Last Week in Collapse: June 29-July 5, 2025
A scorching hot June ends, Russia’s largest drone attack of the War (so far), colossal cuts to climate research; plus terrorism, flooding, and Droughts. The worst is yet to come.
Last Week in Collapse: June 29-July 5, 2025
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 184th weekly newsletter. You can find the long June 22-28, 2025 edition here if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack, and congratulations on making it through half the year.
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An unprecedented heat wave moved through much of western & southern Europe, setting new monthly records in Spain and Portugal and England and Slovenia, where temperatures hit 46 °C (115 °F) in some places. The Mediterranean Sea broke its old June temperature record last Sunday, at 26.01 °C (78.2 °F). Heat alerts were issued in France, Italy, the UK, the Balkans, and beyond. Europe is warming faster than most of earth. Japan also ended its hottest June on record, and Boston saw its hottest June day ever, at 102 °F (39 °C).
A study on the Southern Ocean investigated the period after 2015, when the Ocean’s ice content plunged and its salinity unexpectedly spiked. The higher salt content also contributed to the reemergence of the Maud Rise polynya, a strange hole of water in the Antarctic ice that reappeared in winter 2016 after 40 years of solid ice. The researchers say that this warming, salting trend is also reducing ice stratification, and that monitoring sea surface salinity is a useful metric for predicting future sea ice loss. Some say that Antarctic ice is in “terminal decline.”
Sea ice in the Arctic hit another all-time low (for this time of the year) last week, according to data from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center hosted at the University of Colorado Boulder. At the end of this July, this data will stop being available, as a result of massive ongoing budget cuts for U.S. environmental science.
Proposed changes to NOAA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are expected to reduce its budget by 30%, and eliminate all funding for the Global Monitoring Laboratory, “Regional Climate Data and Information, Climate Competitive Research, the National Sea Grant College Program, Sea Grant Aquaculture Research, or the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.” Climate research grants will also be cut completely. Even the Mauna Loa Observatory, where CO2 ppm measurements have been taken regularly since 1958, is likely to close down. Total NOAA staff are expected to be cut by about 18%, from some 12,000 total employees. CO2 ppm has risen from about 320 ppm in the 1960s to about 430 ppm today, an increase of over 34%.
Wildfires in western Türkiye forced the evacuation of 50,000+ people. Pakistan’s government announced the deaths of 46 killed by a week of flooding. Part of Indonesia hit record highs for June, at 37.2 °C (99 °F). Storms in New South Wales left tens of thousands without power. The population of Arctic terns—a kind of seabird—are plummeting at breeding sites, blamed on bird flu, food scarcity, and climate change.
“Super pollutants” are greenhouse gases (like methane, CH4) and aerosols (black carbon) which, pound for pound, cause a stronger warming effect than CO2. They have a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere when compared to CO2, but their combined impact is about equal to CO2 when it comes to atmospheric warming. Experts also warn about the health impact that some of these aerosols have on humans. A couple weeks ago, a key satellite tracking methane in oil & gas sites went offline due to an unexplained error, and scientists believe it is not able to be fixed. The $88M satellite had not even collected data for one year, and was launched with an expected lifespan of five years.
A recent study looked at the Permian–Triassic Mass Extinction (aka: The Great Dying, earth’s worst extinction event so far) some 252M years ago, caused by major volcanoes erupting across Siberia. CO2 levels rose from about 400 ppm to approximately 2,500 ppm in the aftermath. The researchers wanted to figure out “why super-greenhouse conditions persisted for around five million years after the volcanic episode” and determined that it could have been a comprehensive loss of vegetation, especially in tropical areas, which prevented CO2 from being removed from the atmosphere. They concluded that “thresholds exist in the climate-carbon system whereby warming can be amplified by vegetation collapse” and from which point carbon removal becomes quite difficult.
