Last Week in Collapse: December 3-9, 2023

Global environmental tipping points are being (re)assessed, while conflict zones slide into Warlordism.

Last Week in Collapse: December 3-9, 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. You can think of this like an Advent Calendar of Doom.

This is the 102nd newsletter. You can find the November 26-December 2 edition here if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.

The 2023 Global Tipping Points study was released on Wednesday at COPout28. It may be the best document coming from this year’s conference. However, the full report is 478 pages long, and covers 26 tipping points. A catastrophic spiral of converging factors, events, and processes could result in a “regime shift” to our shared ecosystems, and a “critical transition” into whatever comes next. Tipping points are acknowledged to be near for the Amazon rainforest, and other biomes (Sahel, undersea, Arctic) exhibit evidence that their points may have already been tipped. There’s a lot to process here, so I have included three paragraphs of highlighted, out-of-context quotes; perhaps next week I will come back to this and say more.

“ the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s great overturning circulation combined with global warming could cause half of the global area for growing wheat and maize to be lost….Crossing one harmful tipping point could trigger others, causing a domino effect of accelerating and unmanageable change to our life-support systems….the impacts of the Earth system tipping points are clearly ‘negative’ for most (if not all) people and many species….the response of the sea ice cover to global warming is expected to remain linear as a function of global mean temperature until the complete loss of the summer sea ice cover that is expected to occur for the first time before 2050 in all future climate scenarios….Once a destabilisation threshold is passed {for glaciers}...the retreat phase is largely self-perpetuating, independent of climatic conditions or their changes….”

“a conservative estimate suggested that about 20 GtC {1 gigatonne = 1B tonnes} are currently locked in permafrost-associated gas hydrates….for every additional 1°C of warming, there will be a 25 per cent reduction in the global volume of perennially frozen ground found near the surface….The loss of ground ice and the ecosystem changes are irreversible, with many local implications on topography and hydrology, including subsidence, drying or wetting, and changes in the microbial communities….a consequential abrupt release of permafrost carbon through this ‘compost bomb’ mechanism is assessed to be unlikely….all parts of the cryosphere will be at increasing risk of further decline….Coastal hypoxia….”

“In the cryosphere, six Earth system tipping points are identified, including large-scale tipping points for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets…In the biosphere, 16 Earth system tipping points are identified, including forest dieback (e.g. in the Amazon), savanna and dryland degradation, lake eutrophication, die-off of coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass meadows, and fishery collapse….Multiple drivers, interactions and feedback loops can make tipping thresholds difficult to assess….over 75 per cent of the Amazon has lost resilience since the early 2000s….Another possible mechanism of hysteresis is the so-called Allee effect, which takes place when recruitment of a population (the process by which new organisms are added to a population) is positively correlated with its biomass. This means that a minimum population size is needed for the population to grow; otherwise it collapses.”

A number of pledges have been made at the COP28 climate conference: many countries aim to triple renewable energy by 2030, and a number of countries vowed to triple nuclear energy production by 2030 too. 120+ countries promised to “place health at the heart of climate action,” whatever that means. And the UAE announced that it had committed $30B USD into a (private) climate investment fund…

The 2023 Global Carbon Budget is out, and humankind produced a record amount of CO2! Earth has gone from roughly 278 CO2 ppm (parts per million) in the year 1750 to roughly 420 ppm today. Wildfires are blazing and the air quality has dropped in the U.S.

The Carbon Budget also claims that 46% of all CO2 emissions came from coal, 35% from oil, and 15% from natural gas. From 1850-2022, the U.S. accounts for 24% of all cumulative emissions, followed by the EU at 17% and China with 15%. Next year is expected to generate more emissions than 2023.

Above: The effect of CO2 on the climate from 2013-2022.

Meanwhile, a study confirmed that the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica potentially crossed its tipping point 80 years ago. The scientists suggested that its melt may have been triggered by a temporary current of warm ocean water, from which the glacier could never recover.

For six months in a row, the earth broke monthly temperature records. LA is trying to pivot to better local water collection ahead of a dry future. The rapidly dried-up Aral Sea stands as a testament to the fragility of our ecosystems. A Chinese study confirmed that a 40 °C heat wave in June was a result of human-caused climate change. People continue to discuss solar dimming and other geoengineering possibilities—although no single solution will cover all the climate’s problems, nor can their full consequences be predicted. People are also discussing carbon capture through reforestation, air capture, and other carbon dioxide removal (CDR) practices.

Tunisia is suffering from a shocking drought, and the World Bank predicts that the MENA region will fall below a critical rain threshold by 2030. 20+ small dams in Tunisia went out of service this year.

