I guess we just don’t learn, do we folks?? 

The 2023 updated report doesn’t hesitate to throw some pretty hard punches right into our collective kidneys. We’ve been collectively in a state of both denial and procrastination. It’s like we, collectively as a species, broke into the zoo late at night, snuck into the bear exhibit, jammed our fingers right into a sleeping grizzly bear's butthole, only to act surprised that we’re about to get brutally mauled. The report is practically begging us as a species on bended knees to get our shit straight. To urge us to embrace sustainability and actually start acting like intelligent human fucking beings. I know it’s asking a lot, folks. But let’s consider the consequences if we don’t. 

But douchebag, you dialectic describer of despair inducing, impending doom, you now say. What is the takeaway from this report? What can we do about all this? Is it still possible to repair the damage we have done or is it already too late? Well my fellow foolish, fossil fuel, fart sniffer friends, the takeaway is a punch in the stomach, a kick in the teeth, and a wakeup call that needs to be taken seriously and fast. To say that we need to fix this would be a moot point. We needed to fix it almost fifty years ago, and time is running out. 

The 2023 updated report to our finite resources and exponential growth is a very, very fucking grim reminder that we need to grow up and we needed to do it quite a while ago. Mother nature is holding up a mirror, and we’re not liking what we are seeing. Instead of a human face, there is a snarling, insatiable ghoul that wants nothing but to selfishly feast upon fossil fuels and it’s the reason that almost everything out there is getting more and more expensive by the day. It’s the reason that jobs pay less, and basic needs cost more. It’s the reason it’s getting hotter. The reason we're getting sick more often. The reason we’re dying younger. The time to act is not only now, but has been the case for quite a goddamned while now. Because if we don’t… we’re not going to make it.

[johniac]

SciTech Chronicles. . . . . . . .May 3rd, 2025

[droneboi]

The funny thing about conservatives and their "Might makes Right"...

is that one day might will absolutely make right. It'll make RIGHT like you wouldn't believe, buddy and you won't be around after it's finished.

Wether Earth's weather systems wipe out all of humanity or the proletariat and the scapegoats extinguish the last of the reactionary egocentrists, might will have made right like never before or again.

I look forward to it.

[sustainableyadayadayada]

2024 in Review

Intro What I do here is list all the posts I picked each month as most frightening, most hopeful, and most interesting. Then I attempt some kind of synthesis and analysis of this information. You can drill down to my “month in review” posts, from there to individual posts, and from there to source articles if you have the time and inclination. Post Roundup Most frightening and/or depressing…

[reasonsforhope]

No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.

[alchemusprime]

Life's Principles in Biomimicry 3: Being Locally Attuned and Responsive Part III

Previously, we shared two of the strategies of this life’s principle: leveraging cyclical processes and using readily available materials and energy. In this post, we share two more exciting ones. The first is using feedback loops. A positive feedback loop is when one variable increases, leading another to increase too, or move in the same direction. One example from nature is the increasing…

[collapseofindustrialcivilization]

AI-Driven Cyberattacks, Climate Change, and the Fragility of Modern Civilization

The weaponization of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems stands as one of the most plausible and catastrophic risks facing modern civilization. As AI capabilities accelerate, so too does their potential to destabilize the complex, interdependent systems that sustain our societies—namely, power grids, communication networks, and global supply chains. In a scenario increasingly discussed…

[miedei]

terrible profilers

(aka the team meets early seasons!spence's not-so-secret girlfriend)

a/n: this came to me in my dream last night and i cannot get over it, pls send asks/requests and tell me what you thought! (look at '#mystery girl!au' on my blog to see more musings about them <3)

cw: USE OF Y/N IM SORRY reader has she/her pronouns, the team is nosy, reader is a phd student, my niche personal headcanons of how i think spencer would text, probably more tech inaccuracies

wc: 3.5k

part one | part three | mlist

(reblogs are the only way to promote fics on tumblr! please reblog if you enjoyed it :) )

The moment Spencer walks into the bullpen, he knows something’s up. Garcia never replied to the text he’d sent on Friday night, and he’d hoped she was just busy on their first weekend off in a while, but it’s clear there’s more. Clutching the strap of his satchel, he walks to his desk, observing the strange tension blanketing the room.

For one, Hotch and Gideon are in the bullpen, standing in the corner speaking in hushed tones. Weird. They usually go to one of their offices to talk, and either way, they usually are stuck in their offices until lunchtime when they don’t have cases.

