Raphael Thys
Last Week in Collapse is a new weekly round-up, bringing together some of the most important, timely, useful, depressing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see moments in Collapse. Get LWIC delivered directly to your email inbox for free.
Climate
This decade-old declassified file from 2013 is an 87-page document containing a prediction by the United States Navy that humans would achieve 4 °C warming by 2040. You already know many of the security threats of a hotter future: forcible migration, damage to global ports, changing ocean currents, drought/flooding, stronger storms.
There is only a “tiny window” of hope remaining to prevent climate Collapse, and experts say we are entering “a new age of devastation” as El Niño pushes already-record temperatures even higher. Parts of Texas hit record highs and Phoenix hit a record high temperature for August: 117 °F (47 °C). Other scientists admit there is no stopping this.
At least 20 people have died in wildfires in Greece, near the border of Bulgaria and Türkiye. The blazes still rage, and they have become the EU’s largest wildfire ever. Dozens of people were arrested for arson, but it remains unclear how the blaze really began. This visual guide is a quick summary of Greece’s wildfires. Scientists know that wildfires are becoming more intense and widespread.
The Lower Darling — Australia’s 3rd longest river — has practically run out of Murray cod, a native fish whose population crashed after a terrible drought several years ago. Efforts to repopulate the species failed.
China is finishing a summer of climate devastation, caused by heat waves, drought, and regional flooding. Grain & rice fields in China’s northeast province were heavily damaged. And China is still approving two new coal plants every week… In India, similar floods wiped out neighborhood homes and displaced many. What would you do if your house was swept away by a mudslide and you received no insurance payout?
This interesting article explains a bit more about the prevention of a titanic oil spill from the FSO Safer, deflecting blame and indicating what’s next. Apparently preventing disasters is a hard sell for many governments and international organizations. “If we had a major oil spill there, we would have probably raised a billion dollars in a month,” said a UN coordinator. Estimates on the cost of a potential cleanup hover around $20B, were the Safer to spill. However, the tanker was stranded for 8 years until the UN fundraised the $120M necessary to prevent a spill. Now the new oil tanker is sitting, mission accomplished, off the coast of Yemen until everyone can figure out how to divide the profits from the 1M+ barrels of old oil aboard. This tanker clownshow exemplifies how slow-to-react we are as a species, and how our incentives were are completely misaligned.
Australia’s government made a report on climate change and national security — but apparently the conclusions they arrived at are classified and too dangerous to disclose. I think we can imagine what some of those consequences might be… displacement the scale of which we have never seen, millions dead in recurring holocausts, countless people starving to death in famines, lasting heat stroke, cannibalism, World Wars, Civil Wars, mass migration from coastlines and islands, overlapping plagues, Kessler syndrome (mostly unrelated to climate), mass extinctions, potentially Nuclear War, and the end of civilization as we know it. But on the other hand, the longer you withhold a Top Secret report, the more interested the people are to read it…
A wildfire is burning in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It doubled in size about a week ago, a result of strong, shifting winds. It is now Louisiana’s largest wildfire ever, and is believed to be unstoppable by human effort. Only rain will extinguish it now, officials believe. By speedrunning hothouse earth, mankind has helped Mother Nature to become stronger, fiercer, more unpredictable. The growth in Nature’s power has exceeded our own growth in ability.
13 people were killed in flash flooding in Tajikistan. Tyhpoon Saola struck China, killing at least one person. CNN looked at 5 American cities that are one disaster away from a water crisis.
A study in Nature Climate Change looked at the role of phytoplankton in absorbing carbon in the Antarctic Ocean. They concluded that the blooming season is shrinking by about 5 days every year, reducing the carbon absorbed by the ocean and reducing food stocks available to fish.
Another study in the journal Energies concluded that one billion people will die from climate change activity over the next 100 years. Presumably the other six billion will die from a combination of superbugs, microplastics, (nuclear) Wars, fentanyl — and suicide, which hit a record in the U.S. last year.
Istanbul’s water reserves are sinking. Groundwater depletion in India is expected to drastically increase over the next few decades; also in America. Scientists fear that they may have overestimated the thickness of Antarctic sea ice. A study indicated microplastics in rivers may accelerate erosion of riverbanks. Rampant wildfires across North America are not going away; you will have to prepare for a New Smoky Normal — and the danger from old active power liens caught in wildfires could be severe.
Drought devastated Sri Lanka’s harvest this year. Flooding in China again. Despite all the Collapse shit, some people believe that there are incredible opportunities to reshape civilization amidst the downfall of everything. I remain unconvinced.
Record temperatures in Japan. It was India’s driest August on record. Turkish scientists are predicting the country’s hottest September. Record temps in Mexico, and iconic palm trees are being cut down in Mexico City to prevent the spread of pests. Cities in Australia broke temperature records too.
Health
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s chief COVID communicator, says 96% of Americans have some degree of immunity to COVID, and that “it’s not going to be the tsunami of cases” later this year. Researchers are already looking at a new variant, BA.286.
Legionnaires’ disease was found in southeastern Poland, with 150 cases and at least 14 dead. Legionnaires’ disease is a bacterial infection related to pneumonia, and has contaminated the water supply of Rzeszów. The location is interesting because it is the nexus for military and humanitarian aid entering Ukraine, but no foul play has been identified.
Another underrated pollution is tire dust, the effects of which have been underaccounted for in fish dieoff, lung growth, and asthma. As if we don’t have enough air pollutants to worry about…
Paris is fumigating parts of the city, for the first time, in order to combat the spread of tiger mosquitoes, which can carry the Zika virus among other diseases. Winters in Europe are not reliably cold enough to kill off the mosquitoes, and they will likely continue spreading northward over time.