One study claims that we are likely to hit 1.5 °C warming 7 years from now…slower than expected? Saudi Arabia has definitively rejected phasing out oil. “And I assure you not a single person—I'm talking about governments—believes in that,” said the Saudi Energy Minister.

As the atmosphere heats up, jet streams will get stronger, according to a Nature Climate Change study released two weeks ago. Another study claims that droughts in East Africa will become frequent, predictable, and dangerous. Meanwhile, wildfires burn underground in France, threatening to resurface at a later date.

The Maldives hit a record temperature for December. Portland, Oregon also hit a December high, 67 °F (19.4 °C). Australia is expected to face a brutal summer. Don’t worry too much, the Anthropocene is only going to be around for 50,000+ years.

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The World Food Programme is scaling down its operations in Syria—for the 7th time—mostly as a result of financial difficulties. Much of COPe28 concerns food supplies, a portent of the famines that lie not so far ahead of us.

Millions of tons of plastics end up in oceans every year. A study has found that when many of those floating plastics are exposed to sunlight for a while, they start releasing polymer chemicals which sit on the ocean’s “microlayer,” negatively impacting the upper ocean’s chemistry.

India is bringing a big industry to Africa: battery recycling. Experts say it’s one of the most polluting industries on earth. Lead in particular contaminates the soil near these facilities, which later affects the health of people nearby, or those who rely on local food.

Moody’s has downgraded China’s creditworthiness after adjusting their projected growth rate. Mega-developer Evergrande has two months to restructure itself and manage its debts—its Collapse may send shockwaves (ripples?) through the Chinese global economy.

Pollution is sending mass amounts of Pakistan’s children to hospitals. Cold temps in Lahore are weighing down thick smog, a one-two punch that illustrates how climate change and illness combine. Port Sudan (pre-War pop: ~500,000) is dealing with its all-time worst fly infestation. Billions of flies are multiplying in the area, threatening food spoilage and disease during an increasingly unhinged Civil War.

Economists at the IMF think the global economy is becoming more brittle as globalization slows. Australia’s economy stalled in the latest quarter. American companies are holding their breath as they try to stay afloat. Gold and Bitcoin are soaring. The price of oil has slide down 10% to almost $70 a barrel.

The deputy PM of the UK shared some prepping advice amid the forthcoming launch of a “UK resilience academy” platform to help businesses insulate themselves against future shocks.

Ireland has run out of emergency housing for refugees. Some Burmese refugees in Bangladesh are sailing for Indonesia as conditions (and fish stocks) around the Bangladeshi camps diminish. The roughly 100,000+ refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh went to Armenia, where they are having difficulty finding housing & work.

COVID hospitalizations are increasing, and about 1% of Americans has chronic fatigue syndrome now. Canada is being hit by the convergence of COVID, flu, RSV, and pneumonia. In a moment of good news, a self-replicating mRNA vaccine has been approved by Japanese health officials; this could be a landmark moment in vaccine development.

Hundreds of elephant seals were killed by avian flu.

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A grisly accidental drone strike in Nigeria slew 85 civilians, misidentified as Boko Haram militants. 60+ others were hospitalized in the attack.

An army veteran killed 6 in a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, including his own parents. Another shooter at a university in Nevada killed 3 before being slain by police.

Russia- and China-linked hackers reportedly infiltrated the UK’s largest nuclear site, Sellafield, on the Cumbrian coast. Sellafield hasn’t generated nuclear power for 20 years, but it still processes and stores nuclear fuel. But the hacking was the least of their problems: reports claim that there is a decaying nuclear silo leaking radiation into the soil, and a spent fuel pool whose concrete barrier has cracked.

The educational system in Afghanistan is facing total Collapse. Gang violence increases in Sweden. Australia is softly turning against immigration increases. Colombia’s Presidente, a (former) guerrilla fighter, warned that middle-class people will sooner vote for conservatives than lose their standard of comfort and wealth. The EU passed a major AI regulations law—though it won’t go into effect until 2025…

Peace talks in Jeddah between Sudan’s warring factions have been suspended indefinitely because of mutual distrust and strategizing. The U.S. says both sides have committed war crimes. In southern Sudan, RSF forces burned a village. TIME Magazine is calling it “Warlordism” let loose. Hundreds, potentially thousands, of people have been killed in Darfur, and there are reports of some being buried alive.

The UK continues to insist on deportations to Rwanda despite legal adversity and larger numbers of migrants/asylum-seekers entering this year and clogged asylum backlogs. The UK is also failing to reach Paris targets of emissions reduction.