Last Week in Collapse: May 11-17, 2025
A record broken, a glacier gone, a dark scheme spoken, another black swan. A plastic planet, a funeral held, another war threat, our doom is spelled.
Last Week in Collapse: May 11-17, 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 177th weekly newsletter. You can find the May 4-10, 2025 edition here on Reddit if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack. Please share this with someone if you think they ought to read it, too.
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In Memoriam: Yala Glacier, in Nepal, has been declared dead. Several dozen hiked to a mountaintop funeral service last week to pay their respects and erect a grisly monument on the long-monitored site. The ceremony marks the first such event for a glacier’s demise in Asia. Although there is still ice at the site, its classification has changed from ‘white glacier’ to ‘rocky with debris.’ Extinction Rebellion also hosted a funeral for the 1.5 °C Paris Climate target, which humanity has blown carelessly past.
It turns out that the environmental impact of plastic is greater than previously believed. The reason: its presence in surface water, in soil, and beyond interferes with the natural biological cycle, and with how animals & plants sequester and release carbon. Some 5% of CO2 emissions are currently produced by plastics production worldwide. In related news, scientists are pointing to micro/nanoplastics in connection with strokes.
A newly published study in PLOS Climate examined 161 countries, and the study challenges the “moral high ground” and the notion that democracies are “greener” than their authoritarian counterparts. The authors write that democracies basically simply outsource the consequences of their consumption to other places. Theirs is not a new argument, per se, but one seldom spelt out so concisely.
“...states engage in a more indirect form of externalizing environmental consequences: having changed their production and consumption patterns over the past few decades, some countries offshore major portions of their environmental impacts of domestic consumption. International trade plays a key role in this process: instead of manufacturing highly polluting goods domestically, some countries import these goods from abroad, effectively transferring the environmental burden to the exporting states…”
“...Theoretically, democracies are linked to higher levels of pollution offshoring for two interconnected reasons. First, greater freedom in science, public opinion formation and expression, and the impact of interest groups, competing political parties, or news media outlets allow for stronger public demand for environmental protection. In response, democratic policymakers – who have stronger incentives to address public concerns compared to their authoritarian counterparts – may implement stricter environmental policies. This, in turn, can drive ‘domestic greening through pollution offshoring,’ as more demanding local regulations lead industries to shift pollution-intensive activities abroad or cede the respective market to producers in other countries. Second, political liberties are closely tied to economic freedoms including trade and consumption. This creates a tension between economic liberty and the public demand for higher environmental quality. When goods are produced domestically, greater economic freedoms often lead to increased pollution. However, unrestricted international trade allows democratic policymakers to meet domestic environmental demands without imposing strict regulations or making pollution-intensive consumption more expensive. Citizens, who are also consumers, tend to prioritize environmental quality within their own country over the environmental impact of goods produced abroad, and this contributes to a shift in polluting industries to countries abroad that prioritize economic growth over environmental protection. International trade and the presence of less affluent, less democratic countries with weaker environmental regulations facilitate this process...”
Türkiye has reportedly discovered 20 billion barrels’ worth of oil in Somalia, with exploration ongoing at another site. An earlier deal inked between the two countries grants Türkiye about 90% of the profits of the critical resource.
Flooding in the DRC killed 100+. A wildfire in Manitoba killed two and displaced 1,000+ others. England faces its driest start to spring in almost 70 years, while the Netherlands is feeling its driest on record. Parts of Australia are feeling their warmest April on record—and a worsening Drought. A colossal algal bloom (roughly the size of Kangaroo Island, or Cebu in the Philippines) off the coast of South Australia has been blamed for the death of 200+ marine species...…and the algae are still expanding.
A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution examined the impact of a 22-year Drought on part of the Amazon rainforest. For the first 15 years of Drought, part of the forest—mainly large, old trees, composing one third of the plot’s biomass—experienced dieoff, and hurt the forest’s ability to sequester carbon. Their death freed up water for smaller plants to use, but overall “reduced biomass and carbon accumulation in wood.”
A study published a couple months ago generally predicts more extreme rain events and heat waves for the American Southeast as the century drags on.
Despite a snowy winter, Switzerland’s glaciers ended winter with below-average quantities of snow, a result mostly blamed on rising temperatures and increasing concentrations of dust. Elsewhere, experts are predicting a really low year for Lake Mead. On a remote Australian island, birds are filling their stomachs with plastic waste—there is a 6-second video in the article I recommend listening to.
Part of the Ivory Coast set a new minimum temperature for May, 26 °C. Regions of Canada also set new minimums. Wildfires burn in Syria. Troubling warmth in the Arctic—and data from May 9 indicate that it was the hottest May 9th (measuring surface temperatures) on record.
A complicated study from last week concludes that soil can release a large quantity of carbon when exposed to rising temperatures. Flash flooding killed 17 in Somalia. New heat records in part of Indonesia, with a new minimum & maximum temperature set—25.9 °C and 36.4 °C (97.5 °F).
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Well, I was recently diagnosed with COVID—again. It was my third confirmed case of the virus, perhaps my 4th, or 5th (or 6th) time if counting unconfirmed experiences. It hit me hard but I bounced back quickly. Although nobody seems to mask or test anymore, I was surprised at how seriously people behave when I share that I had COVID, and how strongly some believed I must tell my recent contacts and self-isolate, etc… But these same people have not worn a mask in years, or tested themselves, or got vaccine boosters, or changed their long-term habits in any appreciable way from their pre-COVID lives. So do we care about the pandemic, or do we not? What is happening to our psychology around this?
New research on Long COVID shows that associated brain inflammation is linked to poor stress regulation. The study also indicated that Long COVID may interfere with the brain’s ability to form new connections and process language. Other researchers say that inactivity before COVID infection raises the risk of Long COVID. And there is doubt as to whether a new COVID booster will even be released in the U.S. this fall—and if it is, the HHS Department will recommend only older adults to get it.
USAID cuts left 100,000+ hungry in refugee camps near the Thailand-Myanmar border. In the UK, spending cuts and falling consumer confidence forecast bleak economic times ahead, and the EU is reintroducing tariffs on agricultural imports from Ukraine. U.S. Republicans are trying to make Trump’s tax cuts permanent amid a slew of other financial measures which economists say, overall, will grow the federal debt by more than $6T over the coming decade. You cannot continue unsustainable practices forever…
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