Another thing. JJ and Penelope are standing around Elle’s desk, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but they’ve swivelled around to stare at Spencer like he’s an alien (which they do on occasion, but Spencer is pretty sure he hasn’t been strange yet. He just walked in!).

Derek is sitting on Elle’s desk, leaning over to huddle with the three girls, but he’s frozen with his mouth open, like he just shut up for some reason.

“Uh… Good morning.” Spencer furrows his brows, but tries to shrug it off, more interested in the smell of coffee emanating from the kitchenette. Setting down his bag, he quickly busies himself with pouring his signature overly-sweet (according to you) coffee.

It’s like his movements snap a thread that has been holding his colleagues together, and they suddenly start bustling around the bullpen again. Derek sidles up beside him as he’s stirring in sugar, and Spencer braces himself for some Morgan-esque prod. But what he says has Spencer confused.

“Kid. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Ok, something is going on. Spencer has worked with Derek since he was 22, and they’ve fallen into a very comfortable dynamic ever since. But neither of them have ever felt the need to reassure the other of their closeness.

“What’s up, Morgan? No jabs today?”

Derek stiffens, like he’s been caught in a lie, and scrambles to reply.

“Well… We- Um, Garcia worried about you on Friday. What was up with you leaving so suddenly?”

Spencer has to bite back a smile, memories of you, coming to O’ Keefe’s just to see him, flooding into his mind. But he answers as smoothly as possible, still turned away from Derek as he elaborates.

“Oh, I felt a bit sick. It was probably the drinking and travelling back and forth from the more arid parts of the country that did it. Did you know, travelling between warmer and colder climates makes you more susceptible to contracting viruses because it strains your immune and musculoskeletal systems, causing the feedback loop of homeostasis to-” Derek puts a hand on his arm, and Spencer quiets.

“Okay, okay, pretty boy, I get it.”

With that, he walks off, and Spencer is left at the kitchenette, stirring his coffee, confused. It’s not like it was a lie, he was feeling nauseous in the bar, so you insisted that you go home. He recovered that same night over a cup of tea, Metropolis on the television, and you cuddled up on the couch next to him.

When he walks back to his desk, mug in hand, he calls out to JJ, still standing by Elle’s desk.

“JJ, no cases today? …JJ?” The blonde is looking at him, but his words seem to fly right over her head, until Elle pokes her shoulder.

“Oh! No, the cases I’m being called about are still pending, we’re probably not leaving on anything until tomorrow.” Spencer smiles softly, glad to have at least one more night sleeping at home this week. Because of his reverie, he doesn’t notice the way JJ, Penelope and Elle are staring at him, befuddled expressions on their faces.

The day continues to be a little weird, much to Spencer’s chagrin. Around 1pm, Gideon emerges from his office again. This, already, is out of the blue. Gideon only leaves his office an average of 3.78 times a day, mainly to go to Hotch’s office, or to go home. This time, however, Gideon marches to Spencer’s desk.

Gideon comes to a stop next to Spencer’s desk chair, and it’s all he can do to muster a blank face and look into his mentor’s eyes.

“Hey, Gideon. What’s… What’s going on?”

The older man sighs wearily, looking down his nose at Spencer, looking uncannily like Spencer’s highschool Calculus teacher when she got irritated at him for being a ‘13 year old know-it-all’.

“Spencer. You weren’t sick on Friday, were you?” What is happening? Spencer doesn’t lie, he’s never told Gideon something untrue, so this is incredibly out of the blue.

“Huh? No, what’s wrong? I felt nauseous, which could’ve technically been a symptom for an inner ear problem, inflammatory bowel disease, gastroenteritis…” Spencer continues to rattle off a list of things he could have had, not noticing the uncharacteristically soft, paternal gaze that Gideon has trained on him.

“...and even a brain tumour, but it was probably because I drank more than I usually do. Why do you think that’s not true?” Spencer finishes his little speech, looking up at Gideon with a confused expression. There’s nothing else the older man can do but sigh, patting his shoulder softly.

“Okay, Reid. Glad you’re feeling better now.” With that, the experienced profiler walks away, not bothering to reply to Spencer’s continued questioning:

“Gideon! What’s wrong? Why are you-” Gideon’s office door slams shut.

Unfortunately, Spencer cannot ignore the rest of the signs, spending the rest of the day in a state of coiled anxiety. Something is going on, but he can’t get anyone to tell him.

