Last Week in Collapse: May 19-25, 2024

Microplastics, heat waves, terrorism, bird flu, and another big iceberg breaking off Antarctica.

Last Week in Collapse: May 19-25, 2024

This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.

This is the 126th newsletter. You can find the May 12-18 edition here if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.

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Climatologists predict many more heat waves across southern Asia over the coming decades. Hundreds of people were treated for heatstroke in Pakistan after a 49 °C (120 °F) heat wave rolled through. Temperatures are expected to reach 55 °C (131 °F) by the end of May. In Mexico, 80+ monkeys dropped dead of heat stroke, with many others requiring medical attention. It’s gonna be a bad hurricane season.

We are experiencing another negative side effect from microplastics: they are reducing the rate of carbon sinking in the oceans. This is because clumps of carbon, which would ordinarily sink to the seafloor, are also taking in microplastics, which are more buoyant. Increased concentrations of micro/nanoplastics also interfere with phytoplankton’s ability to capture carbon. But some good news: two teenage inventors have created an object that filters out microplastics using ultrasonic sound waves.

Mismanagement of grazing lands worldwide is resulting in their breakdown, and the release of larger quantities of carbon. One researcher said that “almost 35—even 50 percent—of rangelands are already degraded,” a significant amount of land, considering over half the earth’s land is classified as such.

A 4.4 tremor near an Italian supervolcano, followed by dozens of mini-quakes, forced the evacuation of at-risk residents. Scientists continue warning about ocean water undercutting the Doomsday Glacier causing “vigorous melting.” A new calving has split a large iceberg off Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf, weeks after a new crack had appeared.

A study looking into endangered species claims researchers have a bias towards land animals, neglecting fungi, plants, and marine animals. They say this narrow focus is leading to “silent extinction” among understudied organism species necessary to maintain stable biodiversity.

Migratory fish stocks have Collapsed by over 80% since 1970, scientists say. Drought has destroyed 70% of lemons in Karnataka state (pop: 64M), India, while strawberry harvests were hit in northern India. Martinique declared its first Drought ever.

Southern Vietnam hit an all-time high temperature at night. And a number of Caribbean records were broken last week as well. Sydney, Australia, continues breaking new climate/weather records. 66 more people died in flooding in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia is warning of incredible temperatures at this year’s Hajj. And let’s not forget new sea-surface temperatures in the north Atlantic.

About a third of the mighty Amazon rainforest is suffering from Drought, based on a paywalled study in PNAS. “If we are already seeing a tipping point getting closer at this macro forest level, then it must be getting worse at a micro level,” said the study’s lead author. Brazil’s savannah is reportedly experiencing its worst Drought in 700+ years. Meanwhile, Brazil’s southern region is still flooded, 500,000+ people displaced, rice fields obliterated, people fallen sick, and much of the infrastructure beyond repair.

Drought in Adelaide (pop: 1.4M), Australia. A record-breaking heat index in Miami for this time of year. Mexico says 12 people died from heat stroke during a 10-day period in May.

A study published a few days ago lays out the risk to Arctic watersheds from melting permafrost—bringing iron and other dangerous metals downstream, rusting the rivers and endangering these fragile ecosystems.

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Scientists looking into malaria predict a massive increase in the number of people living in malaria-endemic regions by the end of this century. Rivers and floodplains are especially dangerous zones for the mostly tropical disease. The full study, published in Science, indicates a longer transmission season in a much more populous Africa.

A study published last month in Environmental Science & Technology examined how microplastics enter our bodies across 109 different countries. The regions of the world which ingest and inhale microplastics are, by far, east and southeast Asia. Fish is also the top microplastic-containing food—and it’s not even close. However, the data relied upon in this study ended in 2018, so there’s a large gap in recent nano/microplastics development.

“Indonesia tops the global per capita MP dietary intake at 15 g monthly. In Asian, African, and American countries, including China and the United States, airborne and dietary MP uptake increased over 6-fold from 1990 to 2018….57% of plastic particles in foods are mainly from aquatic sources….Removing 99% of aquatic plastic debris by water management for surface water quality control in freshwater watersheds, wetlands, and lakes, as well as ocean cleanups or effective solid waste management, can decrease human MP exposure by 55%....MP removal from a single type of water system cannot hamper their transport among other systems and still leads to exposure and long-term impacts on the entire freshwater environment and food web….

Another study on microplastics claims that most microplastics in the seas have escaped detection altogether, for now. Estimates of microplastics off the coast of Venezuela are believed to be higher than previously thought. A sampling of microplastics off the eastern coast of the United States found a greater number of plastic particles farther south, where they were also smaller. The largest size microplastics in the region were identified off the coast of North Carolina. According to their global survey, “detected MPs less than 53 micrometers at a rate of six orders of magnitude higher than all of the combined reports.” And concentrations of microplastics in men’s balls are also higher than estimated.

A study published last week in Communications Earth & Environment predicts that southern California will experience 3x greater coastal erosion by 2050—driving a 5x cost increase in “coastal living”. The current “shoreline retreat rate” in those beaches is 1.45m per year, a figure expected to jump to 2.12m by 2050 and 3.18m by 2100. Similar beach erosion rates are estimated for many African, Australian, Arabian, and other beachfronts. “The environmental and ecological impacts of the needed artificial beach nourishment have yet to be fully assessed.”

Today about 55% of people worldwide lack clean water at least once a month. By 2100, the figure is expected to reach 66%. A gust of wind toppled a stadium at a political event in Mexico, killing nine people. An explosion in a sugar factory in Tanzania killed eleven.