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How Bad Can It Get?

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

How Bad Can It Get?

By Robert Hunziker

How bad can it (climate change) get?

The sky’s the limit! No pun intended.

Still, the general public is tired of negative articles about climate change. It turns them off. Climate change is impossible to deal with. It’s too much; it’s too negative!

As a result, baffling emails come with loud and clear messages, some subtle but some not so subtle. Yet, these same people want access to scientific facts and data that describes just how challenging things really are. They even admit to that while complaining about too much doom and gloom. Nobody is satisfied.

All of which serves as an ideal segue for introduction to a new book about how bad things really truly are: Hothouse Earth (Icon Books, August 2022) by Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London.

Dr. McGuire doesn’t pull any punches. Accordingly, “There is no chance of avoiding climate breakdown.” That statement prompts the idea that maybe climate breakdown is already here. It sure looks and feels that way.

McGuire’s book is discussed in an article entitled: ’Soon the World Will be Unrecognizable’: Is it Still Possible to Prevent Total Climate Meltdown? The Guardian, July 30, 2022: Accordingly, most other climate experts still maintain we have time left, although not very much, to bring about meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This, of course, is a well-worn posture that goes nowhere.

Not so McGuire: “I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to tackle the crisis.”

McGuire’s thesis, in turn, is relevant to an article dealing with politically charged, compromised Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports: Big Oil’s Capture of IPCC Assessment for Policymakers ‘Shakes Our Faith’ (Commentary), Mongabay, August 25, 2022.

Big Oil’s Capture is all about the necessity for the public to know that IPCC reports are edited by oil and gas representatives and governments that are fossil fuel dependent, exercising a hand in the final drafting of IPCC reports.

Yes, the same publicly lambasted interests that cause global warming also write and/or edit portions of the all-important IPCC reports. Full stop! Nothing more needs to be said to fully understand the dichotomy between McGuire’s exposure of the dangers of climate change and doctored IPCC reports, claiming, in so many words: It can be fixed. “Don’t worry” as an underlying message, “carbon capture will fix it,” etc. etc. etc. But wrong and misleading on several counts!

Pro-fossil fuel input is so wrongheaded that it deserves a bit more color, as follows: A senior staff member of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, was one of two lead coordinating authors for IPCC Chapter 12 on Cross-Sector Perspectives. A staff member of Chevron reviewed the IPCC chapter on Energy Systems.

Moreover, a recent report by the UN Environmental Programme says producers plan twice the amount of fossil fuels “than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C in plans for development by 2030.” In other words, climate change mitigation efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C increasingly look more and more like a paper tiger hanging by a thread.

Fossil fuel interests embedded in the details and the editing of IPCC reports is preposterous. It makes the fox-in-the-henhouse metaphor a laughing stock simply because it’s way too simple of a metaphor to explain the complexity and full upshot.

All of which lends more and more credence to McGuire’s thesis that the bright light at the end of the tunnel is not a signal of salvation in waiting; rather, it’s a fully loaded freight train clipping along at full throttle.

According to McGuire: “We have passed the point of no return and can expect a future in which lethal heat waves and temperatures in excess of 50C (120F) are common in the tropics; where summers at temperate latitudes will invariably be baking hot, and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic. A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,” Ibid.

McGuire’s statement “a future in which lethal heat waves…” makes one wonder where all of those people in the tropics will go to live.

“Lethal heat” is death by heat.

“Just look at what is happening already to a world which has only heated up by just over one degree. It turns out the climate is changing for the worse far quicker than predicted by early climate models. That’s something that was never expected.” (McGuire)

McGuire poo-poos the COP26 agreement in Glasgow last year stating that every effort will be exercised to limit global temps to 1.5°C, also agreeing to reduce global carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. According to McGuire, rather than reduction of emissions, the real world is on course for a 14% increase in emissions by 2030, meaning the 1.5C guardrail will be shattered, hands down!

Rystad Energy claims: “Just 20 of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, including the likes of Shell, Exxon and Gazprom, are projected to spend $932B by the end of 2030 developing new oil and gas fields, and $1.5 trillion in total by 2040.” That’s a lot of CO2 emissions going somewhere, like up into the atmosphere. (Source: World’s Biggest Fossil Fuel Firms Projected to Spend Almost a Trillion Dollars on New Oil and Gas Fields by 2030, Global Witness org., April 2022)

Here are some consequences of exceeding 1.5C, including mention of highest impact areas: (1) more intense and longer lasting blistering summer heat (India) (2) continuing extreme drought drying out major reservoirs (Lake Mead) (3) periodic unexpected destructive flooding episodes (China) (4) weak crop yields and food starvation (Horn of Africa) (5) loss of glaciers supporting major commercial waterways (Europe) (6) ice sheet melt off & rising seas (Miami) (7) public disaffection with pockets of hatred leading to more deadly extremism as desperate people reject establishmentarianism. (America)

According to McGuire, based upon the most hopeful estimates of emission cut pledges at COP26, the planet is still on course for 2.4C and 3C. McGuire expects a rise of 2C to seriously threaten stability of global society. As people panic, somebody somewhere pays the price or consequences, history is full of examples, e.g., thousands of aristocrat heads rolled during the French Revolution 1789-1794, including a king and a queen and entire retinues, as tens of thousands Parisians lined the streets to watch an open cart drawn by two white stallions trudge along, carrying former Queen Marie Antoinette with her executioner Henri Sanson to the guillotine. Her last words were an apology to Sanson for stepping on his foot as she slowly approached the towering guillotine’s headrest.

McGuire claims there is little that can prevent climate breakdown. Therefore, adaptation to a bleaker world will be all-important. In that regard, he believes that all-out disaster may be prevented if carbon emissions are substantially cut in the near future and if adapting to a hotter world is properly employed. For example, in the UK thousands of inappropriate homes are built each year. These are modern, tiny, poorly insulated homes that can, and do, turn into heat traps. Adaptation to hotter longer lasting heatwaves is one helpful solution.

According to McGuire, a grimmer world in the days ahead may or may not threaten survival of human civilization, assuming people realize it and act posthaste. Indeed, that would be a first!

For a gut check on posthaste behavior, check out the film Don’t Look Up (Netflix December 2021) staring Leonardo DiCaprio for convincing evidence of philistinism at work. Umm, on second thought forget about the posthaste idea. Don’t Look Up is the most accurate big screen depiction of how and why global warming has spun out of control. It’s a must-see film.

McGuire concludes: “This is a call to arms. So if you feel the need to glue yourself to a motorway or blockade an oil refinery, do it. Drive an electric car or, even better use public transport, walk or cycle. Switch to a green energy tariff; eat less meat. Stop flying; lobby your elected representatives at both local and national level; and use your vote wisely to put in power a government that walks the talk on the climate emergency,” Ibid.

For the first time in modern history major changes in lifestyle are now a requirement for human survival.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if climate scientists like Bill McGuire (there are several others with very similar views) had it all wrong?

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on September 2, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?

Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash
Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash

Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?

By Robert Hunziker

The short answer: No, not even close!

Nations of the world are only too aware that fossil fuels need to be phased out for two reasons. First, oil is a finite commodity. It’ll run out in time. Secondly, fossil fuel emissions such as CO2 are destroying the planet’s climate system.

However, a recent study puts a damper on the prospects of phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewables. More to the point, a phase out of fossil fuels by mid century looks to be a nearly impossible Sisyphean task. It’s all about quantities of minerals/metals contained in Mother Earth. There aren’t enough.

Simon Michaux, PhD, Geological Survey Finland has done a detailed study of what’s required to phase out fossil fuels in favor of renewables, to wit:

“The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.” (Source: Simon P. Michaux, Associate Research Professor of Geometallurgy Unit Minerals Processing and Materials Research, Geological Survey of Finland, August 18, 2022 – Seminar: What Would It Take To Replace The Existing Fossil Fuel System?)

Metals/minerals required to source gigafactories producing renewables to power the world’s economies when fossil fuels phase out looks to be one of the biggest quandaries of all time. There’s not enough metal.

Michaux researched and analyzed the current status of the internal combustion engine fleet of cars, trucks, rail, maritime shipping, and aviation for the US, Europe, and China, accessing databases to gather information as a starting point for the study.

Michaux’s calculations for what’s required to phase out fossil fuels uses a starting point of 2018 with 84.5% of primary energy still fossil fuel-based and less than 1% of the world’s vehicle fleet electric. Therefore, the first generation of renewable energy is only now coming on stream, meaning there will be no recycling availability of production materials for some time. Production will have to be sourced from mining.

When Michaux presented basic information to EU analysts, it was a shock to them. To his dismay, they had not put together the various mineral/metal data requirements to phase out fossil fuels and replaced by renewables. They assumed, using guesstimates, the metals would be available.

A key issue for the accomplishment of renewables is power storage because of the impact of wind and solar intermittency, both of which are highly intermittent. Most studies assume gas will be the buffer for intermittency. Other than using fossil fuel such as gas as a buffer, an adequate power storage system to handle intermittency will require 30 times more material than what electric vehicles require with current plans, meaning the scope is much larger than the current paradigm allows.

