Last Week in Collapse: December 17-23, 2023

Volcanoes, air strikes, famines, and cold waves. Our emergency is becoming more complex by the day.

Last Week in Collapse: December 17-23, 2023

This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, astounding, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.

This is the 104th newsletter, which means this is also the two-year anniversary of Last Week in Collapse! You can find the December 10-16 edition here if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.

Iceland’s much-awaited volcano finally erupted on Tuesday, and the footage is really worth seeing. Thousands of residents had already evacuated. Government officials say the eruption may continue for several months.

China’s cold wave continues, breaking records at a few weather stations. Hohhot, the capital of China’s Northern Mongolia province, hit -29 °C (-20 °F). Shanghai had its coldest snap in 40+ years.

A study from Geophysical Research Letters has devised a better way of analyzing river speeds and projected flood maps: satellite tracking. About 30% of the world population lives in an area at risk of flooding.

Researchers believe that the Himalayan glaciers could be spared—for a few more decades anyway—if pollution levels in India were cut back to 2020-COVID levels. That’s a pretty big if. The study showed that the snow was about 30% cleaner during the lockdowns. However, India is industrializing and polluting more and more every year.

An AI-driven analysis of climate misinformation on Twitter, from 2014-2021, compared industry spokespeople’s tweets with NGOs and intergovernmental organizations on environmental issues. Among other things, they concluded that “climate change-driven extreme weather events and stock market performance do not significantly affect the patterns of communication among these firms and organizations.” Read the full study from NPJ Climate Action if you’re interested.

Canada banned single-use plastic straw, cutlery, and bags—but a lawsuit from an oil company went to federal court, which struck down the plastics ban last month. But the government is appealing the decision, and upholding the ban until such time that the federal court’s ruling may be overruled.

Over 100 elephants died in Zimbabwe, killed by thirst unquenched as a result of devastating drought. Scotland’s weather is transforming too fast for people to adapt. Despite laws against poaching endangered species, enforcement is inconsistent when it comes to grizzly bears in the American West. Five gray wolves were reintroduced to the Colorado wilderness last week; are they part of a noble return to the ecosystem, or destined for an off-the-books hunt into obscurity?

Permafrost is estimated to hold more than twice the CO2 and CH4 (methane) than exists in the atmosphere today. About 22% of the world’s land is permafrost, and it’s melting “faster than expected”. Scientists are unsure how much emissions will be released when more of this frozen earth thaws—and what else (pathogens, mercury reserves) will be unleashed.

Experts agree that carbon pricing is not enough for humanity to meet its 2 °C warming goal. Global sea surface temperatures continue record-breaking. Meanwhile, the global albedo (the amount of (sun)light reflected back) is dropping—which means we are absorbing more sunlight, and therefore heating up.

A fierce drought in Karnataka state, India, forced farmers into dire debt—and 450+ such farmers killed themselves since March. Amazingly, that number is down from last year. Meanwhile, in southeast India, 95cm of rain fell in just 24 hours, forcing the military to evacuate citizens to drier ground. Part of the Rhine River, which was in severe drought six months ago, is now seeing seriously high water levels.

A strong storm killed 14 people in Argentina, striking with winds up to 150 km/h (93 mph). Brazil hit new December highs. A heat wave in Indonesia broke records too.

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An oil refinery in Isfahan, Iran went up in flames, although it is uncertain whether it was an accident, sabotage, or an act of War. Yet despite cargo ships being rerouted from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope, analysts don’t forecast oil exceeding $100 a barrel next year. Angola is leaving OPEC over disagreements on production. As heating moves to less-efficient electrical production, people are saying NYC may face winter blackouts in about 10 years.

After Argentina’s new President devalued the Argentinian peso by over 50%, thousands of protestors took to the streets, setting up a showdown between the President’s new policies undermining political protests and the masses.

At least 134 people died from a 6.2 earthquake in China’s Gansu province on Monday night, with 1,000+ injured. Thousands of buildings were damaged, and the quake was considered China’s deadliest earthquake in the last 9 years…did you read anything about this last week?

The U.S. Department of Defense is conducting a study to see if the COVID vaccine helped or hurt members of the armed forces. The answer is obvious, and it will change nothing. A study last week confirmed that vaccines reduced Long COVID in children. The CDC is warning that flu & COVID have not peaked yet this winter. A study from the UK indicated that digital contact tracing (using an app) was indeed a useful tool for tracking the spread of the pandemic. And a new variant, JN.1, has been labeled a “variant of interest” by the WHO. Also, COVID cases rose 52% in the last month globally, compared with the previous month—according to whatever data is still being reported. Anecdotally, lots of people I know have COVID at the moment. When was the last time you wore a mask?

The WHO has recognized “noma” as a tropical disease to be targeted. Noma is a rare gangrenous infection that scars people, and usually kills them. It is commonly associated with malnutrition in the tropics, infections, and bad oral hygiene.

Epidemic diseases are (re)emerging in Gaza following the total Collapse of the healthcare system. The UN is trying to track 14 contagious illnesses that could spread far in the ruins and camps. 85% of people in Gaza have been made homeless, and only 11 of their 36 hospitals are functioning—and even then, only partially. Diarrhea, staph infections, scabies, malnutrition, food poisoning, COVID, skin rashes, and more.

130 white-tailed deer in a section of land only a few square miles were killed by EHD—epizootic hemorrhagic disease, spread by small flies. The disease kills within days, and has led hunters to worry about future hunting herds. Other deer in Wyoming are dying from chronic wasting disease, and biologists fear the pandemic potential now that CWD has reached Yellowstone, one of the largest wildlife reserves in the U.S.

TB is on the rise in the UK, reversing decades of progress made against the historic people-killer. A food security expert is warning that the UK may face major food shortages in food next year because of climate change and global conflicts. Corporate bankruptcies rose significantly this year across the USA and EU.

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A chaotic “election” was held in the DRC on Wednesday, so poorly managed that it was extended another day. Most of the polling stations did not open on time, and 30% of voter materials was said to have been defective. A number of opposition politicians have called for the results to be invalidated, and a second election conducted. Early results favor the incumbent President…

Italy’s PM is reportedly planning a constitutional change that will grant control of the government to whichever party wins the most percent in future elections. Regulators have called AI a danger to the financial system. Iran launched a drone that struck a chemical ship in the Indian Ocean, reports claim.

At a meeting in San Francisco designed to reduce US-China tensions, the Chinese President said China will reunify Taiwan with China, preferably peacefully. Canadians are fleeing Canada in almost-record droves, yet the overall population is booming. Economists think Canada’s economy is only getting worse.

A hotel for 70 asylum-seekers was burnt down in Ireland. Roughly 3M Americans are estimated to be climate migrants already. And the EU Parliament passed a large migration bill, but it probably won’t become law until late next spring.

Ukraine is trying to get its fighting-age men living outside Ukraine to return to join the military. Western outlets, or their readers, are getting bored of covering the War so closely. Russia is allegedly planning a big push to take Avdiivka near the end of January, once the ground is frozen. Yet the New York Times is reporting that Putin allegedly wants a ceasefire—on his terms, of course. It’s unlikely Putin would honor a ceasefire very long anyway…