Last Week in Collapse: November 24-30, 2024

Brinkmanship, melting polar ice sheets, COVID, and Drought. We are going to pay a high cost for our willful blindness.

Last Week in Collapse: November 24-30, 2024

This is the 153rd weekly newsletter. You can find the November 17-23 edition here on Reddit if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.

——————————

A study in JGR Atmospheres found that “the regional warming over some MENA sub-regions is three times faster than the global average….The summer hotspot over the Arabian Peninsula has already warmed by more than 2°C and can potentially warm to approximately 9°C under the high-emission scenario…” The MENA region is expected to reach the 2 °C, 3 °C, and other temperature milestones at least 20 years before most of the rest of the world.

Experts say that polar ice is nearing its tipping point, according to a study from npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. They also claim that “reversing” climate change to its pre-tipping point position would cost at least 4x as much as prevention—which humans don’t seem the least bit inclined to do as it is. If we’re not willing to act now, we probably won’t be willing to act later… The British Antarctic Survey feels similarly.

Somewhere in Greenland

Another study in Communications Earth & Environment determined that the polar ice sheets “are most decisive for tipping likelihoods and cascading effects” among the major tipping points studied—and that it is inevitable at 1.5 °C, which we have already passed. The future looks different.

“we have not yet sufficiently grasped the non-linear dynamics of the climate system and its subsystems, neither through measurements, observations nor modelling efforts. Concerningly, the uncertainty ranges of the tipping points have been adjusted and re-assessed downward since earlier assessments…it has been suggested that the AMOC is over-stabilised in climate models. This therefore has further impacts on the stability of the rest of the Earth system and the influence of the AMOC on the tipping of other elements….The WAIS is the element leading to the largest percentage change in the mean number of elements tipped and components transitioned at 1.5 °C…” -excerpts from the study

At least one person was killed by flooding in southern Thailand, with a few thousand more displaced. 3 died from heavy snowfall in South Korea. An analysis of a 350+ elephant dieoff in Botswana in 2020 is now believed to be the result of algal blooms. Over 100 are missing after a landslide in Uganda.

2024 is Belgium’s wettest year on record, and there’s still one month to go. Spain’s Balearic Islands saw a new record wind speed last week: 236 km/h (146mph). Another large fish dieoff happened in a tributary to the Amazon River. And global wine production hit 63-year lows due mostly to Drought/floods. As the global coffee supply tightens, prices rise.

Scientists are cautioning Switzerland that many of their alpine mountain huts will become unstable as climate change slowly transforms the elevated region. Several new heat records were set in Central Asia. And Iraq’s Drought worsens while Malaysia faces its worst floods in a decade. 31+ were killed in flooding in Indonesia already. With November concluded, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was stronger than average, having recorded 18 named storms (above the average of 14).

——————————

Bolivia is experiencing a days-long queue to buy petrol as their fuel shortage worsens. Black market fuel suppliers are capitalizing on this ongoing crisis. In Cuba, blackouts continue nationwide. Zambia and Zimbabwe are facing their worst blackout in years as the Kariba Dam continues drying up. Zambia relies upon the Dam for more than 80% of its electricity—over 60% for Zimbabwe. As summer nears in Australia, power outages are feared if the summer gets as hot as people fear.

An upcoming study in Environmental Pollution found that PFAS and microplastics, when combined, may be more dangerous—at least for the tiny crustaceans tested in this study. The two factors can cause “developmental failures, delayed sexual maturity and reduced somatic {bodily} growth.”

“Entshittification” has topped a list for the word of the year, faster than expected. I guess “doomporn” will have to wait until next year.

Northern India’s smog problems continue, with growing economic fallout. Burundi’s population experiencing malnutrition is expected to double within the next 6 months, and “Burundi’s growing Mpox crisis is likely to worsen the hunger situation…” Meanwhile, in the U.S., an estimated 316M pounds of leftover food (143M kg) was thrown away after Thanksgiving. The UN estimates that wasted food contributes to about 10% of global emissions (namely CH4 through decomposition)...

A study in The Lancet concluded that air pollution is responsible for over 1.5M deaths per year—including 450k from heart disease, and 220k from respiratory illnesses. “The five countries with the largest all-cause attributable deaths were China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria.” Meanwhile, e-waste is growing to never before seen levels this decade.

More research into Long COVID suggests brain fog may be related to lung disfunction. And a study which was published on Friday says that the spike protein of COVID, which can last for years after initial infection, may cause some Long COVID symptoms at the “brain borders.”