One factor that will influence what materials and systems are used to build out renewables is the fact that EVs require a battery that is 3.2 times the mass of the equivalent of a hydrogen fuel tank. Therefore, an analysis of EVs versus hydrogen fuel cells indicates it’ll be necessary to build out the global fleet with EVs for city traffic and hydrogen fuel cells for all long-range vehicles like semi-trailers, rails, and maritime shipping.

The entire renewable build-out requires 36,000 terawatt hours to operate, meaning 586,000 new non-fossil fuel power stations of average size. The current fleet of power stations is only 46,000, meaning it’ll take 10 times the current number of power stations, yet to be built.

The new annual energy capacity of 36,007.9 terrawatt hours will supply (1) 29 million EV Buses (2) 601.3 million Commercial EV Vans (3) 695.2 million EV Passenger Cars (4) 28.9 million H2-Cell Trucks (5) 62 million EV Motorcycles (6). Hydro will also need to be expanded by 115% by 2050 and nuclear will need to double. Biomass will stay the same. It’s already at limitations. Geothermal triples.

Additionally, buffer systems are crucial to handle intermittency. For example, Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia, which is an Elon Musk project with a 100-megawatt capacity. The EU is using Hornsdale as the standard buffer system. Globally, 15,635,478 Hornsdale-type stations will need to be built across the planet and connected to the power grid system just to meet a 4-week buffer system. This is 30 times the capacity compared to the entire global vehicle fleet. Therefore the market for batteries is substantially larger than currently understood and accounted for in planning for a renewable economy.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report on how much metal is required per unit to build out a renewable economy. As well as a study of what 2040 market share would look like for batteries for light duty vehicles and heavy duty vehicles and power storage at the level of the global fleet for solar panels in 2040 and hydrogen fuel cells, trucks, freight locomotives, maritime shipping, wind turbines and power storage buffer.

The total metals required for one generation of technology to phase out fossil fuels is listed by Required Production followed by Known Reserves for all metals based upon tonnes, as follows:

Copper 4,575,523,674 vs. 880,000,000 – a serious shortfall -reserves only cover 20% of requirements.

Zinc 35,704,918 vs. 250,000,000 – adequate reserves.

Manganese 227,889,504 vs 1,500,000,000 – adequate reserves

Nickel 940,578,114 vs. 95,000,000 – huge shortfall – reserves 10% of requirements.

Lithium 944,150,293 vs. 95,000,000 = huge shortfall – reserves 10% of requirements.

Cobalt 218,396,990 vs. 7,600,000 – huge shortfall – reserves 3.48% of requirements.

Graphite 8,973,640,257 vs. 320,000,000 = huge shortfall – 3.57% reserves of requirements.

Silicon (metallurgical) 49,571,460 – adequate reserves

Silver 145,579 vs. 530,000 – adequate reserves

Vanadium 681,865,986 vs. 24,000,000= huge shortfall -3.52% reserves of requirement

Zirconium 2,614,126 vs.70, 000,000 – adequate reserves.

Prior to 2020- the global system mined 700 million tons of copper throughout all history. Looking forward, the same 700 million tons will need to be mined over the next 22 years, which is based upon current economic growth rates without giving consideration to what’s needed for one generation of renewables.

Current reserves of copper are 880 million tons. But 4.5 billion tons of copper are required just to manufacture one generation of renewable technology. Hmm.

Moreover, each renewable technology has a life cycle of 8 to 25 years. Thereafter, they need to be decommissioned and replaced. Also, whether renewables are strong enough, and sustainably enough to power the next industrial era is a question that hangs in the air.

THE PAST – “An industrial ecosystem of unprecedented size and complexity, that took more than a century to build with the support of the highest calorifically dense source of cheap energy the world has ever known (oil) in abundant quantities, with easily available credit, and unlimited mineral resources.” (Michaux)

THE PRESENT – “We now seek to build an even more complex system with very expensive energy, a fragile finance system saturated in debt, not enough minerals, with an unprecedented number of the human population, embedded in a deteriorating environment.” (Michaux)

Current mineral reserves are not adequate to resource metal production to manufacture the generation of renewable energy technology, as current mining is not even close to meeting the expected demand for one generation of renewable technology.

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 23, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Scientists Petition EPA to Take Bold Steps

Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash
Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash

Scientists Petition EPA to Take Bold Steps

By Robert Hunziker

Scientists are working on a plan to go beyond the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) recently signed by President Biden, which is supposed to tackle global warming, which, in turn, is tearing the planet apart, piece-by-piece. There’s more info on this very important petition filed by scientists to follow below, including a request for supporting signatures.

Meanwhile, even though IRA is loaded with good stuff to fight global warming, it’s not likely enough to put out the heat. After all, the Inflation Reduction Act is the third or fourth iteration of Biden’s Build Back Better $3.5T prominently mentioned in an article in The Economist d/d July 21st, 2022: American Climate Policy is in Tatters—Manchin Single-handedly scuttled Biden’s BBB Plans for $3.5 trillion.

There’s real tragedy behind the slimmed down version of Biden’s BBB $3.5T. Even though the Inflation Reduction Act of a few hundred billion is a big number, inclusive of tax-oriented deductions, it is challenged by a capricious global climate system that appears to be broken down and totally out of kilter.

The planet has turned into a heat machine. It’s not only America that’s sweltering. According to NASA and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the planet as a whole is trapping heat twice as fast as 15 years ago. That’s more than threatening; it’s an outright emergency requiring the big guns.

Of even more immediate concern, as the planet dries out, major reservoirs fail, power outages hit, rivers run dry, and tens of thousands of people scramble for water. This is happening right now well ahead of several years build-out of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The vastness and reach of this existential climate threat is finally sinking in with the public as developed mature countries are reduced to third-world status, people standing in line with bottles and jugs waiting for water trucks, for example, more than 200 towns and villages in France and Italy have run out of water. Local reservoirs are dry. They’re gone!

This dystopian illustration is spreading across the globe. The real question is whether there’s enough time to press ahead with the Inflation Reduction Act. It needs to be rapidly accelerated with considerably more funding. Plus, this same climate bill also promotes fossil fuels. There’s something unsettling and untenable about that.

As the entire world reels from extremes of global warming, the United States has a moral obligation to take a leadership role. It has caused more global warming than any other country. Nobody has emitted more CO2 than America.

“The United States has emitted more than 400 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the birth of the industrial revolution. This makes the U.S. the biggest contributor to global carbon dioxide emissions by far, having produced almost twice the amount of emissions as the second biggest emitter, China.” (Source: Cumulative CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Combustion Worldwide 1750-2020, by Country, Statista.com)

Climate scientists, fully aware of the dangers of rampant global warming, are now demanding the government take stronger steps than the Inflation Reduction Act to cut emissions in the US and to serve as an example to the world.

A distinguished group of academics and climate scientists, including James Hansen, Dan Galpern, and Donn Viviani of the Climate & Restoration Initiative are petitioning the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. This has the potential to be a powerful approach for mitigation purposes. Hopefully, their plan will gain a lot of public support.

They have filed a legal document with the EPA stating that greenhouse gas emissions present a danger to the climate and should be regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (“TSCA”) the same act that was used to halt CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons destroying atmospheric ozone, also phased out by the Montreal Protocol in 1987. TSCA was used in 1978 on CFCs, which are, in fact, gases similar to fossil fuel gases like CO2. This is an important distinction and precedent, supporting the case for using TSCA today for protection of the atmospheric environment.

Of course, it’s a well-established fact that without strong regulations to stop CFCs, civilization’s closest brush of all time with total annihilation would have wiped out complex life, humans included. Ozone molecules at 10-20 miles up in the stratosphere are absolutely essential to block the UVC radiation, which packs the force of a welder’s torch. Meaning, without ozone molecules life on Earth would cease, full stop. All of which sets a perfect example for TSCA as the ideal mechanism for also stopping greenhouse gases like CO2. It’s all about preserving the life forces of the planet.

The following video explains the petition to the EPA as undertaken by the Climate Emergency Forum:

Please sign the petition to support Dr. James Hansen’s submission to the EPA to Phase Out Greenhouse Gas Pollution To Restore A Stable & Healthy Climate. Your signature is important. A signature form supporting Hansen’s petition is found by searching the following web page: Climate Protection & Restoration Initiative.

The legal document filed by Hansen, et al, argues that greenhouse gas emissions, like CO2, present a danger to the climate and therefore qualify for regulation under the act that allows the EPA to initiate monitoring requirements on companies and to enforce strict controls on substance abuse. TSCA has already been used to stop or restrict asbestos, lead in paint, and PCBs.

Because the act covers substances that “pose an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment,” Hansen believes TSCA can be used to phase-out greenhouse gas emissions, which shockingly are subsidized in the Inflation Reduction Act with provisions for fossil fuel expansion alongside climate mitigation policies. The irony of these two clashing issues endorsed side-by-side is breathtaking, in fact, stupefying beyond belief. Who’s on first?

