Last Week in Collapse: July 2-8, 2023
We’ve crossed the tipping points—and the fall is just beginning. Consequences are a dangerous thing.
Last Week in Collapse: July 2-8, 2023
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter bringing together some of the most important, timely, useful, depressing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see moments in Collapse.
This is the 80th newsletter. You can find the June 25-July 1 edition here if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.
Mother Earth has a terrible fever, and the summer is still young. Our planet broke its all-time global average temperature record on Monday (17.01 °C, or 62.6 °F). On Tuesday, we broke another record, at 17.18 °C, and then again on Thursday, at 17.23 °C. That night, Africa hit its all-time hottest night temperature in Algeria—39.6 °C (103 °F).
Montevideo’s (population: 1.77M) drinking water reservoirs are down to 1.8% capacity, and the people are unhappy. The city had begun mixing salt-water with their drinking water to extend the supply, but now officials say there’s about a week’s worth of water left. Emergency wells are being drilled deep into the earth and bottled water is being trucked in. Uruguay’s constitution guarantees free water as a right—but the people are finding out the limits of a promise. Most people will face water shortages—by 2050, this article claims. No doubt it will be much sooner.
When rivers dry up, their salinity and pollution often increases, and the oxygen drops—with devastating consequences. Rivers in Iraq are disappearing, killing the freshwater fish that used to call these rivers home. Drought, water mismanagement, and decades of War and corruption have collapsed the riparian ecosystem, and the economy that it sustained. Things will never go back to the way they were.
After the economies collapse comes extremist violence, according to the UN and researchers in the Sahel. People are hungry for food, and for a purpose; many will try to fulfill both needs by joining armed groups. “When I got there, all they gave me was a gun,” said one militant who joined a group of fighters years ago. “They told me that if I wanted to eat, I’d have to go and fight.” As the rest of the world suffers economic collapse over the next decade, we may witness the emergence of endless, overlapping insurgencies—in fact, they might be here already.
Peter Turchin, the godfather of cliodynamics, believes the 2020s—and the 2030s, 2040s, and so on—will be marked by cycles of violence and discord. He writes: “Popular immiseration together with elite overproduction is an explosive combination…Immiserated masses generate raw energy, while a cadre of counter-elites provides an organization to channel the energy against the ruling class.” Elite overproduction, human egotism, social media, and economic difficulties have brought society to a place where too many are set up to fall down. And they might bring the whole house down with them.
Brace for impact—because El Niño is gonna hit hard this year, and last until next year. As a result, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is predicting with near certainty that the next five years will, overall, be the hottest on record. El Niño is a significant driver towards global warming, and drought & flooding in certain areas. A recent study examines historic El Niño patterns and concluded that system changes can happen more rapidly than anticipated.
At least 45% of tap water in the US has PFAS chemicals, according to a grim study. What can be done about it? Germany has called on Poland to stop polluting the Oder River they both share. Last summer, chemicals from corporations in Poland were alleged to have caused a large-scale fish dieoff.
Simultaneous crop dieoff may lie ahead too. This study from Nature Communications suggests that a series of climate events—droughts, floods, atmospheric waves, etc.—could synchronize and wipe out harvests across the world. These intense “breadbasket failures” could imperil the world food supply—and produce War.
Officials are worried about the wildfire season ahead in Canada, where records have been smashed, and 3+ months of burning remain. The UK is planning to abandon its climate & nature pledge, a roughly $15B USD commitment to protect forests, build renewable energy projects, and other such pursuits.
The Netherlands felt its strongest storm on record. Flooding in Spain and in China and in Mongolia. New temperature records across Canada. Antarctic ocean currents slowing down.
China is applying reflective covers to glaciers in an attempt to prolong their life. Unfortunately there are downstream consequences: chemicals and particles may damage water quality. But the alternative ain’t great either: uncontrolled glacial melt causes glacial lake flooding and other consequences.
Türkiye’s glaciers are also “at risk of extinction”. I reckon it’s a sure thing at this point, the diagnosis is terminal. They can only melt once, but the worst is yet to come. Without glaciers to reflect heat rays back, the earth will heat even faster and the risk of wildfires will rise.
——————————
The Civil War in Sudan has turned 3 months old, and it is expected to last much longer. The insurgent RSF is reportedly in control of most of Khartoum, while the government forces dominate the skies. As many as 5,000 people may have been killed, and over 2.5M displaced, including 600,000 who have fled Sudan altogether. In Lebanon, armed forces have promptly deported thousands of Syrians since April, and appear likely to continue. Lebanon hosts more refugees per capita than any other country in the world.
Over 1,000 Israeli soldiers began military operations in Jenin, a city & refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The IDF used armored bulldozers, snipers and air strikes against what they called a “terrorist stronghold,” while Palestinians used explosive mines, burning tires, guns, mosque loudspeakers, and thrown stones. At least 8 Palestinians were killed, and dozens wounded. It was the largest Israeli operation in the West Bank in years, dwarfing the deadly raid two weeks ago.
It has now been 501 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. A Russian strike in the east killed 8 and wounded 13. Ukrainian intelligence suggested that Russia would create an explosion inside the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on July 5, but it hasn’t happened yet. The IAEA denied Ukraine’s claims that the cooling pond had been mined. Several employees working at the power plant have been allowed to leave. Experts are incredibly worried about the damage from a potential attack against the plant. And now the U.S. is sending cluster bombs to Ukraine—a controversial weapon banned by most states.
Mass mobilization, coupled with a mass exodus of Russians has resulted in an allegedly crumbling economy in Russia, and structural conditions unfavorable to their War. In Ukraine, the economy isn’t doing great either, and they are drafting men to fight too, but they say conscription will end after the War is over—whenever that is. Meanwhile, the conglomerate holding company Unilever (responsible for the brands Ben & Jerry’s, AXE, Lipton, Q-tips, among others) has been branded an “international sponsor of war” by Ukraine’s government. Moldova’s economy is also reportedly in bad shape because of the War.
General Khalifa Haftar, the strong-man of eastern Libya, is warning the western half to share their oil revenues more generously—or his armed forces will intercede. Haftar gave a deadline of about 8 weeks for their compliance.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Last Week in Collapse to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.