A couple weeks ago, the OECD published its 143-page Global Drought Outlook, which went under my radar at the time. The report outlines various factors increasing Drought frequency worldwide, “the links between climate change, water use, {and} land-use changes,” impacts of Droughts on the economy and society in general, possible adaptations, glacier depletion, and inequalities aggravated by Droughts. There are also a number of useful graphs.
“Given the considerable warming already locked into the Earth’s climate system, the increasing trend in drought occurrence is unlikely to reverse in the near future….the global land area affected by drought doubled between 1900 and 2020….40% of the world’s land area faces increasingly frequent and severe droughts….climate change made the 2022 European drought up to 20 times more likely and increased the likelihood of the ongoing drought in North America by 42%. Projections suggest that under a +4°C warming scenario, droughts could become up to seven times more frequent and intense compared to a scenario with no climate change…..droughts cause 34% of all disaster-related deaths and exacerbate displacement and migration, especially in SubSaharan Africa….economic losses and damages due to droughts are increasing with an annual rate of 3-7.5%” -excerpts from the full report
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights published an advisory opinion last week declaring that states have international obligations to combat climate change, and that humans have a right to a healthy environment. Meanwhile, a buoy off Mallorca’s coast logged a temperature of 31 °C, several degrees warmer than common for July. Quneitra, a mostly abandoned settlement in the Syria-Israel buffer zone, has seen 98% of dams hit “dead storage” levels amid a terrible Drought. A city in South Korea hit a new all-time minimum temperature of 30.4 °C (87 °F) last week.
A 51-page UN report on global Drought from 2023-2025 profiles 7 hotspots across earth and the impacts of Drought. Effets range from crop failures, famine, displacement, and power rationing to saltwater intrusion, shipping delays, crippling water shortages, and wildfires.
“Five consecutive years of failed rainy seasons in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya brought the worst drought in seventy years to the Horn of Africa by January 2023….Meat and cereal grain production suffered as Morocco’s drought stretched across sixth consecutive years….Türkiye’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister stated that half of Türkiye’s population and 80 per cent of the country’s irrigated agriculture could be at risk of water shortages {by 2030}....Droughts are expected to worsen in the Amazon basin as climate change continues: Recent estimates found that, by the year 2050, up to 47 per cent of the Amazon rainforest will be threatened by drought and wildfire….Water supply shortages, agricultural failures, and power rationing were common impacts seen around the world….As much as 40% of water in Mexico City, 60% in parts of the U.S, and 80% in small Catalan communities is lost to leaks…..” -selections from the report
A flash flood in Texas killed at least 51; 15+ others are still unaccounted for. The city manage in the Texas town says that 12 inches (30 cm) of water fell in a couple hours, far more than weather forecasts predicted—the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet (8 meters) in about 45 minutes, sweeping away homes, vehicles, and people. Meanwhile, a doomy study in Global Change Biology suggests that global warming “disrupts key pathways of soil N{itrogen} stabilization” which leads to weaker plants, less CO2 absorption, and the irreversible emission of CO2 from the soil.
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U.S. Republicans narrowly passed a wide-ranging bill that is projected to add $3T to the national debt, deny healthcare to about 12M people in the country, and extend the tax cuts instituted by Trump in 2017. The U.S. Dollar experienced its “worst start to the year” in 52 years, a consequence of government fiscal mismanagement, tariffs, and eroding independence of the Federal Reserve.
A 74-page report by the World Bank was published last Sunday, outlining the fragile geopolitical environment and its relation to poverty worldwide. The World Bank classifies 39 states as facing “fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS)”, containing 1B+ people. “The number of conflicts and related fatalities have more than tripled since the early 2000s, says the report.