Moreover and most significantly, TSCA embodies very strong legal language that allows the EPA to go so far as prohibition of (1) production, (2) importation, (3) processing (4) distribution (5) commercial use and (6) disposal of harmful substances. In short, it’s all-encompassing.

Thus, TSCA is a very strong tool with a firm legal foundation for de-carbonization. Additionally, TSCA provides for EPA to utilize other authorities or other agencies to accomplish its goals.

Importantly, there’s no ambiguity in the language underlying TSCA, therefore dissimilar to the language in the Clean Air Act that was recently negatively ruled upon by the far-right Supremes. In fact, the language of section six of TSCA is crystal clear: Where there are chemical substances or mixtures that present the risk of injury to health of the environment the agency is to act based upon a full gamut of requirements delineated by Congress to eliminate that risk.

Based upon the June 2022 filing date of the Hansen petition, the EPA must respond, by law, by mid-September 2022. Your signature as an endorsement will be meaningful. Governmental agencies respect a show of force of signatures by the public.

Search for the web page: Climate Protection & Restoration Initiative to find access to a preset signature form that takes all of two minutes to complete. Make your day!

Postscript: People vs. Fossil Fuels, a national coalition of more than 1,200 organizations from all 50 states, recently delivered a petition with more than 500,000 signatures to the White House calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency, which would unlock new funds for urgently needed climate adaptation in hard-hit communities, and use executive actions to stop the expansion of fossil fuels. (Mother Jones, August 10, 2022)

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 19, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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The Inflation Reduction Act – Is It Enough Soon Enough?

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

The Inflation Reduction Act – Is It Enough Soon Enough?

By Robert Hunziker

Could somebody please get an extension ladder to help Senator Schumer down from the ceiling? He’s stuck in the rafters in a high-pitched note of self-congratulation whilst spraining his elbow as he awkwardly and repeatedly tries to pat his own back, screaming over and over again “the greatest climate legislation of all time!”

Compared to what?

Still, one signal that something really good must be in the nonsensically titled Inflation Reduction Act is the fact that no Republican senators voted for it. Nowadays, the extreme right has the entire Republican edifice on its hands and knees, almost in a fetal position in a deadly chokehold, and they’re not about to risk voting for anything that smacks of help for ordinary Americans. Plus, as for climate-type legislation, they detest mention of global warming. It gives ‘em the willies.

Nevertheless, in spite of 100% Republican opposition, the bill is likely to pass and become law. It does a lot of really good things to help climate change/global warming. There is no doubt about this.

The real question is whether it’s enough soon enough. And, similar to all commitments by nations of the world to mitigate climate change, will it really happen? Climate change mitigation plans have a very spotty, almost zero, record of achievement.

The bill directs about $370 billion (that’s a lot) over 10 years toward promoting clean energy and climate resilience, with about two-thirds of the money coming in the form of tax credits for producing electricity from clean energy sources, investing in renewable energy technologies and addressing climate change through carbon sequestration, renewable fuel production, and clean energy manufacturing.

According to Evergreen Action, a left-of-center advocacy founded by former staffers to Gov. Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign, which advocated zero emissions by 2035 when some other candidates didn’t even know what zero emissions really meant: “The bill is an opportunity for a major breakthrough in America’s fight against climate change. This bill has the potential to be the single largest investment in clean energy in American history. Making major investments in clean energy is one of the best ways Congress can lower inflation and shield Americans from the volatility of fossil fuel markets.” (Source: How the Senate Climate Bill Could Slash Emissions by 40 Percent, Scientific American, July 28)

The bill includes $60 billion to boost domestic clean energy manufacturing, including $30 billion in production tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical mineral processing. It also offers lower- and middle-income motorists a $7,500 tax credit for clean vehicles, while states and electric utilities would see $30 billion in grants and loans to expand clean energy. The bill also includes $60 billion for environmental justice communities and a fee on methane emissions that will rise to $1,500 a ton by 2026.

The Nature Conservancy released the following statement on Aug 7th: “The Senate’s approval of the Inflation Reduction Act gives us hope, and more optimism than we’ve had in years, that the U.S. Congress recognizes the urgency of the global climate crisis and is prepared to lead a meaningful response.”

Almost all environmental advocacy groups favor the legislation. Indeed, it would be ridiculous to naysay the only true broad-reaching climate legislation in American history.

But, is it enough soon enough? Which may have been on the minds of legislators in Washington, D.C., assuming the nation’s intelligence agencies sent them classified notes about the most frightening climate behavior in human history, i.e., the world is drying up!

And, maybe they read the recent NASA/National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration report that the planet is trapping heat at a rate that’s twice as fast as only 15 years ago.

Carbon emissions have turned the planet into a heat machine. Compelling evidence of this tragedy is found throughout the world, as follows. It demands a much bigger Inflation Reduction Act but on a worldwide coordinated basis:

According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, severe drought is now found throughout the planet.

A recent University of Cambridge University study claims that since 2015 European drought has accelerated and intensified. In fact, the continent is experiencing the most intense drought in 250 years.

"CREMONA, Po River Area Map" by Richard Tweney is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.
“CREMONA, Po River Area Map” by Richard Tweney is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Italy’s Po River Valley, as of July 2022, has cut water for 125 towns. Drinking water is delivered via trucks to Piedmont and Lombardy, as local reservoirs no longer exist. They’re gone! Italy’s drought alert is now spreading to the central part of the country to the rivers Arno, Aniene, and Tiber where water levels are “drastically down.”

The Rhine River, Europe’s most important waterway for commerce and industry and tourism, is close to shutting down. Key shipping lanes are down to 19 inches water depth. This is happening two months before the normal seasonal lows. Transports already reduced from 6000-ton loads to 800 tons but may be forced to halt completely, depending, and making coal shipment to Germany and inclusive of all commercial goods, a horrendous challenge for upcoming winter months.

In France more than 100 towns are without drinking water and now receive water deliveries by truck. The government has established a water crisis team. Trees and bushes are prematurely shedding leaves. France’s nuclear power plants, at a time when half of its 56 reactors are offline due to maintenance and serious corrosion issues, are now threatened due to river water temperatures used to cool the reactors. Restrictions kick in 26°C. Some plants are experiencing 28°C and 30°C river water temps.

In Spain, water restrictions have been imposed on Barcelona, Malaga, Huelva, and Pontevedra. Catalonia has severe restrictions on individual liters per day. The price of olive oil is likely to spike by at least 25% as heat hits crops.

In Portugal, 99% of the country is experiencing severe drought. It’s the driest in 1,200 years. Lawn watering prohibited.

According to NASA, the worst drought in 900 years is hitting the entire Middle East. A Carnegie Endowment study as of 2022 claims water scarcity is threatening violent conflicts throughout MENA, the acronym for the Middle East and North Africa. 80-90 million people in the region will experience water insecurity within three years. The European Commission Joint Research Center, in a recent study, claims there’s a 75%-90% chance of water wars.

Santiago’s population of 6.5 M is on a severe water-rationing program with rotating 24-hour cutoffs for homes in the city. On the suburban outskirts of Santiago, water is delivered by truck to 400,000 families or 1.5M people. They are allotted 50 liters (13.2 gallons) water per day per person. Additionally, in the northern regions of Chile, precipitation is down 90%.

In Argentina, the drought is so bad that the famous Iberia wetland is at its worst levels in 80 years as fires raged earlier this year in one of the world’s largest wetlands.

In SE Asia, the Mekong River, the principal river for the entire region, is in 4-year drought, the worst in 60 years. Cambodian water for crop irrigation is down to 20% of normal.

China has informed Guangzhou (pop 15M) and Shenzhen (pop 12.5M), the country’s tech hub, to cut per capita water use from January to October of 2022. The Pearl River Basin, which serves as the water source for China’s most populous urban centers, as mentioned, has been hit with severe drought, plus the looming drinking water crisis is compounded by drought-induced saltwater intrusion.

In Japan, Matsuyama (pop 515K) and Shikokuchuo (Pop 84K) are rationing water to citizens. Some areas of the country are experiencing crippling water shortages. The country is also experiencing power shortages and intends to go to more coal.

In Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya are faced with brutal drought. Three million livestock have died under the fierce influence of heat. In the Horn of Africa, 20M people are at risk of starvation and failure of water supplies.

America’s two largest water reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are within a few tens of feet of dead pool status defined as water no longer running downstream beyond Hoover dam and Glen Canyon dam respectively. Lake Mead dead pool is 895 feet elevation; it’s currently 1,041 feet. Lake Powell’s dead pool is 3,370 feet elevation. It is current 3,536 feet. The US Bureau of Reclamation recently informed the seven Colorado River Basin states to cut water usage on an emergency basis.

Is the Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 big enough, soon enough? Probably not.

Congress really needs to go back to Biden’s initial $3.5T Build Back Better Plan. In that regard, The Economist, July 21, 2022 ran this article: American Climate Policy is in Tatters—Manchin Single-handedly scuttled Biden’s BBB Plans for $3.5 trillion.

