Climate Crisis, Biosphere & Societal Collapse

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How does it feel to lose your home to climate change? The roughly 10,000 residents of Tuvalu will be among the first in the world to have to confront this question.

With an average height above sea level of less than 3 metres, Tuvalu is on course to become completely uninhabitable due to flooding, storm surges and erosion. By 2100, sea levels are projected to rise by 72 centimetres and the coral atoll archipelago, which is roughly midway between Australia and Hawaii, is expected to experience flooding for nearly a third of every year.

Archive : https://archive.ph/Qgk5z

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The study - which takes a laser focus on climate change in the 2020s, a critical decade to stop the worst damage - finds all 10 measures are going in the wrong direction.

And most of them are doing so at a faster rate.

The findings are "unprecedented" but "unsurprising", given the world continues to pump record levels of planet-warming gases into the atmosphere.

"We see a clear and consistent picture that things are getting worse," said lead author Professor Piers Forster.

The UK’s Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA) announced £56.8m to fund 21 geoengineering projects around the world over the next five years.

The announcement felt less of a scientific milestone and more like a plot point for that dystopian novel, which opens with catastrophic heatwaves we hope we never live to see, but increasingly fear we might.

The reality is that we simply don’t know what type of side effects these experiments will cause

As the impacts of drought only get worse, there is a chance that these weather manipulation experiments, and potentially far worse, will become far more common around the world. Scarier still is that the world’s billionaire class, rather than governments alone, could become rogue weather makers of their own.

Archive : https://archive.ph/rEn06

The UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that a shifting climate has already begun altering the production and distribution of pollen and spores.

As winter frost thaws earlier and spring weather gets warmer, plants and trees flower earlier, extending the pollen season, numerous studies have shown.

Air pollution can also increase people's sensitivity to allergens, while invasive species are spreading into new regions and causing fresh waves of allergies.

More and more people, particularly in industrialised nations, have reported developing allergy symptoms in recent decades.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23919788

2025 marks 10 years since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 17 goals and 169 targets to achieve global prosperity.

In the mid-2000s, the energy imbalance was about 0.6 watts per square metre (W/m2) on average. In recent years, the average was about 1.3 W/m2. **This means the rate at which energy is accumulating near the planet’s surface has doubled. **

FAaFO , we're in the find out phase.

If this trend continues, we will reach a point of no return in two or three decades. Once the dry season extends to six months, there is no way to avoid self-degradation. We are perilously close to a point of no return. In some areas, it may have already been passed.

Nice to see r/collapse featured on The Guardian. First time I learned r/collapse was during the pandemic. When I saw posts on the sub, I was like "whooah these guys are doomers", but after I read some of the posts there, they are more realists.

I agreed r/collapse or c/collapse is not for everyone, people could get anxiety and mental problems.

Abstract

Recent Earth energy budget observations show an increase in the sunlight absorbed by the Earth of 0.45 W/m2 per decade, caused primarily by a decrease in cloud reflection. Here we decompose the solar radiative budget trends into general circulation and cloud controlling process components. Regimes representing the midlatitude and tropical storm zones are defined, and the trends in the areal coverage of those regimes which are potentially induced by circulation changes are separated from trends in the cloud radiative effect within each regime which are potentially induced by changes in local cloud controlling processes. The regime area change component, which manifests itself as a contraction of the midlatitude and tropical storm regimes, constitutes the largest contribution to the solar absorption trend, causing decreased sunlight reflection of 0.37 W/m2 per decade. This result provides a crucial missing piece in the puzzle of the 21st century increase of the Earth's solar absorption.

Key Points

Satellite observations show that in the past 24 years the worlds storm cloud zones have been contracting at a rate of 1.5%–3% per decade

This contraction allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface and constitutes the largest contribution to the observed 21st century trend of increased solar absorption

Plain Language Summary

Analysis of satellite observations shows that in the past 24 years the Earth's storm cloud zones in the tropics and the middle latitudes have been contracting at a rate of 1.5%–3% per decade. This cloud contraction, along with cloud cover decreases at low latitudes, allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface. When the contribution of all cloud changes is calculated, the storm cloud contraction is found to be the main contributor to the observed increase of the Earth's solar absorption during the 21st century.

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The collapse of a crucial network of Atlantic Ocean currents could push parts of the world into a deep freeze, with winter temperatures plunging to around minus 55 degrees Fahrenheit in some cities, bringing “profound climate and societal impacts,” according to a new study.

There is increasing concern about the future of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — known as the AMOC — a system of currents that works like a giant conveyor belt, pulling warm water from the Southern Hemisphere and tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, where it cools, sinks and flows back south.

Multiple studies suggest the AMOC is weakening with some projecting it could even collapse this century as global warming disrupts the balance of heat and salinity that keeps it moving. This would usher in huge global weather and climate shifts — including plunging temperatures in Europe, which relies on the AMOC for its mild climate.

“What if the AMOC collapses and we have climate change? Does the cooling win or does the warming win?” asked René van Westen, a marine and atmospheric researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and co-author of the paper published Wednesday in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.

This new study is the first to use a modern, complex climate model to answer the question, he told CNN.

The researchers looked at a scenario where the AMOC weakens by 80% and the Earth is around 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels. The planet is currently at 1.2 degrees of warming.

They focused on what would happen as the climate stabilized post-collapse, multiple decades into the future.