“By 2030, FCS economies are projected to account for nearly 60 percent of the world’s extreme poor….over half of them are in active conflict, while others are in an early post-conflict phase….Progress on poverty reduction has stalled since the mid-2010s….These economies are constrained by deep, intertwined obstacles— most prominently, severe institutional weakness and armed conflict…..The number of conflicts and related fatalities have more than tripled since the early 2000s….FCS economies will struggle to reach output levels projected before the COVID-19 pandemic, even by the end of the current decade….natural disasters, including more frequent and severe extreme weather events related to climate change, have exacerbated food insecurity….Many FCS economies also face price volatility stemming from high dependence on imported food and energy…” -excerpts from the report
A study from a couple weeks ago examined whether westerners would be open to eating insects as a substitute for traditional meat. Livestock farming is the #1 contributor to deforestation, and “it is predicted that by 2030, meat consumption will be responsible for 37% of the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions permissible under the 2 °C target.” The researchers determined that strong “feelings of disgust” are a massive barrier for widespread adoption of insect-eating, and that plant-based alternatives are much more likely to be accepted by people in the West. Some 2B people worldwide currently eat bugs as part of their diet. What do you think?
Since the pandemic, the amount of money Brits owe for council taxes—basically a property tax to fund local services—has risen 85%, and hundreds of thousands of households are reportedly unable to pay, burdened with debt and a worsening cost-of-living crisis.
Trump’s tariff chaos has resulted in long waits at European ports, as rerouted ships are crowding out import zones working at maximum capacity. Low river levels, caused by rising temperatures and seemingly omnipresent Drought, have also impeded some river barges’ movement. The specter of future 17% farm tariffs on a wide range of foodstuffs also threatens to hike prices of imported EU food in the U.S.
Unborn dolphins were found to be carrying unsafe concentrations of toxic metals transferred from their mothers. Lone star ticks are spreading across the U.S. east coast and South, spreading a disease that causes allergies to eating red meat. 16 years ago, fewer than 100 cases of this illness were believed to be in humans; now the number is estimated at perhaps 450,000!
Cracks have appeared in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, and one historian claims the “building’s foundation is unstable, its corridors hollow, and it’s absorbing more strain than it can handle.” Meanwhile, a top U.S. health official floated the idea of letting bird flu run rampant through commercial flocks in order to preserve bird which appear to be immune to the avian flu—but experts insist that’s not how genetics work.
The Nimbus variant of COVID is reportedly causing a new symptom: “razor-blade like sore throats.” And the up-and-coming Stratus variant is said to inflict a terribly raspy voice on some who contract it. The Stratus variant is also said to be more immuno-evasive than previous strains; it is already believed to be the dominant strain in India. U.S. health officials are also discouraging future COVID vaccines by highlighting the tiny risk (1 case per 125,000) of myocarditis which the vaccines reportedly cause.
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East African opposition activists were reportedly subjected to “sexual torture” by Tanzanian police after attending a court hearing for a Tanzanian political challenger charged with treason. In Mexico, 20 bodies were found dead—including 4 headless corpses hanging from a bridge—, killed by cartel fighters. In Sudan, reports of the desperately starving tell of locals eating weeds, and even sucking on coal, to survive—or at least mute the pangs of hunger for a moment.
Air strikes continued in Gaza for another painful week. 23 reported slain last Sunday. A missile strike in Gaza hit a popular café, killing 20+ and wounding more. Over 80% of Gaza’s land is currently under IDF evacuation orders. The struggle for food & medicine often turns violent—sometimes by Israeli soldiers, other times by local clans, gangs, local militias, or Hamas fighters seeking survival and leverage. There are never enough supplies for everyone. Ahead of ceasefire talks, Israel escalated strikes, killing about 90 people on Wednesday night.
American officials are warning about Iran’s potential activation of sleeper cells to mount terror attacks in the West. Some experts believe Iran will exit the treaty on nuclear non-proliferation, following the U.S. strikes on Iran’s strategic nuclear sites. The move is also expected to trigger Saudi Arabia’s announced exit from the treaty. They may not be the only ones seeking the Bomb in this insecure, competitive environment. Iran is working to rebuild damaged infrastructure in Fordo. Meanwhile, North Korea is accused of releasing radioactive waste into a river that meets the ocean less than 50 km from Seoul (pop: 10M) and Incheon (pop: 2.8M).