The entire planet is reeling from global warming. America’s modest couple hundred billion climate plan is a drop in the world’s bucket. The whole world needs to mimic Biden’s original BBB plan, or it’s lights out. The evidence of that is compelling, unless, of course, facts don’t count any longer.

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 12, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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America’s Biggest Reservoirs Hit By Dead Pool Jitters

Photo Photo by Ryan Thorpe on Unsplash
Photo by Ryan Thorpe on Unsplash

America’s Biggest Reservoirs Hit By Dead Pool Jitters

By Robert Hunziker

Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead is dangerously close to dead pool status for the first time since construction in the mid 1930s. A vicious hammering drought sequence for over two decades throughout the West threatens to bring America’s biggest water reservoir to its knees.

In a word, the implications are unspeakable.

America’s monuments, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln Memorial, and Hoover Dam are the foundations of Americana, the essence of America, its character, and its culture. Hoover Dam, one of the greatest engineering feats of all time, 96 lives lost during construction, defines America’s true grit during a bygone era that had to overcome great challenges tagged with the Great Depression, soup kitchens & breadlines (NYC 82 breadlines by 1932), the Dust Bowl, incipient fascism in Europe, and a brewing world war.

Yet, in the face of those overwhelming challenges, similar to a phoenix miraculously rising out of the ashes, in 1934 Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead commenced water filling in celebration of an engineering marvel. Seven years later (1941) Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead stood tall at maximum capacity of 1,220 feet elevation with sparkling blue water that shone for all to behold, becoming the most-visited dam in the world with 7 million annual visitors.

In a twist of climate change fate and echoing the 1930s, America once again is challenged by drought, irreconcilable political squabbling, 42 million SNAPs (electronic food stamps), festering homegrown armed fascism, and entanglement in a European war, as Lake Mead returns to its beginnings of 88 years ago. Today’s 1,041 feet elevation is the same as 1937, as it was then filling. But, in sharp contrast to the outlook for Lake Mead when completed in 1934 full of hope and promise, the outlook today is decidedly negative. What’s changed?

Answer: The climate system has turned upside down, whether it’s gushing massive flash floods or hard-hitting severe parched droughts there’s little middle ground. It’s behaving like the Mad Hatter gone off the deep end.

But, this time is vastly different from the past. Severe drought is now a worldwide phenomenon like never before. It’s hitting everywhere. According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, no continent is spared the ravages of severe drought, except for Antarctica. Major urban centers in South America (Santiago) and China (Guangzhou and Shenzhen) and Europe (100 Po Valley towns) are already rationing or instituting forced reduction of water usage.

Global heat is on the verge of breaking-out. According to NASA and NOAA, the planet is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, which they describe as an “unprecedented increase amid the climate crisis.” NASA describes this trend as “quite alarming.”

All of which leads to a conclusion that foolhardy use of fossil fuels has created a heat-machine. The evidence of the heat-machine is found by the fact that the planet is trapping twice as much heat as 17 years ago. That’s an off–the-charts data point that should send shivers down anyone’s spine.

For evidence of the heat-machine’s powerful impact, as of June 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was forced to adopt emergency measures to restrict drawdowns, instructing the seven Colorado River Basin states to reduce water usage by 2-4 million acre-feet over the next 18 months. As for recreational purposes, 5 of 6 boating ramps are now closed.

Such an emergency never happened throughout the dam’s 88-year history, until now. Something’s different, something’s wrong. What’s next for America’s important reservoirs? Is dead pool next?

Dead pool occurs when water in a reservoir drops so low that it cannot flow downstream the dam. America’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam and Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam are interconnected and at high risk of dead pool.

The risks impact all of America, as 40 million people and 4-5 million acres of farmland depend upon the reservoirs for electric power and/or drinking and irrigation. Furthermore, the seven states of the Colorado Basin in large measure “feed the country.” California alone produces 33% of the country’s vegetables and 67% of the country’s fruits and nuts.

Lake Mead dead pool is 895 feet and minimum power pool 1,000 feet; its current elevation is 1,041 feet.

Lake Powell dead pool is 3,370 feet and minimum power pool 3,490 feet; its current elevation is 3,536 feet.

Minimum power pool is defined as water reservoir levels so low that turbines start losing capacity to produce power as they start to take on air along with water. Unless shut down, the turbines will suffer damage.

These massive reservoirs have steadily shrunk in concert with the relentless impact of the worst drought for the American West in over 1,000 years, now down to 1,041.30 feet for Lake Mead, as of July 18, 2022 (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation).

But, of even more concern, alarmingly and suddenly Lake Mead dropped 22 feet and Lake Powell dropped 40 feet in 2021 alone much, much faster than ever forecast. California, Nevada, Arizona and others must make big cuts to their allocations or dead pool will become reality. Nobody expected this so soon.

It should be noted that the reservoirs are shaped like giant martini glasses, thereby narrowing with depth. This feature, in part, explains Lake Mead dropping 22 feet in one year and Lake Powell 40 feet. Nevertheless, Lake Mead at 1,041 feet is only 41 feet away from minimum power pool and Lake Powell at 3,526 feet only 46 feet from minimum power pool. Yikes!

The seriousness of this crisis cannot be overly emphasized as the reality of a mega drought hits America right between the eyes. Yet, there are no quick solutions. Of course one solution would be if somebody could wave a magical wand over the Rocky Mountains to regenerate the normality of snowpack since that is the source for 90% of the water flow. But, global warming has walloped snowpack: According to the U.S. EPA’s Climate Change Indicators: Snowpack throughout the Western U.S., as of 2022: The snowpack measured in April has declined by 20-60% at most monitoring sites.

A good explanation for the sorry state of America’s largest reservoirs comes from John Matthews, executive director and co-founder of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation: “Matthews said the water shortage on the Colorado River reflects fundamental problems in how Hoover Dam and other infrastructure projects were designed for a climate that no longer exists, and how water supplies continue to be divided under a rigid and antiquated system.” (Source: As Climate Talks Put Focus On Water Crisis, The Colorado River Provides A Stark Example, Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2021)

Matthews: “The Colorado Compact is trapped in a climate that went away in 1980 or 1990, and is not coming back for at least another millennium… I think this is an old car without airbags.”

Scientists estimate that one-half of the decrease in water runoff of the Colorado watershed since 2000 is caused by unprecedented warming, a heat-driven erosion of water supply that’s destined to worsen as temperatures continue to rise.

The upshot is a permanent change in the climate system caused by an imbalance as Earth absorbs more energy from the Sun than it emits to space because of the blanket effect of greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2. This worldwide nemesis is not about to change anytime soon. More likely, it will worsen.

Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., the highly touted Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, if passed, will face a predicament that’s already deeply embedded. It should be noted that Bill McKibben, of 350.org fame, writing in The New Yorker: Congress Looks Set To Finally Pass Historic Climate Legislation, July 31, 2022: “Taken as a whole, the bill is a triumph. It would be the most ambitious climate package ever passed in the U.S. and would allow the country to resume a credible role as an environmental leader.”

The bill penalizes oil and gas companies that fail to cut methane emissions, but it doesn’t actually pressure energy utilities to abandon coal and gas. Still, analysts say that it would cut emissions to forty per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

Thus, the bill (except for provisions that actually promote more fossil fuel usage) is not bad but also not good enough according to what’s needed to actually mitigate global warming (caused by fossil fuel usage). Accordingly, scientists’ concerns about rapid climate change know that effective mitigation requires much stronger measures, much sooner.

Fixing Lake Powell and Lake Mead

As word of mouth spread that America’s major reservoirs were close to failing, it spurred more and more suggestions of tapping the massive Mississippi River to supplement the Colorado River Basin.

Moreover, according to The Waterways Journal, suggestions to tap the Mississippi River go back decades: “The Bureau of Reclamation did a thorough study of the idea of pumping Mississippi River water to Arizona in 2012, concluding that the project would cost $14 billion (in 2012 dollars) and take 30 years to complete. As recently as 2021, the Arizona state legislature urged Congress to fund a technological and feasibility study of a diversion dam and pipeline scheme to harvest floodwater from the Mississippi River to replenish the Colorado River.”

However, it should be noted that the Trans Alaska Pipeline System was completed in June 1977, taking three years to complete the 800-mile pipeline under extremely harsh conditions. Hmm.

At this point in time, crossing one’s fingers that some relief will come soon in the West is the only short-term viable solution other than stealing water from other reservoirs, which the U.S. Reclamation Bureau was forced to do to save Lake Powell’s power generation. Yes, the Bureau had to scramble to “save” Lake Powell’s power generation capability. This fact alone is chilling.