Derek and Elle are constantly glancing over at him, unreadable expressions on their faces. Penelope keeps finding excuses to go to Spencer’s desk, and even if Spencer wasn’t a profiler, he’d be able to see the words bubbling up in her throat, but she never says anything.

JJ doesn’t come talk to him at all, which is strange. Instead, she shoots him knowing looks whenever she’s in the bullpen, sending Spencer into a spiral every time she doesn’t say anything about why they’re all acting weird.

He’s even caught Hotch and Gideon peeking through the blinds over their office windows to look at Spencer, with the analytical looks they get when they’re observing a crime scene on their faces. It’s driving Spencer crazy, and he has to tell someone.

You’re leaving your desk when your phone buzzes.

SPENCE <3: Hi. I looked normal when I left the house, right?

Your brow furrows at the text. Normally Spencer isn’t a fan of texting while he’s at work, and you’d told him multiple times how handsome he looked when he left the apartment this morning. He’s wearing his striped white button down and the purple tie you bought him for his birthday last year, he looks pretty. And you made sure to tell him so.

YOU: hi <3

YOU: no spence you look pretty i told you this morning didnt i?

SPENCE <3: You did, thank you. Everyone’s acting weird at work, and I can’t think of what it could be.

YOU: maybe its something with a case?

SPENCE <3: They would tell me if it was that, right?

YOU: ur right

YOU: if you cant think of it with that big beautiful brain its probably something to do with them

There’s a solid minute of silence before he texts you back, and you grin to yourself as you walk through the halls. You can see the flush growing over his face in your mind’s eye, the way he does every time you pay him a cheesy compliment.

SPENCE <3: I guess so. They won’t tell me anything about it, which is strange.

You frown a little, imagining his frustration at being out of the loop. Spencer has expressed his love for his coworkers to you many times, but he’s also told you about his struggles feeling like the ‘baby’ of the office, and the way it makes him feel isolated at times. Racking your brain to think of a way to cheer him up, you check the time on your watch (the twin of which is settled on Spencer’s wrist).

YOU: its nearly 6

YOU: if i leave my building now i can make it to your office in 30mins

YOU: i can pick you up and we could get thai for dinner

YOU: ?

The reply is instantaneous, and you smile, looking forward to seeing him earlier than you’d expected today.

SPENCE <3: That sounds great. I’m finishing up here but text me when you’re in the lobby and I’ll come down.

SPENCE <3: I need to go, I’ve been texting you from the bathroom.

SPENCE <3: See you soon :-)

The last half hour of Spencer’s workday flies by, unlike the way the clock had crawled previously. He finishes up the consults he was working on for the day, and begins packing up the moment the clock hits 18:27.

Derek and Elle are still sneaking glances at him, but Spencer couldn’t care less at this point. As he closes the flap of his satchel, his phone buzzes in his breast pocket. He can’t help but whip out his phone immediately, missing the bewildered looks that pass between his fellow profilers as he smiles down at the screen.

Y/N L/N: in the lobby now!

Y/N L/N: i forgot how fancy it is here i feel underdressed

He doesn’t bother replying, instead opting to leave the bullpen through the glass doors, nodding at Derek and Elle, and pressing the elevator button immediately. He’s so engrossed in his thoughts as he stares at the closed doors, that he realises far too late what’s happening behind him.

He can hear the sounds of shuffling feet, a squeak of surprise (Penelope), hissed insult (Elle to Derek), and a firm clearing of a throat (Hotch). After sighing rather petulantly, Spencer turns on his heels to find the entire BAU team standing there, faces just as confusing as they’ve been all day.

“I’d ask you what’s wrong, but none of you gave me an answer the last 23 times I asked, so.”

There’s a beat of silence, before Hotch, of all people, says, “Reid, we need to… ask you something. About last Friday.” That’s strange. Spencer cocks his head in confusion.

“What about it? I already told Morgan and Gideon, I was feeling sick, but it turns out it was just that I’d just drank more than I was used to.”

Penelope looks like she’s about to burst, and finally, she blurts it out, voice slightly shrill. “Reid! Who is she?”

“Who is who?”

Derek butts in, a hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “Kid, that girl. The girl you were… close to, on Friday. At the bar?” Oh. That’s what they’re talking about?

“That was Y/N. My girlfriend. Are you mad I didn’t introduce you guys? I thought you were all busy.”