An alleged Chinese plot to crash a car into Taiwan’s VP’s car (or perhaps another car, it’s not clear) while she was visiting Prague was foiled; the plan was reportedly part of an intimidation scheme as regional tensions build. China also unveiled a graphite bomb last week, a precise & non-kinetic weapon designed to disable power stations. These graphite bombs reportedly can target & affect an area of 10,000 sq meters (about 140% of a standard football/soccer field), and are theorized to be part of the opening salvo of a proper Chinese assault against Taiwan.
Russia claims to have seized all of Luhansk oblast in Ukraine, as well as a large lithium mine. In fact, June was Russia’s most successful month for seizing new territory since November 2024. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones hit a war matériel factory deep inside Russia, killing three and wounding 45 others. Ukraine announced that they are withdrawing from a treaty prohibiting the stockpiling and use of anti-personnel landmines. North Korea is sending 30,000 more soldiers to help Russia in the coming months, according to Ukrainian intelligence. On Thursday night into Friday morning, Russia launched a 7-hour series of air strikes at Kyiv—the largest number of drones (550) in a single Russian attack—injuring 20+ but killing none. An abrupt pause on U.S. weapons to Ukraine went into effect on Wednesday, and it’s uncertain when shipments will resume.
The world’s largest ever paid concert (~500,000 attendees) happened last week …for a Christofascist, Nazi-sympathizer rock star in Croatia—more than ⅛ of all Croatians (total pop: 3.8M) are said to have attended. An Australian synagogue door was set aflame while 20 people inside shared a Shabbat meal; none were injured. U.S.-based academics are looking for the exit as government cuts to research and education (alongside rising anti-intellectual sentiment) add pressure to their careers in the United States.
Security forces in Togo reportedly killed seven people protesting in large groups against the sitting president—and then dumped their bodies in the river. “We’re hungry. Nothing works for Togolese youth any more,” said one protestor about ten days ago. In Mali, jihadist forces were repelled, and suffered 80+ dead, after attacking a few bases at a coordinated time. Tens of thousands of Afghans in Iran were deported to Afghanistan last week; hundreds of thousands more will follow.
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Things to watch for next week include:
↠ Wednesday, 9 July marks the day when Trump’s reciprocal tariffs come into effect, targeting a range of product categories: medicine, steel, automobiles, lumber, electronics, and more. Some countries will receive exceptions for certain products, others are scrambling for last-minute deals, and others will be left in the lurch. The Bank of International Settlements, an international central bank, is warning that the tariffs could result in “economic fragmentation,” a weaker U.S. Dollar, and a declining global economy.
Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-Europe got cooked last week. This weekly observation from Central Europe is an eloquent comment on modern society, predatory technology, and the increasing complexity of navigating life.
-AI is a frustrating, loathsome abomination. So says this super popular thread, and its 750+ comments.
-Earth’s albedo is decreasing…faster than expected. So says this comprehensive post from a fellow Substacker on carbon emissions and our deteriorating planetary albedo (the reflectivity of earth, sending solar radiation back into outer space). Nice & terrifying graphics in the attached article, too.
-“What is currently on the brink of collapse but no one is talking about it?” That is the question asked by this post in r/AskReddit last week; it seems to be a common question in that subreddit recently. Many of the answers will not shock you, but the 900+ comments offer some suggestions that I have never seen referenced on r/Collapse.
Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, predictions, solar setups, complaints, doomy reports, etc.? Click here if you want to read the Reddit comments on this week’s edition. As always, thank you for your support. What did I miss this week?
In addition to reports of increased salinity in the Southern Ocean, this report:
https://iefworld.org/SMOCreversal2025
details the collapse and reversal of the SMOC (Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation). Attention has been focused on the Atlantic version (AMOC), but it seems to me that this should be a bigger news story since it will dramatically accelerate the loss of sea ice in the Southern Ocean.
Can you, please, explain to me why the C3S "Climate Pulse" is showing a dramatic DECREASE in the Global Surface Air Temp.? What is causing this huge, sudden temp decline?