The Bureau’s changes allow more water to flow into Lake Powell from upstream reservoirs, while releasing less water from Lake Powell downstream. In this bureaucratic scramble to find more water, Lake Mead comes up at the short end of the stick in favor of saving Lake Powell’s power generation. About 500,000 acre-feet of water will be released from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, about 455 river miles upstream of Lake Powell. Meanwhile, 480 kaf will be held back in Lake Powell by reducing Glen Canyon Dam’s annual release volume from 7.48 maf to 7.0 maf. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation Takes Drastic Steps at Lake Powell to Ensure Hydropower Generation, S&P Global, Commodity Insights, May 3, 2022)

Flaming Gorge Reservoir, on the Green River in Utah and Wyoming, currently holds about 3 maf of water and is at 78% of its storage capacity. Operators started sending additional water to Lake Powell in May 2022.

Thus, the Bureau keeps the ship of state together by cut and paste methodology robbing upstream reservoirs in order to keep the lights on for 5 million electric customers and water flowing for 40 million. Obviously, the cut and paste solution cannot go on forever.

Photo of James Hansen by Nasa is in the public domain.
Photo of James Hansen by Nasa is in the public domain.

This horror story of failing reservoirs that provide crucial power and water for dense population centers and key agricultural regions represents an inexcusable failure by leadership in government and business to listen to warnings from scientists for four decades, ever since James Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 1981-2013, testified before the Senate in 1988 that the greenhouse effect had been detected, indicating the climate system was changing, not for the better. That testimony was remarkably prophetic.

As it happens, what would have been a relatively simple solution back in the day has turned into a nightmare.

In that regard, The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the proposed Shumer/Manchin bill, is a Band-Aid, not a solution.

Postscript: “Earth is out of energy balance, more solar energy absorbed than heat radiated to space, by an astounding amount, more than any time with reliable data.” (James Hansen, June Temperature Update & The Bigger Picture, July 29, 2022)

Regarding the Inflation Reduction Act: “It is consistent with the long-standing ‘wishful thinking’ approach to climate policy, ask each nation to try to reduce their emissions and hope that the global results will add up to a solution. And then ignore the blatant scientific data showing that this approach is not working and will not work.” (Hansen)

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 5, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Breakdown of the Marine Food Web

Photo of a grey shark by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash
Photo by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash

Breakdown of the Marine Food Web

By Robert Hunziker

For the first time, a significant loss at the base of the marine food web has been detected. The Scottish research vessel Capepod reported the findings in equatorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s a disturbing discovery, but first a look at the marine food web, starting with the lowest organisms: (1) phytoplankton – plant-like plankton: green algae, diatoms, and dinoflagellates eaten by (2) zooplankton – microorganisms: crustaceans, rotifers, insect larvae and mites eaten by (3) small fish: anchovies, sardines, shrimp, squid, krill eaten by (4) bigger fish: sturgeon, sunfish, sharks, manta rays eaten by (5) mammals: seals, dolphins, polar bears, and last but certainly not least, humans at an increasingly wobbly end of the food chain.

At the bottom of the food web phytoplankton generically serves as the most significant resource of marine life simply because nothing else eats if phytoplankton doesn’t exist. Moreover, phytoplankton performs photosynthesis, converting sunrays to energy, absorbs CO2, and serves as a major source, producing oxygen for the biosphere.

Teams of scientists study plankton and keep track of changes at the base of the food chain. Their results are reported to various governmental agencies that hopefully take remedial action if things are going sideways. But, umm… well, onward with the story.

Only recently, disturbing news came from the Scottish research group Global Oceanic Environmental Survey (“GOES”) Edinburgh that spent two years gathering samples of plankton along the equatorial Atlantic. The team detected unmistakable signs that the food web is compromised: “Their sampling suggested plankton levels may have fallen by 90% in parts of the Atlantic.” (Source: Expert: Warmer Seas are Forcing Crucial Plankton to Move North, The Sunday Post, Dundee, Scotland, July 24, 2022)

The GOES research team spent two years collecting water samples from the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Previously, it was assumed that plankton had fallen by 50% since the 1940s, but this new evidence suggests a mouth-dropping -90%.

According to the GOES team, plankton is directly impacted by: “An overload of CO2 along with a deluge of lethal manmade chemicals in cosmetics, plastics, sunscreen, drugs, and fertilizers is inundating the marine environment. It’s all toxic to underwater life and once the water reaches a tipping point of activity, vast amounts of plankton will simply dissolve.” (Source: Atlantic Ocean ‘Pretty Much Dead’ Says Scientist as Plankton Wiped Out, Marine Industry News, July 18, 2022)

GOES’s research: “The team expected to find up to five visible pieces of plankton in every 10 litres of water – but found an average of less than one (ed.-meaning some samples were zero) Conversely, they’d expected to discover 20 microscopic specks of toxic particles per litre of Atlantic water – but actually counted between 100 and 1,000. The discovery suggests that plankton faces complete wipeout sooner than was expected,” Ibid.

In addition to the above-referenced GOES survey in parts of the equatorial Atlantic, another research team Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey (“CPR”) of Plymouth, UK monitors plankton with vessels across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, up to 30 vessels generating 5,000 samples per year. CPR has been monitoring plankton in the North Atlantic for 70 years and reports results to governments in the UK, EU, and North America.

Preliminary evidence suggests, in addition to human influenced chemicals, etc., for the first time, microscopic plankton sea creatures are negatively reacting to warming ocean water in a profound manner. In part, the issue is the change of water temperature conditions required to support certain species life cycles. It appears that global warming’s impact is displacing them northward as the equatorial waters turn too warm. This shift northward by plankton may be okay for the short-term but more ocean warming will become extremely problematic as plankton essentially run out of enough cooler water space to migrate without overcrowding its own kind in jumbled clumps of plankton crowding onto and battling over the same space. This can become toxic in many respects.

According to David Johns, head of CPR: “Are we in a situation that requires mitigation as a matter of urgency? Yes, I would say so. If they carry on moving north and run out of water, if the seas become too warm, then we’ll lose a lot of those types of plankton that are critically important for fish species and marine mammals,” Ibid.

Of course, nobody knows for certain whether the horrendous falloff is a result of migration north because of too warm of waters or decimation by toxins such as plastics, chemicals, and farm pesticides/fertilizers. However, it’s likely a combination of factors, which essentially doubles the trouble.

The world community should be overly concerned and overly reactive to do whatever it takes as quickly as possible! This type of bad news has a tendency to get worse over time. Moreover, is there a fast enough solution to make a big enough difference in enough time?

The risk is that a loss of plankton brings in its wake a collapse of the ocean food chain. According to Dr. Howard Dryden of GOES, a tipping point could arrive within 25 years unless direct action is taken on toxins from plastics, chemicals, and farm fertilizers. Still, a big issue is temperatures goosed up by inordinate climate change/global warming as a result of excessive greenhouse gases emitted by humans as well as CO2’s hugely negative impact on ocean acidification.

As for solutions, according to David Johns of CPR: “I’d definitely focus on reducing CO2.”

Which brings forth the heartbreaking reality that CO2 emissions are nearly guaranteed to keep on increasing at the current rate of 10 times more than the paleoclimate record over the past 66 million years. Umm, 10xs faster! And 66 million years left in the dust.

Here’s why CO2 is destined to continue choking the planet: Public announcements of oil and gas production plans guarantee excessive levels of greenhouse gas emissions for years ahead: World’s Biggest Fossil Fuel Firms Projected to Spend Almost a Trillion Dollars on New Oil and Gas Fields by 2030, Global Witness and Oil Change International, April 12, 2022. At the same time, both China and India have once again rediscovered affairs with coal.

Withal, the threat to plankton goes much deeper than human-generated greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals. It’s much worse, to wit: Indeed, scientists have observed zooplankton eating plastic. Micro-plastic resembles food for zooplankton. This horror film analogue introduces a variety of toxic chemicals to the marine food web. Heaven only knows the final results, maybe 3-eyed fish and lots more people with totally fried brains that are easily swayed to believe outright lies. (Source: Plastic Pollution is Killing Plankton. How the Loss of This Species Threatens the Oceans, Onegreenplanet.org, 2021)

All of which brings to mind if, when, and how there’s any chance whatsoever of globally unified remedial policies on a worldwide scale to prevent total collapse of marine life. Hmm! That’s asking for a lot, especially when nations of the world couldn’t even follow thru on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris ’15 climate agreement. That’s been a total failure. What then of the oceans?

Photo of James Lovelock in 2005
Photo of James Lovelock in 2005

R.I.P.

James Lovelock, July 26, 1919 – July 26, 2022

Gaia theory – Earth is a self-regulating living organism

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 29, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Paper Straws Are Not Enough

Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash
Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash

Paper Straws Are Not Enough

By Robert Hunziker

As the UK suffered its hottest-ever temperatures only recently, Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, interviewed Britain’s erudite environmental journalist George Monbiot July 21, 2022 about his most recent article in The Guardian: This Heatwave Has Eviscerated The Idea That Small Changes Can Tackle Extreme Weather, July 18, 2022.

According to Monbiot: “Paper straws are not enough. Only System Change can halt the climate crisis.” Of course, System Change can only mean throwing out the neoliberal brand of capitalism in favor of almost anything else.

