Last Week in Collapse: April 7-13, 2024
New & depressing climate research & data drops, a spate of record temperatures is broken, and bird flu alarms fall on deaf ears—as the world re-arms for a conflict that’s closer than some might think.
Last Week in Collapse: April 7-13, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 120th newsletter, and it’s the longest yet. I feel obligated to put a general content warning on this edition, as the cumulative heap of Doom may be exhausting to some readers. You can find the March 31-April 6 edition here on Reddit if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.
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The European Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark ruling claiming that Switzerland was in breach of its obligations to protect its citizens from heat waves, and from failing to meet climate targets; also that Switzerland had not drafted a national carbon budget. You can read the ECHR press release here if you’re interested.
For the first time ever, NASA is releasing its data to the public collected from its Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite—empowering scientists, journalists, and the curious public to look at images & data regarding environmental pollution and air quality. The move expands access to earth sciences, particularly the study of aerosols. Access some of the breathtaking ocean/cloud images here if you’re interested—or even if you’re not. (More images provided at the bottom of this newsletter.)
Soil inorganic carbon (SIC), a mostly overlooked source of carbon when compared to organic soil carbon. However, a study in Science suggests that the quantity of SIC is huge, and desertification and runoff is sending SIC into rivers and oceans. The impact on the hydrosphere and atmospheric carbon concentrations has been underestimated, experts claim.
El Niño is being blamed for 40-year lows in Bogota reservoirs. Colombia’s capital (metro pop: 11.7M) will begin rotating days on which no water will be supplied to certain districts in an attempt to conserve the fast-depleting resource. El Niño, and invasive wild hogs, were also blamed for wildfires in the Philippines. Parts of New Zealand faced their driest summer on record. Canada is expecting a fierce wildfire season ahead, and hoping to train 1,000+ new forest firefighters this year. Nepalese wildfires killed 3 army firefighters.
Sweden experienced summer-like conditions for the earliest time in the year, after parts of southern Sweden saw five consecutive days of at least 10 °C (50 °F) temperatures. Across the Asia-Pacific, 240M children are at mortal risk from heat waves—according to a UNICEF report.
Glaciers in Central Asia are melting, and the on/off droughts & floods are worsening a water management crisis for the region. Afghanistan is building a canal to siphon 20-30% of the Amu Darya River which supplies Uzbekistan & Turkmenistan. Morocco’s second-largest reservoir is drying up—and taking down the agriculture industry (which accounts for 90% of the nation’s fresh water use) with it.
Despite the talk of wildfires & droughts, March 2024 was supposedly, on average, the wettest March on record, for the planet. Flooding in Hubei, China, killed at least 8. An environmentalist group is claiming that fast fashion brands are linked to deforestation in Brazil, replacing trees for cotton plantations connected to violence & corruption.
Record April heat in southern Mexico: 42 °C (108 °F). Phuket, Thailand, saw its hottest day & night, peaking at 39.4 °C (103 °F). Overseas France also saw several new records drop, including Mayotte’s hottest day ever, around 36 °C (97 °F). Heat waves are blasting Nigeria all around; Ghana, too. 100+ people died from a heat wave in Mali. A few local April records were broken around the Mediterranean basin, in Spain, Algeria, and Morocco. Some daily records in Bosnia, and Germany saw its earliest 30 °C day ever—ahead of the old record of 9 days. Scientists blame a group of factors for the recent heat, including manmade climate change, El Niño, aerosol demasking, effects from the Indian Ocean Dipole, and random weather events.
Although average sea surface temperatures tend to drop around March 22, near the first day of spring, temperatures have not yet dipped down—an anomaly that may linger long. We are heading into “uncharted territory”.
The Great Barrier Reef is reportedly experiencing its most serious coral bleaching ever, as new footage shows coral carnage 18 meters (59 feet) deep. Historic flooding is worsening in southern Russia and Kazakhstan, displacing thousands more; it is the region’s worst flooding in decades. A paywalled study’s summary claims that rainfall patterns are being disturbed so much that “in most regions, more than half of the total yearly rainfall occurs on the 12 wettest days of the year.”
A study in Communications Earth & Environment concluded that climate change will result in ocean coastlines experiencing 38 days of “concurrent heatwaves and extreme sea levels” (CHWESL): a one-two punch of swelling warm tides—usually found in tropical areas, usually in summer. However, “87.73% of coastlines experienced such concurrent extremes during 1979–2017,” posing a danger to many coastal communities and maritime megacities.
Experts are urging municipalities to plant more native plants to prevent landslides and stabilize vulnerable soil. A study found that earthworm populations in the UK are shrinking about 2% each year. A UN climate official said that humanity has two years to save the planet… A retrospective on a 2022 heat wave in Antarctica found that a large atmospheric river was the immediate cause.