Spencer sees six sets of jaws drop. There’s more silence, before JJ croaks out, “Girlfriend?”

It’s a bit of a sight, to be honest. Penelope has clutched on to Derek, and Derek on to Elle. JJ looks gobsmacked, eyes bulging out of their sockets. Even Hotch and Gideon look the most shocked Spencer has ever seen them. But why?

“Uh, yeah. She came to see me because we’d had plans before we decided to go out. Then when she found out I felt sick we went home.”

Gideon looks a little green, and when no one makes a sound, Hotch speaks, his normally stoic voice coming out a little shaky. “Reid, we didn't- We didn’t know you were seeing anybody.”

What? Now they’re being even weirder. Spencer can hear the elevator doors open behind him, but he doesn’t bother. This is something he has to get to the bottom of.

“How did you not know? I’m sure I’ve mentioned having plans with her multiple times. Elle, I told you about the time I went to the movies in New York with her, when we were on that case.” Elle looks more shocked, if that’s possible, but doesn’t say a word.

“Garcia, I asked you to help me find florists that have Gibraltar campions in Vegas that one time.” Penelope jolts, muttering under her breath about ‘idiot geniuses and their mothers’.

“Gideon, I asked you for advice on how to ask her out!” Gideon stiffens, remembering the time Spencer had asked him about his ex-wife. Was that Spencer asking for advice?

“I ran into you, JJ and Morgan, when I was with her, don’t you remember? She was in the aisle over” Derek distinctly remembers a time at the bookstore, they’d seen Spencer, but not noticed anyone with him. JJ shamefully recalls being too busy making fun of Spencer’s heart-studded tie to look around.

Spencer looks bewildered, eyes bouncing between the different members of his team.

“Hotch, I literally told you about her! When I added her to my emergency contacts?” At this, Hotch pales. A year ago, Spencer had come to him with a request to change his 1st emergency contact from his mother to a Y/N L/N. How he never registered that this was a girlfriend, Hotch would never know, but he stares fixedly at his shoes as he contemplates quitting his job as a profiler.

Spencer looks at them, mystified. How did they not know? It’s not like he was ever hiding you! Of course, Spencer wanted to keep you to himself, so he didn’t talk about you that much, but they were profilers. He assumed they’d known, and just didn't want to embarrass him.

His phone buzzes three times, and he pulls it out to see more texts from you.

Y/N L/N: spence are you coming

Y/N L/N: a guy in a suit is eyeing me weird

Y/N L/N: he knows i dont belong come save me

A happy sigh leaves him, before he remembers the people standing in front of him, still gobsmacked. He scrubs a hand down his face wearily, and mutters slowly, as if he’s not sure if he wants to do this.

“She’s downstairs right now, we were going to take the metro home together. Do you… Do you guys want to meet her?” Penelope brightens up, and the rest of the team seem in higher spirits, despite their continued disappointment in themselves. Warily, Spencer opens the elevator door with a press of a button, and they all file in obediently.

“Please don’t be weird.”

“My good doctor, I would never!” He eyes Garcia with a fearful expression, but presses the ground floor button anyway. As the doors close, a strangled shout leaves JJ’s mouth.

“Wait, you live together?”

You are sitting on a bench inside the lobby of the FBI Headquarters. No matter how many times you drop Spencer off or pick him up, this will always be surreal to you. And, right now, it’s not just surreal, it’s a little scary.

A real Danny Ocean type guy is sitting on a bench across the room, talking on the phone and eyeing you. Clearly, you don’t exactly look like an agent, you know that. Dressed in the uniform of a PhD student, jeans and an oversized Doctor Who t-shirt (Spencer’s), you know that you look out of place.

You’re just hoping Spencer walks out of the elevator before you get escorted out on suspicions that you’re a spy or something.

Like some deity has heard your words, you look up at the ding of the elevator to see Spencer… and a whole gaggle of people behind him, slapping at his shoulders and barraging him with questions. He looks harried, a line between his pretty eyes.

The line disappears, though, when he locks eyes with you. His eyes light up, and his steps grow in length, before he's left his entourage behind, at least for a couple of seconds.

He uses this time to explain to you: “Hi, hello, I'm so glad you're here and I need to tell you something-” As if on instinct, your hands come up to rest on his upper arms, thumbs moving in circles soothingly as he continues to ramble, only catching the tail end of his sentence.