Adam Smith would be spinning in his grave with today’s crony capitalism. Interestingly, “the term ‘capitalism’ appears nowhere in Smith’s writings.” (Source: Jesse Norman, Adam Smith, Penguin Random House/UK 2018, pgs. 265-66)

According to Jesse Norman, former Financial Secretary to the UK Treasury, 2019-2021 and Member of Parliament since 2010: “The real Adam Smith was (a) not an advocate of self-interest (b) did not believe rational behavior was constituted solely by the pursuit of profit (c) was not a believer in laissez-faire (d) was not pro-rich (e) was not anti-government.”

In other words, Adam Smith is/was the antithesis of today’s brand of neoliberal capitalism, and oh yes, (f) “far from glorifying consumption for its own sake, Smith deprecated it.”

Everything that Smith was against is found in neoliberalism today, especially the failure to protect and benefit the common good.

Today’s capitalism couldn’t fix climate change if its existence depended upon it, which it does, as self-interest looks elsewhere far beyond the common good or welfare.

Photo of George Monbiot by TED Conference is licens under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Photo of George Monbiot (“TS2019_20190723_2BH8236_1920“)by TED Conference is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

George Monbiot echoes Adam Smith in many respects. Like Smith, Monbiot has been recognized and awarded by his contemporaries, recently winning the Orwell Prize for Journalism 2022 for his article: Capitalism is Killing the Planet – it’s Time to Stop Buying into our Destruction, The Guardian, October 30, 2021.

Capitalism is Killing… is a scathing critique of how we’re dealing with the climate crisis by focusing on what he terms micro consumerist ballocks.

Monbiot explains: What we’re collectively saying as environmentalists is that we’re facing the biggest existential crisis humanity has ever faced, a potential collapse of our life support systems, the domino effect as one earth system pulls down another until habitable space on the planet collapses into a state from which we did not evolve.

In response, environmentalists are saying we want to use less plastic bags, and replace plastic shafts with paper shafts, and stop using plastic straws. Essentially, the environmental movement has been calling for micro solutions to solve macro problems. The upshot is a very low threshold for people to get involved in this way of thinking. In turn, it creates a mindset that believes “we cannot possibly have such a big problem if the solutions are so tiny.” People continue to whistle whilst they work with nothing too serious to care about. Micro consumerist ballock is the dominant narrative within the media and amongst environmental orgs.

However, “incremental change can never develop the transformation which is required… it just does not deliver.” The only way to deliver quickly and effectively is by radical system change.

Meanwhile, as environmentalists have been messing around with micro fixes, the global Right has instituted insurgency and has achieved system change that’s tearing down democracy, tearing down equality before the law, tearing down basic rights, human rights, regulations, and taxes, ripping down everything, and changing the system to suit billionaires, oligarchs, and predatory corporations. They have proven that it’s possible to achieve system change. They’ve done it!

The Right has executed the biggest system change in American history, while the Left’s timidity and failure to demand system change chokes in the dust as a big part of why we collectively are stuck where we are, and why almost no effective broad based measures to address the greatest crisis of all time have been instituted.

Meanwhile, what we really truly want is “private sufficiency with public luxury.” Meaning people have their own home base with necessities, which is private sufficiency. Then, for luxury we collectively pursue it in the public domain as public luxury.

Whereas luxury-for-all is a huge indomitable challenge. “There is not enough physical or ecological space for everybody to pursue private luxury.” For example, if everyone has a private jet and a big luxury car and overly spacious home, that’s planet-gone (devastation) within hours. We’d burn through everything in a flash of time.” If everyone in London had a swimming pool and tennis court and art collection, the city would physically need to be as big as all of Europe to accommodate it all. Where would everybody else in Europe go to live?

There simply is not enough planet space for everybody to be a billionaire, but there is enough space for public luxury, e.g. public swimming pools and public tennis courts and public health service and public transport, which creates space for people by sharing resources on a per capita basis that is manageable.

Kate Rayworth’s Doughnut Economics (Random House, 2017) outlines such a life style where we all live within planetary boundaries but above welfare boundaries. The message is clear that mitigation of the climate crisis requires an ecological civilization with participatory democracy, once again.

The Left’s blatant failure to openly call for system change is its biggest failing and quite the opposite of the Right’s success with system change, leaving the Left speechless and coughing and wheezing in an effortless cloud of dust. The Left has never learned to fight by taking off the gloves, bare-knuckled.

In Montbiot’s book Regenesis, Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, Penguin Random House 2022, he looks at the world via a global prism. Therein, he discovers that it is as important to stop animal agriculture as it is to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

According to Monbiot, “the great majority of people have got to stop eating animals.” It is a primary driver of environmental destruction, a major cause of habitat loss, of wildlife loss, of extinction, of abusive land use, of fresh water overuse, of soil degradation, a major cause of climate breakdown and of water pollution and air pollution. Animal agriculture is at the top of the list along side fossil fuels as the planet’s biggest drivers of mass destruction.

Monbiot says plant-based diets are far better than animal agricultural diets, but he feels society can go much further than that with new technologies, including fermentation, which produces a protein-rich food from single-cell organisms or microbes that are essentially brewed. It is a process that can be done anywhere. No need for fertile land or chemicals or using massive quantities of water. It is also an avenue to break away from multinational corporations that control global trade, e.g. four corporations control 90% of the global grain trade, which is essentially a long and highly vulnerable food chain.

Of concern, the global food system has lost its resilience, and it’s starting to approach the deplorable state of the financial system in 2008. Threateningly, the global food system has switched from stocks to flows. Basically our global food reserves are floating at sea in container ships. The dangers are legion.

To mitigate the climate crisis, precision fermentation offers an opportunity to break the hold of four corporations controlling the world’s food system, as well as offering release of the all-powerful destructive tension hitting ecosystems throughout the world that are fast approaching a Big Snap!

Examples of Fermentation

In response to a question about fermentation examples, the following comes from an article of mine some time ago:

Factory farming is about to be disrupted via better foods, tastier foods, cheaper foods, healthier foods, and a much healthier environment. That future, sans institutional slaughterhouses and sans widespread use of chemicals and the end of clear-cutting has been theorized in detail by the independent think tank RethinkX.

The not-so-secret formula to better, tastier, cheaper, healthier, more prevalent food is the production of microorganisms. Already over past centuries humanity has shown the value of controlling microorganisms through fermentation, producing bread, cheese, alcohol, as well as preserving fruit and vegetables.

“Moving food production to the molecular level promises a more efficient means of feeding ourselves and the delivery of superior, cleaner nutrients without the unhealthy chemical/antibiotic/insecticide additives required by current industrial means of production.” (RethinkX)

The capability to create foods with exact attributes of nutrition, structure, taste, and texture is advancing whereby ordering food will be similar to installing software on your phone but via databases of engineered molecules, as fermentation farms displace factory farms.

Impossible Foods is an example that utilizes fermented (heme) to create a higher-performing product. (Source: A Rainbow of Opportunity: How Fermentation Biotech is Creating “Agricultural 2.0”, Food Navigator, March 25, 2021)

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 25, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Greenland Threatens

Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Greenland Threatens

By Robert Hunziker

It rained for 9 hours at Summit Station/Greenland, 10,530’ elevation.

Greenland is sending signals to coastal metropolises around the world that it’s never too early to start building seawalls. These are not mixed signals from the big ice island. Rather, they are straightforward signals indicative of rapid breakdown of average ice thickness of 5,000 feet sooner than ever thought possible.

Stating the obvious, it’s horrible news.

In conjunction with freakish rain at the top of Greenland, the response to global warming has increasingly exposed humans as farcically trapped behind the biggest eight ball of all time by not taking global warming seriously. Now, there may be no way around it.

Greenland is acting out. For example, it rained at the Summit Station at 10,530 feet above sea level where it has never rained throughout all recorded history. It’s not supposed to rain at the top of an ice sheet nearly two miles above sea level. But, it did.

Why?Climate System Scientist Paul Beckwith knows why, as he explains in a 41-min video released July 14, 2022 entitled: Greenland Ice Sheet Vulnerable to Bone-Crushing Melt from Stronger More Frequent Atmospheric Rivers

He starts by explaining how the first rainfall in recorded history at the summit happened one year ago. An atmospheric river caused it. Accordingly, he explains: “These atmospheric rivers are occurring more frequently.”

Here’s how Beckwith sees it: “The idea that the ice on Greenland will last decades and decades, even centuries. I think you could throw those ideas out the window as you get more and more atmospheric rivers, you’ll get more and more abrupt changes in the melt rate.”

On the first day of rain at the Summit, it rained every hour, which was unprecedented and shocking to the scientists at the station at 10,000 feet elevation. Temperatures were more than 18°C higher than normal.

The implications are horrifying. For example, when and how much sea level rises has become a roll of the dice that threatens every coastal city of the world. When and how much?

