Greenland Is Shedding 33 Million Tons of Ice… Per Hour

Last Week in Collapse January 14–20, 2024

Last Week in Collapse is a weekly guest column round-up that brings together some of the most important, timely, useful, depressing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see moments in Collapse:

Climate

A study in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research examined how climate change in the South China Sea impacts worldwide weather patterns; they concluded that it could cause droughts from China to India to Africa during the Northern Hemisphere’s spring & summer, and trigger Rossby waves over the Arctic and Antarctic, impacting sea ice melt.

Climatologists concluded that, in 2023, the oceans absorbed between 9–15 zettajoules more of energy than they did in 2022. One zettajoule is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy — roughly 10x the amount of electricity generated worldwide in one year.

Six years ago, Kenya tried forcibly moving 11 rhinos to a new habitat — all died after moving in, most of them from salt poisoning. Now they have tried again, relocating 21 rhinos hundreds of miles away to a new home.

Meanwhile, scientists have found a “hidden vulnerability” in global fish stocks: declining phytoplankton will result in a large decline in fish biomass over the next decades. They say a 16% decline in phytoplankton will cause a 38% decrease in total fish biomass. Moving up the food chain…how much will human biomass drop?

Daytime heat is making mountain goats more nocturnal. Researchers are concerned that this shift may result in weaker goats and exposure to more predators.

Meanwhile, in Australia, invasive fire ants are spreading outside Queensland, threatening agriculture and animals. Dams in Morocco are drying up from Drought, forecasting a catastrophic grow season ahead. In Pakistan, a months-long dry spell has cursed wheat harvests. In Australia, flooding devastated large quantities of stone fruits like plums and peaches.

Greenland is shedding 33M tons of ice every hour. This figure is about 20% greater than expected. Humanity produces about 100M tonnes of CO2 per day — not that that comparison is very useful. But certainly they are related.

On Monday, Canada’s warmest province/territory was Nunavut, in the Arctic Circle.

A study on wildfires concluded that the Appalachian region would, by 2100, see its annual wildfire-affected area increase dramatically, under worst-case scenarios. New York City ended its 701-day record for not recording snowfall. Mauritius activated its highest level storm warning on Monday, when Cyclone Belal blasted the island nation, along with Réunion. At least 2 were killed by the storm. Canada is bracing for a warm & dry year ahead, with impacts on agriculture and wildfires. Flooding in Durban, South Africa, left 4 suspected dead; 6 were killed in Bolivia flooding; 15 dead in Brazilian flooding; a brutal cold wave accompanied by ice storms killed 27 Americans in the Pacific Northwest. And parts of Australia are approaching 50 °C (122 °F).

The American National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a rundown on 2023 — yet another source confirming that 2023 was the warmest year on record. It has now been 47 years since earth had a colder than average year. Carbon Brief reports that it was the hottest year for 77 countries of the world — including some 2.3B humans — and “the first year the global average land temperature was more than 2C above pre-industrial levels” and “the warmest year on record for ocean heat content.”

A study of U.S. cities determined that only 10% of them will meet their renewable energy goals by 2050. The best case scenario for most of the surveyed cities results in only 35–65% of their energy needs being satisfied by renewable energy. Natural gas is projected to be the most important energy source for the U.S. in 2050.

A depressing study on bottom trawling concluded that more than half of the carbon sediment torn up by gargantuan fishing nets gets re-introduced into ocean currents — and finds its way into the atmosphere within 9 years. In Alaska, as permafrost melts and water runs into rivers, some streams are getting contaminated with iron and turning brown-orange.

Algarve (pop: 467,000) in Portugal is expecting its strongest water rationing ever amid a historic Drought. 70% of agricultural water is reportedly going to be restricted. Catalonia is declaring a state of emergency over the Drought, starting February 1st.

Kashmir had its hottest January day ever — 14.1 °C (57 °F). In Chile, old records were shattered when temps reached 41.9 °C (107 °F) in some places. Much of Arabia hit record hot nights for January.

Health

Mining operations in Mexico are contaminating water supplies, forcing locals to buy bottled water, and intimidating them into submission — sometimes by deadly force. An illegal mining operation in Tanzania caused a landslide, killing 22 miners.

The American Red Cross declared a nationwide blood shortage. Microplastics become airborne even more easily than earlier expected, according to a recent study.

49% of Bangladesh’s water was found to contain unsafe levels of arsenic. It turns out that their monsoon flooding and forever-rising sea levels, which increase the salinity of river water, also result in arsenic being released from the riverbed — with deadly consequences for the 97% of Bangladeshis reliant upon well water. Bangladesh has a population of 174,000,000 people.

At least 225 people starved to death since last July — in one town in Ethiopia, according to reports. An oil executive forecasts a very long oil shortage starting next year. India is planning to bring a nuclear power plant online once a year for at least 19 years.

