Last Week in Collapse: March 10-16, 2024
Bird flu, famine, heat waves, War, inflation, AI dangers, prions, desperation, terrorism, and a death from bubonic plague. A full slate of disasters.
Last Week in Collapse: March 10-16, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 116th newsletter. You can find the March 3-9 edition here on Reddit if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) released its first ever Climate Risk Assessment—its 40-page executive summary summarizes an unedited 425-page full report. In short, prevention & adaptation are falling far short of what would be necessary to resist global climate change. Particular urgent & dangerous risks highlighted in the summary include: aquatic ecosystem collapse, southern European carbon sinks, heat stress (there were over 60,000 “premature deaths” across Europe in 2022), shrinking crop production (particularly in southern Europe), river/coastal flooding, wildfires (especially in southern Europe), insurance markets, “European solidarity mechanisms,” and water scarcities (predominantly in southern Europe). “Extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and flooding, as experienced in recent years, will worsen in Europe even under optimistic global warming scenarios and affect living conditions throughout the continent.” No doubt other continents will face many of the same problems.
Winter storms are coming later than usual to India—and, when they arrive in the late spring, are fiercer than ever before. The lack of snowpack, which gradually melts and provides consistent irrigation water through the spring, has been replaced by sudden, voluminous floods which do not ration water as well. “The rapid warming of the Tibetan Plateau…[is] fueling a stronger jet stream that powers more frequent and intense storms….[while] the jet stream is increasingly lingering at southerly latitudes later into spring and summer, allowing more storms to strike North India after the winter snow season.”
Temperature records were broken in West & South Africa. A number of Latin American locations have also broken March records for all-time heat, including 46.5 °C (116 °F) in part of central Mexico. Hobart, Tasmania’s capital, saw its hottest night in 112 years. Yet scientists are allegedly in dispute over whether these anomalies are really beyond climate predictions, according to the Guardian.
Shell Oil is backtracking on its sustainability pledges in a 33-page Energy Transition Report 2024. It appears as if they’ve entirely abandoned their 2035 target for emissions and are leaning further into LNG extraction, and away from renewable electricity production. Last year, Shell abandoned its carbon offsets effort to refocus on its core market: fossil fuels.
Mexico City’s water shortage worsens. Meanwhile, England just had its wettest 18 months since records began 188 years ago. A study on Scotland’s 125,000+ km of rivers (77,000+ miles) concluded that river temperatures are warming—with downstream effects on industry and ecology.
Scientists are appealing the decision regarding the proposed Anthropocene epoch, which was rejected two weeks ago by a committee of geologists. Other geologists discovered reserves of gas hydrates off the Philippines coast, which may be used for energy (and CO2) production. Meanwhile, the American EPA concluded that the methane emissions from the United States are actually about triple the government’s projections…
England’s largest rhododendron bush flowered a month earlier than usual, as a result of record warm temperatures last month. Trees are growing across the Brooks Range in northern Alaska where once there was frozen earth; other trees in the area have shown incredible growth in recent years due to warming temperatures.
A study in Nature Communications determined that increasing aerosol emissions out of South/East Asia has been contributing to the slowdown of the AMOC for about 30 years. Meanwhile, the director of NOAA has urged further examining the potential of geoengineering as part of a strategy to stalling/mitigating the effects of climate change.
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A man in New Mexico died of the bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, last week, marking the first plague death in the States since 2020. Researchers are attempting to track down a possible source of infection.
The scale of Zambia’s cholera outbreak is reversing decades of progress made in the region to stymie the deadly bacterial disease. The pandemic is compounded by rising malaria cases, and the strain these illnesses are having on the entire healthcare system, which is understaffed and lacking equipment & medicine.
Dengue fever is ripping across Brazil, following its conquest of Peru, Paraguay, and Argentina, spreading faster than ever before. Vaccines are in incredibly short supply, and, although production is scaling up, vaccines are expected to remain in high demand five years from now. Some countries, like Argentina, are selling the dengue vaccine (which lasts for ~6 years) for about $45 USD—one quarter of the nation’s minimum monthly salary.
The so-called “Man in the Iron Lung,” who was dependent on on the device after contracting polio 72 years ago, was killed by COVID last week; he was 78. Some scientists believe we are close to eradicating polio after 19 weeks of no new infections…It has now been one year since a case of polio was detected in New York state’s wastewater.
Across the United States, Long COVID symptoms are spiking; the CDC estimates about 7% of Americans have symptoms. What do y’all suppose the real figure is? An Australian health official claimed that we should stop using the term “Long COVID” because its symptoms aren’t so different from post-flu….although that’s not at all true. Depending on when you consider the official start of the pandemic, it has been 4 years since our collective COVID emergency took off, and 4 years since the COVID stock market crash.
South Georgia, a British island in the far South Atlantic Ocean, has recorded 10 cases of avian flu among its penguins, of which there are several different species. The virus was expected to make landfall on the historic breeding & gathering point for some time, and scientists are concerned that H5N1 will spread rapidly among the crowded birds—and perhaps beyond.
Cocoa prices hit record highs, at $7000 per ton; chocolate prices are expected to continue rising. Reuters reports that the number of American preppers has doubled since 2017, and diversified amid fears of political unrest. Spain and Italy’s appetite for Argentinian grain (for their animals) is driving deforestation and illegal logging.
“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” China’s shipbuilding industry—for commercial ships—is far and away leading the world, spelling concern for the U.S.-led order, which secures the safety for most ocean-faring trade. Last year, the U.S. produced 10 ships (less than 1% of global ship production), while China produced 1,000+. The vast majority of port cranes are also manufactured in China, and the global logistics software is run by China. More ships = more consumption.
Bengaluru (Bangalore, greater pop: 24M), India is facing a water shortage amid a water dispute with a neighboring state. Parts of at least 12 West/Central African countries have lost internet after critical subsea cables were disturbed. Tension over TikTok, arguably the world’s most popular app, may lead to its forcible sale or prohibition in a handful of countries.
UN personnel are warning of “catastrophic hunger” coming to Sudan this spring. Save The Children claims that over 220,000 people, mostly children, will die if their hunger is not alleviated. Famine is also growing in Gaza, and in Haiti too. “Famine, Disease, and War” cause most deaths in Collapse, wrote one recently deceased collapsenik.
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The global arms market is experiencing change, and France is catching up with many of the world’s strongest nations. The Top 5 arms exports are now: the United States, France, Russia, China, and Germany. Russia and Germany have seen double-digit declines in arms sales. Ukraine is currently unsurprisingly the world’s largest recipient of arms. Explore the searchable database here if you’re interested.
North Korea has rolled out a new tank which it first unveiled in 2020. Kim Jong-Un has also ordered the soldiers to prepare for War—not for the first time. How many times will he say it before something happens?
Artificial Intelligence is posing a growing threat to national security—says a new report from the U.S. State Department. The full, 284-page report is available only upon request, but a 13-page executive summary is readily available.
“The recent explosion of progress in advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has brought great opportunities, but it is also creating entirely new categories of weapons of mass destruction-like (WMD-like) and WMD-enabling catastrophic risks….The risks associated with these developments are global in scope, have deeply technical origins, and are evolving quickly. As a result, policymakers face a diminishing opportunity to introduce technically informed safeguards that can balance these considerations and ensure advanced AI is developed and adopted responsibly….competitive dynamics risk triggering an AGI arms race and increase the likelihood of global- and WMD-scale fatal accidents, interstate conflict, and escalation.” -excerpts from the executive summary
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