Keep in mind nobody is gonna ring a bell or pre-announce: Hey, Greenland’s crumbling so fast that we’d better head for the hills. Nobody is going to make a public statement like that, and if they did, climate deniers, including 52% of House Republicans and 60% of Senate Republicans would tear them to pieces in the media labeled as a “commie plot,” or as a “lie to scare Americans,” or something equally stupid and juvenile that a whole bunch of people would believe.

Beckwith introduced a new study d/d June 2nd, 2022 entitled: Greenland Ice Sheet Rainfall, Heat and Albedo Feedback Impacts From the Mid-August 2021 Atmospheric River, Geophysical Research Letters, Vole 49, Issue 11 by Jason E. Box, et al. Box is widely recognized as the world’s leading authority on Greenland.

Regarding the analysis according to Christopher Shuman, a glaciologist with University of Maryland: “To see this many melt events at this intensity in such a short period is absolutely remarkable in the historic records that are available to us… We now see three melting events in a decade in Greenland – and before 1990, that happened about once every 150 years, and now rainfall in an area where rain never fell,” Ibid.

According to Beckwith: “This has huge implications for Greenland’s rate of melt, it has huge implications for global sea level rise. It has huge implications for the Ocean Circulation Pattern… It’s a solid indicator that we’re in abrupt climate system change… crazy things are happening, we’re at that state.”

The frequency of atmospheric rivers driven by highly amplified jet stream patterns is increasingly troublesome and threatens continued rapid melt. This is also an issue in Antarctica.

Since the timeline and extent of sea level rise is now an unknown more so than ever before and in the face of rapidly deteriorating conditions at both poles, coastal communities worldwide should preempt the unknown by building sea walls, especially low-lying areas like Miami. And yet, there are no hues and cries across the land to initiate emergency measures to hold back rising seas.

Bottom line according to Beckwith: “Throw out all of the models, the idea that it can take decades and decades or even centuries for a place like Greenland ice to melt out with a huge increase in sea level rise… If atmospheric rivers become more frequent, the Greenland ice sheet is basically a sitting duck to be obliterated by these atmospheric rivers.”

“In just one week in July last year, the ice and snow virtually disappeared from the surface of Greenland’s barren interior. Only a few months earlier, when Box predicted this might happen, he was dismissed by many of his fellow scientists as an alarmist.” (Source: Greenland Melting, Rollingstone, 2022)

Box explains the problem of science: “For most scientists publishing a paper is a masturbatory act… Few people read it, you feel good, and then it’s over; it has no influence on policymakers; it does nothing to increase public understanding of what is happening to the climate system,” Ibid.

Meanwhile, according to NASA: Greenland and Antarctica are losing three times as much ice each year as they did in the 1990s.

Years of warnings about dangers of excessive fossil fuel CO2 emissions have not moved the needle. Fossil fuels today account for 75-80% of the energy mix, same as 50 years ago. And, according to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel companies plan on $1.5T of new production between now and 2030.

With warnings galore of dangers of global warming, even The Economist felt compelled to carry an article Aug. 25, 2020: The Greenland Ice Sheet has Melted Past the Point of no Return: “The ice loss, they think, is now so great that it has triggered an irreversible feedback loop: the sheet will keep melting, even if all climate-warming emissions are miraculously curtailed. This is bad news for coastal cities.”

The Economist article was two years ago, one year before the unusual rain incident at Summit Station, which was a big time wake up call. Yet, the planet’s biggest threat remains worse than ever. Alas, at some point in time global warming warning articles, like this one, will become meaningless. Gurgle!

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 19, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Will Egypt Drain the World’s Second Largest Wetlands?

Photo by Wynand Uys on Unsplash
Photo by Wynand Uys on Unsplash

Will Egypt Drain the World’s Second Largest Wetlands?

By Robert Hunziker

“With 35% loss globally since 1970, wetlands are our most threatened ecosystem, disappearing three times faster than forests. Wetlands’ services for climate mitigation, adaptation biodiversity, and human health outweigh all other terrestrial ecosystems.” (Source: Wetlands are Being Lost at Alarming Rates, Global Wetland Outlook, 2021)

Sudd is Africa’s largest freshwater wetland at roughly 3,500 square miles in an otherwise dry region of South Sudan. It’s under threat by a megaproject named Jonglei Canal that has the potential to devastate this ecological gem.

According to conservationists: “Even a partial loss of the Sudd would be an ecological disaster, desiccating the world’s second largest swamp and ending seasonal flooding of the surrounding grasslands, which comprise Africa’s largest intact area of savannah.” (Source: Will Nile Canal Project Dry Up Africa’s Largest Wetland? Grist, July 8, 2022)

Egypt has Sudd’s water in its sights, some of it or all of it, only time will tell. Its plans involve a 40-yr disrupted work-in-progress that is now moving ahead once again, diverting water from the Sudd watershed to Egypt.

Map of South Sudan is in the public domain.
Map of South Sudan by the United States Central Intelligence Agency is in the public domain.

Completion of a 240-mile canal will divert White Nile River flow directly to Egypt. This risks draining Sudd to levels that’ll negatively impact the ecosystem forever. But, nobody on the Egyptian side will even hint of such possibilities. The White Nile is one of two main tributaries of the Nile. It begins at Lake Victoria and flows thru Uganda and South Sudan, where it feeds water to Sudd’s remarkable pristine ecosystem, one of the world’s finest.

Wetlands are the principal feeder system for replenishment of the world’s aquifers. According to NASA one-third of the world’s largest aquifers are stressed in large measure because of loss of wetlands.

Cementing over, draining, diverting, or plowing under the world’s wetlands destroys the kidneys of the planet and a whole lot more. The path of destruction is already at critical levels.

“In just over 100 years we have managed to destroy 50 percent of the world’s wetlands… It is a startling figure.” (Source: Achim Steiner, executive director, UN Environment Programme, Hyderabad UN Conference)

“Wetlands are critical to human and planet life. Directly or indirectly, they provide almost the entire world’s freshwater. More than one billion people depend on them for a living and they are among the most biodiverse ecosystems. Up to 40% of the world’s species live and breed in wetlands, although now more than 25% of all wetlands plants and animals are at risk of extinction.” (Source: Wetlands Disappearing Three Times Faster Than Forests, United Nations Climate Change, October 2018)

One sentence from above says it all: Directly or indirectly, they (wetlands) provide almost the entire world’s freshwater. In a world riddled with unprecedented bouts of severe drought, it takes on new significance.

As for completion of the work-in-progress canal, South Sudan’s environmental ministry has different ideas than most others in its administration. The ministry will not support “completion of the canal because of the ecosystem services that Sudd provides to our nation, the region and the world.” (Source: Will a Nile Canal Project Dry Up Africa’s Largest Wetland? YaleEnvironment 360, June 28, 2022)

What Will be Lost?

Ecologists claim the magnificent Sudd is under threat of turning into desert. Sudd is home to thousands of crocodiles, hippos, elephants, zebras, and the great majority of the world’s shoebill storks. It serves as one of the world’s mightiest mammal migration pathways, including 1.3 million antelope that cross through the ecosystem’s 100s of miles of rich grasslands to Gambella, Ethiopia. Ecologists fear that much of this will be lost. (Grist, July 8th)

Furthermore, hydrologist claim the project will reduce rainfall for farms and the rainforests across South Sudan as well as in neighboring countries.

Canal Status

British colonial engineers first proposed the canal in 1904. It was 2/3rds completed in the 1980s but abandoned because of a raging civil war. Rebels kidnapped the operators of the canal. They saw the canal as water theft by Egypt, depriving Sudd’s nomadic Dinka, Nuer, and Shilluk of fisheries and seasonal flooding of pastures for livestock. A 22-year civil war ensued.

“The abandoned site of the half-completed Jonglei Canal is one of the strangest scenes in Africa. A dry excavation 250 feet wide and up to 25 feet deep, extends across near-desert east of the Sudd for 160 miles, ending at the Bucketwheel, a 2,300-ton laser-guided digging machine as tall as a five-story building. The machine was brought there in 1978 by a French construction company, and for six years its 12 giant rotating buckets steadily excavated the canal.” (Grist)

In February 2022, South Sudan’s VP for Infrastructure Taban Deng Gai became the first minister to publicly call for the canal to be completed: “For our land not to be submerged by flood, let’s allow this water to flow to those who need it in Egypt,” Ibid.

Clearly, Egypt stands to gain the most, and it’s likely the only true beneficiary of completion of the canal.

However, an incipient coalition of environmentalists, concerned members of the Sudan National Legislature, academics, and NGO officials are pushing back with an energetic “Save the Sudd” campaign. Accordingly, John Aker, the vice chancellor of the University of Juba claims: The canal “has the potential of draining and destroying the Sudd’s ecosystem, with dire consequences on the Sudd region’s biodiversity, livelihood, culture, and hydrological cycle,” Ibid.

Academic Jacob Lupai claims: “South Sudan did not fight two costly and devastating wars… just to be at the receiving end of predatory outsiders’ imposed projects and to allow its precious natural resources to be plundered,” Ibid.