“-and well, they didn't know about you somehow? Which is crazy to me because you know I don't hide you so I don't know where they got that from but either way they were acting crazy, so I suggested they come meet you, and…” The group of people you now recognize to be the BAU have caught up to him, eyes darting between your face and Spencer's. His shoulders slump, and the agitated look returns, if a little less intense.

“Well, here they are.” He motions to the group behind him. “These are my coworkers, Jennifer Jareau, Elle Greenaway, Penelope Garcia, Aaron Hotchner, Jason Gideon, and Derek Morgan. Guys, this is my girlfriend, Y/N.”

Rising on your toes to see over his shoulder, you wave with a smile, eyes zeroing in on Penelope Garcia, who looks like she's vibrating from excitement, shouldering past Spencer to hold both of your hands.

“Hi! It's so good to meet you! I'd say I've heard a lot about you, but you know that's a lie, we didn't realize you existed until 10 minutes ago, but oh my god! You're here! You're so pretty- Spencer, she's so pretty!” She's practically bouncing up and down, causing Spencer to laugh sheepishly.

“Yeah, Garcia, I know that.” The next few minutes are a barrage of introductions and handshakes, all so brief that you can only get quick first impressions of them all.

Penelope is incredibly kind, not letting go of your hands until Spencer pries her off of you, telling you that you have to come out on girl's night with us, exactly like Spencer described her.

Elle is nearly intimidatingly cool, giving you a handshake and a smile, mentioning that she likes your eyeliner.

Aaron (Hotch? You're not sure how to refer to him) is nowhere near as stoic and intimidating as Spencer makes him out to be, breaking into a smile as he introduces himself, and grinning even wider when you congratulate him and his wife on their newborn child.

JJ is the sweetest. You've heard a lot about Spencer's best friend, and she lives up to expectations, squeezing you into a chaste hug with warm words.

Gideon is a little terrifying. He gives you a handshake, quirking the side of his lips in what you assume to be a smile, but saying very little beyond an introduction. You know how highly Spencer thinks of him, and hope he will warm up to you (Spencer is over the moon that he smiled, and informs you later that Gideon loved you).

Derek is exactly how you expected him to be. Somehow, he makes you feel wholly comfortable after a single comment, and promises to regale you with all the Spencer stories you'd want (you see him punch Spencer in the arm, grinning and saying he approved).

Spencer pulls you away from them as quick as he can, citing your dinner plans as an excuse. He slings an arm around your waist, leading you out the door as you wave over your shoulder.

“It was great to meet you guys! We should go out to dinner or something!” You hear mixed shouts of agreement from behind you, before the doors shut and it's just you and Spencer, on the sidewalk outside the building.

It's butterfly-inducing, the way you can see the tension leave his shoulders when he turns to look down at you, brown eyes shining.

“I'm sorry that was so last-minute, I know they can be… a lot.” You giggle at the weariness in his tone, resting your forearms on his shoulders.

“They were really nice, Spence. I'm glad to finally meet them. They didn't know who I was?” He sighs, hands tightening slightly on your waist.

“I don't know what goes on with them half the time. I've told them things about you so many times, but they were just being dense, I suppose. They saw us on Friday, at O’ Keefe’s, and they had no idea I was seeing someone!” He bends to rest his forehead in the crook of your neck with a sigh. As if on instinct, your hands come up to play with his hair.

“I guess they would have found it a little strange that you acted like nothing had changed, huh? Is that why they were being weird today?” He grumbles unintelligible words into your skin, before raising his head to look at you.

“I guess… You know I wasn't hiding you, right? I really thought they knew about you,” The earnestness on his face makes you want to implode, his thumbs rubbing minutely on your waist. Speaking would pop the bubble you've found yourselves in, so you find the best next option for you to show him your assertion.

Your hands roam up his neck to cup either side of his jaw, and slow, slow, slowly, you rise to your toes and kiss him.

Suddenly, Spencer's not worried anymore.

