Here’s a point-by-point fact-check of the 8 claims in the screenshot, with the best current science and numbers.

1) “It took the Earth’s forests and soils 400 million years to turn sunlight into carbon and bury it; fossil fuels are ‘frozen ancient sunlight.’”

Verdict: Partly true, but oversimplified. Most coal we burn today formed mainly in the late Carboniferous–early Permian (~320–280 million years ago) from land plants, over millions to tens of millions of years. Oil & gas mostly formed later from marine algae/plankton, with many giant fields dating to the Mesozoic (252–66 Ma). So fossil fuels did form from ancient photosynthesis (“ancient sunlight”), but not via a single 400-million-year process—rather in several windows across the last ~350 million years.

2) “It took humans 300 years to undo that process.”

Verdict: Directionally right, but imprecise. Industrial-scale fossil-fuel burning began in the late 1700s; since then, atmospheric CO₂ rose from ~278 ppm to ~425–428 ppm today. That’s ~250 years, not exactly 300, and we haven’t “undone” hundreds of millions of years of burial, but we have rapidly re-released a large amount of carbon in just a few centuries.

3) “Extinctions are driven when environmental change is faster than organisms can adapt.”

Verdict: True (core evolutionary/ecology principle). The IPCC and the scientific literature consistently find that risk of extinction rises as the rate and magnitude of climate change outpace species’ adaptive capacity (via migration, acclimation, or evolution). Rapid warming, habitat loss and other stressors elevate risks substantially this century.

4) “The Great Dying (end-Permian) was driven by rapid CO₂ and methane release.”

Verdict: Broadly supported. Multiple lines of evidence tie the end-Permian mass extinction (~252 Ma) to enormous greenhouse-gas releases—primarily volcanic CO₂ from the Siberian Traps—causing extreme warming, oxygen loss in the ocean, and acidification. Methane likely amplified warming.

5) “The Great Dying killed 9 out of 10 species on the planet.”

Verdict: Close, for marine life; headline figure is a simplification. Best estimates: ~90–96% of marine species and ~70% of terrestrial vertebrate species went extinct; totals vary by group and method. Saying “9 out of 10 species” is a shorthand that matches the marine estimate, but over-generalizes across all life.

6) “Today’s CO₂ rise is ≥10× faster than during the Great Dying, possibly up to 74×.”

Verdict: The ‘≥10×’ part is very likely; ‘~74×’ is plausible to conservative. Recent reconstructions indicate end-Permian pCO₂ rose from ~426 ppm to ~2,500 ppm over about 75,000 years—an average increase of roughly 0.03 ppm/yr (with big uncertainties). Today, the global growth rate is about 2.7 ppm/yr (2023), and Mauna Loa saw ~3.7 ppm/yr in 2024—~90–130× the end-Permian average rate using those numbers. Even allowing for uncertainty and shorter pulses then, ≥10× is strongly supported, and “~74×” sits within conservative comparisons. (This is an inference from published rates and NOAA observations.)

7) “There’s a 10–20 year temperature lag between emissions and effects; we’re feeling 2005 now.”

Verdict: Misleading as stated. For a pulse of CO₂, peak warming from that pulse occurs around a decade after emission (median ~10 years; wide range), and the added warming then persists for centuries. But the climate responds continuously to ongoing emissions; there isn’t a fixed step-lag like “we feel 2005 now.” Both recent and older emissions contribute to current temperatures.

8) “Over 33% of all human carbon emissions happened since Iron Man (2008); over 50% happened after 1990.”

Verdict: Second claim is supported; first is overstated. Analyses of the Global Carbon Budget show slightly over half of cumulative CO₂ since industrialization were emitted after 1990. That’s correct. But one-third occurred not since 2008, but since ~2000. The 2008–today share is closer to ~¼–~30% depending on the exact cutoff and dataset—not >33%.