The grounding line of a glacier is the outermost point(s) where a glacier sits on solid ground. A Nature Communications study concluded that changing ocean currents are bringing warm water deeper, eating away at the grounding lines of glaciers, exposing more glaciers to ocean currents, and accelerating the Collapse of many glaciers & ice shelves.
Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam, on the Colorado River, has a problem: its water level is dropping, and its backup pipes, which conduct water through the Dam, are not functioning. This could pose a problem if water levels drop too low. You can read the full 14-page March memo from the Department of the Interior here if you’re interested. The President of the environmental nonprofit Utah Rivers Council claims “the archaic plumbing inside Utah’s Glen Canyon Dam is the most urgent water problem facing the 40 million people of the Colorado River Basin.”
Since 1990, homo sapiens have transformed 250,000 acres of estuaries into farmland and/or urban development—so says a study in Earth’s Dismal Future. 90% of these developments occurred in developing middle-income countries.
An analysis of 122 glaciers in the Kashmir Basin determined that, from 1980 until 2020, the total glacier mass had shrunk from about 26 km2 to 16 km2—roughly 39%. A Royal Society study forecasting the 500-year long view of forests concluded that boreal forests will decline the most from rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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Bird flu reached New York City birds: a chicken, some geese, a hawk, and a falcon. Perhaps a number of pigeons are carriers as well. H5N1 has also been detected in North Carolina cattle, and, two weeks ago, a human in Texas. Experts worry that “pandemic fatigue” may leave us unwilling to monitor this virus closely enough to prevent an even worse health disaster. Spillover risk is low, the scientists say, but there is a risk that certain mammals may provide the genetic material needed for a catastrophic jump to a human-to-human transmission.
The price of gold has reached a record high—$2,364 per ounce. Vandals in Peru, reportedly illegal gold miners, took down two electrical towers using dynamite, towers which supplied energy to a government-approved gold extraction operation.
Iraq, where the annual deficit totals some $61B, would face a sudden economic Collapse if the price of oil sinks; if it continues to rise (a barrel is around $90 now), the American economy will be hard hit. In Ghana, energy debt is rising, and officials are preparing possible schedules for load-shedding. South Africa continues to suffer from daily load-shedding, and is trying to invest more in generators & renewable energy.
Air pollution is being linked to mental & neurological problems more and more. The Seine River, scheduled to host Olympic swimmers this summer, has unsafe levels of E. Coli and other bacteria, according to 13 of 14 tests conducted. In Denmark, where a massive deoxygenation event killed most life in a beloved fjord, 1,000+ people gathered to host a funeral ceremony for the fjord.
A major Chinese property developer, Shimao, already in default of some loans since 2022, is now in default over another $202M debt to a state-owned construction bank. Saudi Arabia’s hubristic city of the future, so-called The Line, is being scaled back significantly over financing difficulties.
The cost of managing refugees in the UK is “wreaking havoc” on government finances, according to one official. The EU passed a large migration & asylum deal, sparking fears that migrants & refugees might be forcibly relocated into member states who oppose their arrival particularly strongly. The new plan will not quell old debates.
A cholera scare in Mozambique prompted 122 people to flee the coast in a ramshackle ferry; it capsized, killing at least 96 people. A cable car pylon collapsed in Türkiye, killing 1.
A growing water crisis in Hawai’i has been caused, experts say, by a combination of Drought, pollution (jet fuel & PFAS), and the commodification of water. Officials fear that energy-intensive desalination plants may become necessary to support drinking water supplies.
An upcoming study of microplastics in Antarctic seawater found that microplastic concentrations are higher in all 17 tested samples than in previous tests—which did not account for certain plastics too small for their detection. Although the study is published in 2024, the water samples date from 2021, and do not account for recent plastics pollution of our oceans. A similar study in Nature Geoscience says that PFAS concentrations are also underestimated in surface & groundwater. The American EPA made new guidelines restricting PFAS chemicals in drinking water supplies.
An Environmental Sciences & Technology study into plastic’s GHG emissions across five sectors—packaging, building and construction, automotive, textiles, and consumer durables—found that plastics actually produce fewer emissions than their common recyclable alternatives, usually metals, paper products, and glass. The only solution is to cut our consumption altogether—a hard sell to a hungry population.
A Royal Society study into the growth of cities compared their mostly-organic growth with the development of cancer—with transportation networks mirroring vascular channels, and other population expansion dynamics paralleling biological systems. Drought in the Pyrenees has lasted for 3 years and counting. Flash flooding in Kenya killed 13 and left 15,000+ displaced.
The Canadian dollar hit a 5-month low amid its fastest monthly decline in almost a year. Although macro-figures indicate the Canadian economy isn’t as bad as people claim, individual polls say otherwise, with about two thirds of the population feeling their purchasing power declining.
A blood analysis study suggests that about 21% of COVID survivors develop Long COVID. That tracks with a batch of Mississippi data which says 20% of adults have Long COVID. Yet another study from The Lancet confirms that, yes, Long COVID can linger in your body for years.
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