This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/collapse by /u/LastWeekInCollapse on 2025-01-26 12:01:59+00:00.
Rebel forces push in the Congo, the U.S. government rolls back environmental protections, more Long COVID research is published, and the rich get richer. Sounds like a rerun.
Last Week in Collapse: January 19-25, 2025
This is the 161st weekly newsletter. You can find the January 12-18, 2025 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these newsletters (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.
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Storm Éowyn lashed the British Isles, bringing gusts over 183 km/h (113 mph) in some coastal regions. 710,000+ people lost power as the bomb cyclone passed through, setting new wind speed records in Ireland—one source said a gust of 206 km/h (128mph) was recorded. In Indonesia, a flood & landslide killed at least 17 people.
President Trump has, again, withdrawn the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, a largely performative measure, considering that most climate agencies say that earth has already passed the 1.5 °C target. The U.S. is now the only non-signatory to the Agreement. Trump also floated plans to end FEMA, and declared an energy emergency and began plans to open up protected areas for mining & drilling, and is stopping the approval of new wind farms in some bodies of water. The United States already leads the world in oil production, and in natural gas production.
Around Los Angeles, another fire broke out, forcing 30,000+ people to evacuate their homes as the threat continues. Toxins still lie amid the burnt rubble. It’s not just LA; a report indicates that Brazil saw wildfires across “an area larger than Italy” last year. Some researchers are suggesting that humanity has entered a new period in which we will see much more burning: the Pyrocene. According to the Club of Rome, the start of January has been 1.74 °C above the baseline average.
Following mass coral-bleaching in early 2024, a study says “By May, 44% of the bleached colonies were dead and 53% in July. In July, 31% of colonies were still bleached and 16% recovered.” Some coral genera suffered 95% death rates.
A study in Geophysical Research Letters examined Utah’s Great Salt Like’s all-time record lows in 2022. The scientists concluded that “the record low volume was primarily driven by reduced streamflow into the lake and secondarily by an increase in the lake evaporation rate.” Streamflow decreased from a combination of climate change, people diverting water flows, and general Drought.
Another study on permafrost melt in Iceland found that “thawing permafrost was an important trigger of large landslides in the past and may become an important trigger again.” Such landslides are generally “clustered near zones of weaker rocks and near the margins of high elevation permafrost zones.”
Following its driest year on record, Kashmir is looking forward to another dry year, a result of declining precipitation and large-scale glacial retreat. Tensions between India and Bangladesh over water sharing remain problematic. A study in Nature Communications says that soil moisture is an underappreciated factor in extreme heat waves. To be more specific, when soil is neither very wet nor dry, the effects of heat waves are felt more strongly. In land areas of the planet which are moving from a temperate moisture level to a drier zone, greater shifts towards heating will likely be felt.
Experts are warning about Europe’s future food security as the farmer population grows even older, Droughts & floods complicate efforts, small farms get consolidated following financial troubles, and barriers obstruct the entry of new farmers. In southern Iraq, Drought is pushing people out of rural regions into the country’s overburdened population centers, and much of China has been feeling an abnormally dry winter. The Grand Canyon is feeling its driest winter on record, too. New January highs were recorded in Ghana, and in Myanmar.
Record January high temperatures at a couple locations on the Gulf of Mexico/America, and in the Caribbean. “Pole top fires” in Perth caused power outages for 38,000+ homes. Meanwhile, the world’s largest iceberg (“megaberg”), A23a, is heading towards a penguin breeding ground where it may obstruct feeding and cause a baby penguin dieoff.
Scientists say that fertilizer use reduces flowers and therefore cuts pollinator numbers, because other plants quickly crowd out growing flowers. A devil’s bargain has emerged, in which farmers want to use fertilizer to increase crop harvests, but also need a less fertile soil in order to attract and retain flower species & pollinators.
A study published on Tuesday in Nature Climate Change claims that, from 2001-2020, “more than 30% of the {Arctic-Boreal} region was a net CO2 source” and “the increasing Arctic–Boreal Zone sink is no longer statistically significant, and the permafrost region becomes CO2 neutral.”
“our results suggest that many tundra regions may now have started to function as CO2 sources. This transition from an ecosystem CO2 sink to a CO2 source may have begun prior to 1990, but the precise timing of this transformation remains uncertain….Tundra regions are also progressing towards conditions where average annual soil (0–7 cm) temperatures are above freezing, resulting in more soil organic material being susceptible to decomposition…” -selections from the study
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Oxfam published a 97-page report on the wealth of the world’s ultra-rich, in which they predict there will be 5 trillionaires on earth by 2035. They also claim that the fortunes of billionaires rose 3x as fast in 2024 than it had in 2023.
“Trillions are being gifted in inheritance, creating a new aristocratic oligarchy that has immense power in our politics and our economy….The scars of the pandemic are still with us in the form of unpayable debts, lower wages and far higher food prices….Each billionaire saw their fortunes grow by US$2million a day on average. For the richest 10 billionaires their fortunes grew by US$100 million a day on average….60% of billionaire wealth comes from either inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power….This extremely high level of inequality is driving suffering worldwide….Ours is the age of billionaire colonialism…” -se…
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