Colon cancer is rising among young people, and scientists are stumped. Could it be because toilet paper is made with PFAS chemicals? Overeating and bad diets?

Mental health problems in students — and teachers — are quite serious, if that article from the UK is any guide. Oakland, California schools are allowing knowingly COVID positive students in classes if they’re asymptomatic. Apparently most other school districts are using the plausible deniability approach. California as a whole has shortened their isolation guidance for COVID positive students without fevers to just one day of quarantine.

African swine fever (ASF) is spreading in Borneo across wild pig species. Some butterfly species are adapting to climate change to have fewer spots.

Reddit is having its IPO in March, announcements say. French police protested and threatened to strike during France’s Olympic Games this summer. Azerbaijan is demanding a corridor through Armenia so it can access its exclave territory.

Stagflation in the UK is portending economic troubles ahead, according to some economists. A banking CEO says we should be worried about global debt — which totaled some $310T by the end of 2023. That’s one hell of a bubble. Some analysts think Germany is facing a two-year recession which began late last year.

Conflict

As many of the rich and powerful descended on Davos yet again, some of the 1% are calling for higher taxes in an open letter to governments of the world. No doubt a greater number of billionaires are resisting such change. AI is a major topic of discussion at the Davos summit.

Political scientists say Europe is becoming divided — into five tribes ahead of the May elections for the European Parliament. The full report is not too long to read. The five “crisis tribes” theorized are basically 5 key political issues: the War in Ukraine, Immigration, Global Economic Turmoil, Climate Change, and COVID-19. The study found general consensus among respondents that Europe was doing a poor job on combating climate change, handling immigration, and managing their economies — COVID and the Ukraine War were more evenly split.

Based on how few people mask up, it’s hard to believe so many people are still very concerned about COVID.

German politicians are debating whether to ban an opposing political party — polling 2nd among Germany’s 6 main parties — after news of a meeting surfaced in which the potential deportation of millions was discussed. Huge crowds protested against the right-wing party across Germany.

China’s population fell by 2M+ last year, worrying some while providing small consolation to others.

Comoros — pop: 868,000 — voted in an election the opposition labeled fraudulent, granting their president a 4th term.

A Rwandan soldier killed a Congolese soldier who allegedly shot at the Rwandans; now the DRC may be angling for War against Rwanda.

An IED killed a UN peacekeeper and wounded several others in the Central African Republic.

The British PM is vowing to move forward with a plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda even in violation of international law.

In Gaza, a deal was finally made to bring in humanitarian aid. Israel’s PM announced what many feared: Israel intends to manage the “security” situation of all territory west of the Jordan River — in other words, all of Palestine. This essentially means a refusal to accommodate any Palestinian State in the future. Some are calling the Gaza bombardments worse than the Dresden bombings of WWII.

Iran launched missiles against locations in Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan last week. Pakistan shot retaliatory missiles against Iran, killing 9 and raising tensions between the two nations. Houthi rebels struck a Greek-flagged ship in the Red Sea, inflicting light damage. Attacks on shipping threaten the global economy.

A Ukrainian drone strike hit a Russian fuel depot on Friday. American politicians are concerned that funding for Ukraine is drying up and political will is fading as the November election draws closer. Ukraine’s armed forces are asking for 500,000 more soldiers but few want to volunteer and conscription is unpopular. Winter is not as bad as it was two years ago, but shelling continues in the east. Russia is reportedly conscripting 30,000 soldiers every month for the front lines; Zelenskyy calls it “corpse conscription.”

Kim Jong-Un made a speech labeling South Korea as their top enemy, claiming that unification is not possible. North Korea also reportedly conducted an “underwater nuclear weapons system” test on Friday.

China is restructuring its military command, allegedly in preparation for a future Taiwan conquest.

NATO commanders are warning of a total War against Russia within 20 years

In Sudan, 70% of hospitals in conflict-affected areas are unoperational or not fully functioning. Over 7M people have fled, and 13,000+ have been confirmed killed. Other reports say 15,000 were killed last year in Darfur alone. Fighting is also now reported near World Heritage Sites of the ancient Kush Kingdom, and Sudan’s diplomatic ties are breaking down because the leader of the insurgent forces was invited to an East Africa summit in Uganda. The Civil War, which turned 9 months old last week, is not projected to end soon.

Hundreds of arrests have been made, and several alleged terrorists killed, in Ecuador after the violent takeover of a TV station two weeks ago. Some analysts believe that Ecuador’s heavy-handed response — not terribly unlike El Salvador’s recent gang crackdown — will only result in more problems; others are willing to sacrifice others’ human rights in the pursuit of peace and security. Coming soon to a country near you.

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Two personal notes from Jared A. Brock