Even in this hotter world, they found “substantial cooling” over Europe with sharp drops in average winter temperatures and more intense cold extremes — a very different picture than the United States, where the study found temperatures would continue to increase even with an AMOC collapse.

Sea ice would spread southward as far as Scandinavia, parts of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the research found. This would have a huge impact on cold extremes as the white surface of the ice reflects the sun’s energy back into space, amplifying cooling.

The scientists have created an interactive map to visualize the impacts of an AMOC collapse across the globe.

AMOC Scenario Visualization

Archive : https://archive.ph/kZXcu

We have recently revised the temperature threshold. Up to 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the tipping point for coral reefs would occur when warming is between 1.5C and 2C above preindustrial levels. But in 2023, we revised that to between 1C and 1.5C. The world is already close to that upper limit and it will certainly come within the next 10 or 20 years as a result of committed climate change – which comes from cumulative emissions that have already gone into the atmosphere. So have we already gone past the tipping point for coral reefs in global terms? Perhaps.

Well, nice one humans /s

Seems this highly relevant piece was not yet posted here.

An excellent and thorough summary. Mostly bad news but not all.

Archived

[...]

Q. But do you think this is a form of McCarthyism?

A. That depends on what you mean by McCarthyism. Is there a disregard for reality and facts? Is there a call to accuse people, to pit people against each other? Yes, there’s polarization. And polarization is really dangerous. But I think the important thing is that, centuries ago, we had a fight over facts and science. And now, we have a new fight in which we must restore credit to science.

We’re in a difficult situation, fighting against red herrings, against straw men... I had a colleague in the United States Senate named Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was a great senator from New York and he said that everyone has a right to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

Q. And how can the world recover from these damaging U.S. actions toward research?

A. We will recover if people understand their own empowerment. France, Germany, [Europe overall] and more countries have the capacity to conduct science and increase investment. And that’s going to have to happen. It’s not unlike the debate over European defense needs in the context of Ukraine; [the EU has] decided to spend more.

[...]

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• A recent study reveals that over a fifth of the world's ocean has darkened in the last two decades, reducing the surface layers of the sea that receive light, known as photic zones, and where most marine life exists.
• The darkening is attributed to factors like increased rainfall, agricultural runoff, harmful algal blooms, and climate change, with significant changes observed near the poles, the Gulf Stream, and the Baltic Sea.
• Reduced photic zones may force marine animals closer to the surface, increasing competition for resources and potentially altering the entire marine ecosystem, according to Tim Smyth of Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
• Changes in the ocean's photic zones could impact human activities such as recreation, transport, and food supply, potentially affecting the availability of prey and driving predators closer to shore.
• Researchers used data from NASA’s Ocean Color Web satellite and developed an algorithm to measure light in seawater, finding that over 9% of the ocean saw its lit zones reduced by more than 50 meters.

The photic zone, also known as the euphotic zone or sunlight zone, is the upper layer of a body of water that receives enough sunlight for photosynthesis, typically extending to about 200 meters deep. This zone is crucial for marine life, as it supports the majority of aquatic organisms, including phytoplankton, which are essential for oxygen production and the ocean's food web.

On a walk near his house, with views of the ocean, Mark Ellis speaks with urgency about how the utility business—the industry that long employed him—is harming the public with unsustainable rate increases.

He keeps coming back to the same point: The complexity of utility regulation is obscuring a transfer of wealth from the general public to shareholders on a vast scale.

He’s far from the first person to say this. But he’s getting attention to a degree others haven’t, thanks to the clarity of his message and his status as a former utility insider. He’s in the early stages of becoming an activist.

Ellis’ adversaries should know what they’re up against. He is a financial analyst, with degrees from Harvard and MIT, and he is a wrestler, with experience on the mat as recently as two years ago, when he was competing in his age division in national tournaments.

“I don’t like bullies,” he said. “I feel like there’s a lot of bullying going on with utilities. People need to stand up to the bully.”

U.S. households have seen their electricity prices increase by an average of 25 percent from 2020 to 2024, which exceeds the rate of inflation, according to the Energy Information Administration.

When electricity is unaffordable, the transition away from fossil fuels becomes expensive to the point that it stretches feasibility; ideas such as electrifying home heating and using electricity to power vehicles make less sense in purely financial terms.

The evidence against the Drax power station is damning, yet the government wants to continue its massive public funding, says campaigner Dale Vince

How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station.

Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain’s biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. [...]

Chapters:

0:00 I. Introduction

1:41 II. What is Necropolitics?

6:45 III. Colonialism and Zombification

9:15 IV. Algorithms and Digital Overseers

14:06 V. Systems and Necropolitical Violence

17:28 VI. Death Driven Feedback Loops

Some parts of India have been forced to shut down schools amid the country's declining birth rates.

Economist Sanjeev Sanyal, who was previously the principal economic adviser in India's finance ministry and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has spoken about this happening and called for it to occur "more routinely."

"Our population is only growing now because we are living longer, we are not having enough babies," he told the Indian financial newspaper Mint on Monday. "So our problem is already the case that in parts of the country we have to shut down schools."

India is one of the many countries around the world that is struggling with an aging population, meaning that people will continue to live longer while fertility rates fall.

The nation, the most populous country on Earth, had a fertility rate of 2 (the average number of children a woman has) in 2023, the most recent year for which the World Bank has fertility data. The rate has fallen drastically from 1950, when it was 5.7.