Scientists fear the potential spread of H5N1 to Antarctica, a region frequented by over 100M breeding birds. Dozens of sea lions were killed in Argentina by avian flu.
Reports of horror from Sudan from a UN official on the ground suggest the southern part of the country is in full Collapse.Food supplies have been exhausted and aid workers are prevented from distributing food and medicine in some regions. Atrocities are rising and 4.5M+ people have now fled their homes since the fighting (re)started on April 15.
“Vector-borne diseases are spreading, posing a lethal risk, especially to those already weakened by malnutrition. Cases of measles, malaria, whooping cough, dengue fever, and acute watery diarrhoea are being reported across the country. Most people have no access to medical treatment. The conflict has decimated the health care sector, with most hospitals out of service. Millions of people have been displaced inside Sudan. Nearly one million others have fled across its borders. As more refugees arrive in neighbouring countries, host communities are struggling. A protracted conflict in Sudan could tip the entire region into a humanitarian catastrophe. A long conflict will almost certainly lead to a lost generation of children as millions miss out on education, endure trauma, and bear the physical and psychological scars of war. Reports that some children in Sudan are being used in the fighting are deeply disturbing.”
Economics
Record petrol prices in Japan. Gas reserves are depleted in Bolivia. Even Russia is experiencing fuel shortages.
Large numbers of Pakistani people protested high energy prices and burned their power bills. Year-on-year inflation in the country is almost at 30%, and the cost of living is pushing more people into poverty. Pakistan announced another nuclear power plant will be built, by China, in north-central Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan continues suffering from flooding.
Spanish olive oil harvests are way down, so prices will rise. Widespread food inflation has already struck India. Across the world prices are expected to rise through at least the end of 2024.
Evergrande, China’s second-largest real estate developer, saw its stock price drop 80% — on the first day returning to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The corporation has seen a 99% drop in its stock over the past 3 years, as China’s real estate market is sinking due to investor fraud, oversupply, and sagging economic momentum.
Kenya continues sinking into debt, mostly from corruption and financial mismanagement. A coup in Gabon occurred a few minutes after their President, Ali Bongo, was announced to have won crooked elections in the country. The Bongo family has been in power for 56 years, and senior military officers have taken over reportedly for national security reasons.
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Chinese manufacturing continues slumping, 5 months in a row. Other Asian economies face similar problems, pulling the economy down with them. The IMF is worried about a “debt storm” in the Greater Middle East.
Energy
The Labor government has approved the extension of a number of coal mines in Australia, the result of which could mean adding 150M+ tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere over the next few decades. Australia ranks #5 in worldwide coal production (behind China, India, Indonesia, and the US), and Australia is ranked #3 in new coal mine operations.
Although EU consumption of Russian oil dropped after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Russian LNG consumption is up 40% in the EU, particularly in Spain and Belgium. Global supplies of oil and gas are becoming more constrained, according to some analysts. The growth of the human population, and its dependence on energy grids, has outstripped the ability of humans to provide cheap energy. Collapse is like quicksand; the more we move, the deeper we fall in the pit.
Shell PLC (public limited company) is dropping its carbon offset plans and “doubling down on profit drivers like oil and gas.” By some estimates, the global carbon credit market — currently worth ~ $2B — may grow into over $900B in the next 15 years. Are carbon credits a colossal scam — or not?
An interesting study on genomics came out, indicating that an ancestor of our species “went through a severe population bottleneck with about 1280 breeding individuals between around 930,000 and 813,000 years ago. The bottleneck lasted for about 117,000 years and brought human ancestors close to extinction.” How tight will our coming bottleneck process be — and will we survive it?
Conflict
Killings in Burkina Faso have spiraled out of control, with thousands of civilians/insurgents/soldiers killed since the start of 2023. By the end of this year, it is estimated that 8,500+ will be slain in Islamist/government fighting there.
“Migrant hunters” in Greece combed the woods near the wildfire-stricken region near the Turkish border, capturing 13 migrants and locking them in a trailer. Later on, all the migrants and the three “urban militia” guys holding them prisoner were arrested.
ISIS is reportedly growing in Mali and has allegedly doubled its territory there over the last year. The underlying motivations for Niger’s coup last month (a kind of post-colonial anti-French sentiment) reflects a perceived powerlessness — a feeling that may be complicated further if/when ECOWAS intervenes to restore its ousted president. Which nation is next in line for a coup?
Countries continue dithering about whether to mount a “humanitarian intervention” in Haiti. But for now, nobody is intervening, and Haiti remains a nightmare for those trapped in its downspiral.
Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers are dying every day, according to reports close to the battlefront. More than 15% (70,000+) of Ukraine’s military personnel (~500,000 in total) have allegedly been killed and almost 25% (120,000+) have been wounded. Some expect this War to last at least another decade. It is strongly impacting the education of young Ukrainians too. However, in the last few days, reporting suggests Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making real progress near Zaporizhzhia.
A “Chr!stian-animism” religious group marched in eastern DRC to express opposition to the UN peacekeeping group. Soldiers killed 48 protestors, wounded 75, and arrested over 100.
Al-Shabaab overran Somalian soldiers, allegedly slaying 178 and seizing a village and its munitions. At least 74 squatters died in a Johannesburg building fire; the cause of the fire is still being investigated.
Clashes between the Ethiopian army and regional militias killed 183+ in July & August. The struggle was reportedly precipitated by the PM’s move to try and disband regional paramilitary units and bring the area more firmly under central governmental control. Is this all the New Violent Normal?