[thoughtlessarse]

In the vast white expanse around Churapcha in eastern Siberia, the ever more rapid thaw of the permafrost is changing the landscape, cracking up houses and releasing greenhouse gases. A growing number of little mounds are appearing across the region of Yakutia in the Russian Far East. Known as "bylars" in the Yakut language, the tiny hillocks are no more than a meter high and have an almost regular polygonal shape. "The peaks of these formations are stable. It is the space between the mounds that is sinking," said Nikita Tananayev, director of the climate laboratory at the Federal Northeastern University in the regional capital Yakutsk. "With climate change, the ice is melting faster," he told AFP. -The mounds' distinctive shape is due to the fact that the underground ice that is melting is shaped in polygons. Permafrost is a layer of soil that is never supposed to thaw and covers around 65% of Russia's territory.

continue reading

[atomicrebelfire]

🐅 The Tiger’s Out: Thoughts on 9-1-1, Press Cycles, and Fandom Entitlement

Watching the fandom ( ahem-Buddies-ahem) spiral over Bobby’s death this week—on Twitter, in tags, in comments—got me thinking. Not just about the storyline itself, but about how 9-1-1 has shaped its relationship with us as an audience over time.

And I say us because I’m not above it—I’m here too: spiraling, speculating, commenting, hoping, wishing, refreshing AO3. I mean, how else are we supposed to survive being canon ship fans? But it’s hard not to notice how this show, more than most, has encouraged a kind of fandom culture (ahem—Buddies—ahem) that feels increasingly intense, reactive, and exhausting.

🔹 9-1-1 is one of the only network procedurals I’ve seen that does press and postmortems for nearly every episode. (Or maybe I just didn’t follow the press this closely for other shows.) Not just premieres or finales. But like… every time someone breathes too loudly, there’s an interview explaining why.

We’ve all been conditioned to expect that—like the story isn’t done until it’s been followed by cast interviews, Instagram teases, writer commentary, and four different articles saying “here’s what really happened.”

🔹 For a while, it was fun. It felt like being invited into the process. But over time, that constant feedback loop has turned every moment into a test. Every twist feels like a betrayal. Every silence feels like a message. Every character decision becomes something fans feel owed an explanation for.

And yeah—some of the behavior has gotten out of hand (ahem—Buddies—ahem). But if we’re being honest? The show and its promo machine spent years telling us this story was a conversation, that fan feelings would be heard and reflected, that ships were part of the game. And now that the show is pivoting into heavier, messier, less “pleasing” territory?

The fallout is intense. Because people were set up to believe this was their show, too and the story is a customer service product.

But here’s the thing: You can’t spend six+ seasons feeding the tiger and then act shocked when it bites.

Yes, harassment is never okay. And I support the cast and writers drawing boundaries when things get toxic.

But this climate didn’t come out of nowhere. It was built—one postmortem, one vague ship tease, one “we hear you” at a time. And now that they’re trying to pull back, it’s clear just how hard it is to put that energy back in the bottle.

Sometimes the hardest truth is this: You can’t always untrain what you’ve taught.

And now, suddenly, we’re supposed to act like the fandom’s behavior came out of nowhere? Nah. You raised a tiger on steak and serotonin—and now it’s chewing through the walls. And the fans who are normal? Who are fine with stories evolving or ending? They’re drowned out or driven off.

[the-world-annealing]

Humans Aren't Space Orcs

Look, we got it all wrong.

It's provable scientific fact that aliens, if they exist, will probably be bigger than us, heavier than us, and from smaller planets.

Smaller planets will have thinner atmospheres, less even heat distribution, sharper differences between day and night temperatures, and less climate stability across seasons and continents (and thus less chance of stable agriculture developing or spreading far). There's a bit of a feedback loop here where extremes in climate encourage larger body sizes for regulation and storage purposes, and larger individuals plus lack of stable agriculture means even lower population sizes and densities.

So when we run into intelligent aliens, they'll think we look small, short, and yet weirdly bulky (because limbs that can support our weight in earth gravity would support much more in theirs). The average human will appear supernaturally social: the idea of retaining close relationships with dozens of people and subtly adapting to the unique context of each one is borderline unimaginable to them, let alone the idea of running mental models of these people in real time. Honestly, even the idea of regularly encountering that many people might freak them out a little.

Between larger human populations, a larger planet, and more widespread agriculture, human cuisine should seem mindbogglingly broad, even to other omnivorous foragers. Human linguistics, same story: highland new guinea is an agricultural birthplace the size of Sweden with eight hundred unique languages native to it. In general the depth of our art should be beyond anything most aliens have.

Does any of that sound like orc to you? No! But there is, of course, a fantasy creature well-known for gregariousness, good food, art, small round bodies, and a comfortable sedentary lifestyle interspersed with the occasional act of heroism...

Humans are space hobbits.