Supporters of the canal project claim it will not entirely dry up Sudd, merely shrink it. But, by how much is uncertain… guesstimates run as low as 7% and up to 40% with some opponents claiming total devastation. According to conservationists, “even a partial loss of the Sudd would be an ecological disaster.” (Grist, July 8th)

Significant amounts of water evaporation from Sudd’s skies carry south via winds that consistently maintain moisture for the ecologically crucial Green Belt that spreads across most of southern South Sudan and including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. In that regard, according to a hydrological model at Delft University of Technology and the University of Juba’s John Alec: “A shrinking Sudd will eliminate all-year rains across the region.”

Additionally, four billion tons of carbon would be released from peat if and when a significant Sudd dry out occurs.

Egypt’s completion of the Jonglei Canal puts at risk one of the world’s last remaining spectacular wetlands. The loss would be immeasurable and obviously irreplaceable, as it impacts one of the planet’s last remaining wonderlands of wildlife.

It’s truly one of a kind.

Save the Sudd!

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 15, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Noam Chomsky and the United Nations Warn of Collapse

Photo by Javier Miranda on Unsplash
Photo by Javier Miranda on Unsplash

Noam Chomsky and the United Nations Warn of Collapse

By Robert Hunziker

It’s entirely possible that doomsayers of the world, though widely ridiculed, could be on target about the prospects for global societal collapse. But, of course, when? According to a recent Noam Chomsky interview, it’s an ongoing grind that will end with a thud.

The onset of societal collapse is not hidden. Rather, similar to animals in the wild, people sense when something’s out of the ordinary, amiss, trouble brewing, on the alert. There’s tension in the air, tempers flare, strangers lash out, and society turns against establishment protocols; it’s the antithesis of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (1952-1966) and Father Knows Best (1954-1960). Instead, it’s Mad Max (1979) redux. It is today’s world, and people sense trouble, something’s not right.

As for confirmation of those haunting feelings that something’s not right, a recent UN report discusses prominent risks of “global collapse”: UN 2022 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, aka: GAR2022 d/d May 2022, more on this later.

Accordingly, escalating synergies of (1) disasters (2) economic vulnerability and (3) ecosystem failures increasingly accumulate into a juggernaut of collapse, and finally, similar to an orderly line of tripped dominoes, it cascades without enough notice.

On the heels of the recent UN warning, Noam Chomsky also echoes the central premise of doomsayers: “The challenge ahead is beyond anything humans have ever faced. The fate of life on the planet is now at hand.” (Chomsky – Principal speaker for the American Solar Energy Society 51st annual conference, University of New Mexico, June 21, 2022).

"Noam Chomsky" by Andrew Rusk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
“Noam Chomsky” by Andrew Rusk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Chomsky is an iconic fixture of the Left known for strength of character, brilliance, and omniscience. His opening statement at the conference: “We are at a unique moment in human history. Decisions that must be made right now will determine the course of future history if there is to be any human history, which is very much in doubt. There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.”

Chomsky questions survivability of humanity with one key sentence, as follows: “If there is to be any human history, which is very much in doubt.” This statement didn’t come from George Carlin in one of his cynical monologs on American ethics or morals. It’s Noam Chomsky, the father knows best figure of academia.

Chomsky speaks the same sentiments as the doomsayers of the world and in concert with an unlikely but factual United Nations doomsayer analysis, which is much deeper, and scarier, than publicly realized, more on that to follow.

Are they onto something?

Chomsky: The facts are clear. There are two major issues in front of us. The immediate crisis is severe. The crisis is coming to a head in Washington D.C., capitol of the most powerful nation/state in world history.

The fate of the world hangs in the balance of what happens in Washington. It’s not a secret. Indeed, New York Times energy environment correspondent Coral Davenport described a long carefully executed campaign to destroy organized human life on Earth in a recent NYT article: Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches a Crucial Moment, NYT, June 19, 2022.

Chomsky admits the Times article may seem outrageous, but he feels it is completely accurate. As explained therein, the campaign has been carried out meticulously for years by the Energy System. It’s enormous in institutional breadth, including fossil fuel companies, banks and other financial institutions and a large part of the legal community. It also has an international base of support called NATO.

Photo: NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, by NATO is licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Photo: NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, by NATO is licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

It’s not widely known but in the post cold war era NATO formally undertook an expanded mission based upon the following dictum by the Secretary General: “To guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is directed for the West and more generally to protect sea routes used by tankers and other crucial infrastructure of the energy system.” (Source: NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, 2004-09, outlining NATO’s mission at NATO conference)

The Energy System campaign has a strong political base in the Republican Party, especially since 2009. The McCain platform (2008) included a climate program until the Koch brothers got involved. And refused to tolerate it, launching a huge juggernaut bribery intimidation and enormous lobbying campaign to stop it, and going so far as to create a fake citizens group in opposition. They were successful.

Regarding Washington today and Davenport’s column: The Supreme Court, which is reactionary, will consider measures that restrict the use of fossil fuels to limit the effects of environmental destruction. If they strike down EPA authority, it’ll become a precedent for others winding their way thru the legal system. (Addendum- Subsequent to Chomsky’s speech, the far-right Court hammered the EPA, clobbering prospects for a green future in favor of a very dark world order.)

According to Chomsky, for most of history Homo sapiens lived in harmony with nature, until Aug 6 1945 the day that taught two stark lessons: (1) Human capacity reached a level to destroy everything (2) Very few seemed to care. The upshot: “Now, we are at the point when the major institutions of organized society are intent on destroying organized human life on Earth and the millions of other species.” And, too few seem to care enough to stop it.

The famous Doomsday Clock (University of Chicago) was reset during the Trump administration at two minutes to midnight for the first time since 1953. Now at 100 seconds. It will be set again in January, and Chomsky believes a good case can be made to move the second hand even closer to midnight, which is the final hour when humanity self-destructs, either with a bang or suffocation.

In addition to the primary concerns surrounding the dictates of the Doomsday Clock of a growing threat of nuclear war and of failure to prevent lethal global heating, a new concern has been added: The deterioration of rational discourse. ”Unless that gap can be closed, there’s no hope of closing the dread in time to save ourselves.”

Moreover, for Chomsky, there’s a deeper question. It is the famous Fermi Paradox… in brief: Where are they?

Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) was a distinguished astrophysicist (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1938) and he felt certain about the reality of a huge number of planets with conditions to sustain life to lead to higher intelligence, and that we were within reach of advanced communication.

But we cannot find a trace of them out there.

So, where are they?

According to Chomsky, one response that has been proposed and cannot be dismissed is that higher intelligence has actually developed numerous times throughout the eons but has always proven to be lethal. Similar to today’s merry-go-round tinkering with fission and excessive levels of greenhouse gases, “they discovered the means for self-annihilation but did not develop the moral capacity to prevent it. Perhaps that is inherent with higher intelligence. We are now confronted with whether that principle holds for modern humans.”

Watch out below!

The UN’s GAR2022 defines risks of an impending collapse of global society unless drastic remedial measures are adopted on a worldwide coordinated basis. However, get real, what are the odds of a worldwide coordinated effort?

The risk of global collapse, as dealt with in the UN Global Assessment Report or GAR2022 has received little or no media attention.

Yet, it is the first-ever UN flagship global report with findings that current global policies are “accelerating the collapse of human civilization.” The report does not suggest that collapse is a “done deal.” Rather, without radical change, it’s where the world is headed.

The collapse scenario suggested in GAR2022 is explained in much more detail in a separate contributing paper: Pandemics, Climate Extremes, Tipping Points and the Global Catastrophic Risk – How These Impact Global Target, published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The contributing paper discusses the impact of crossing planetary boundaries outside of what’s referred to as a “safe operating space for human societies to develop within a stable earth system,” resulting in Global Catastrophic Risk or GCR events. GCR events are defined as those events that lead to more than 10 million fatalities or more than $10T in damages.

The UN papers do not specify whether any of several collapse scenarios has actually begun, but according to the report, the world is clearly “tending dangerously towards these collapse scenarios.” No precise timetables are given.

Are the UN Reports Watered Down?

The following article addresses the issue of tampering with UN reports: Nafeez Ahmed (special investigations reporter – Byline Times) UN Warns of ‘Total Societal Collapse’ Due to Breaching of Planetary Boundaries, Defend Democracy Press, 26 May 2022

Nafeez Ahmed, a British investigative journalist and a former Visiting Research Fellow at the Faculty of Science and Technology at Anglia Ruskin University (est. 1858) Global Sustainability Institute authored the referenced article in Democracy Press. The following commentary comes directly from his article:

But there are reasons to suspect that a collapse process has already started, even if it is still possible to rein in.

A senior advisor to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and contributor to the Global Assessment Report who spoke to Byline Times on condition of anonymity, claims that GAR2022 was watered-down before public release.

The source said that the world had “passed a point of no return” and “I don’t feel that this is being properly represented in UN or media as of now”.

“The GAR2022 is an eviscerated skeleton of what was included in earlier drafts.”

The UN GAR2022 is a landmark document. It is the first time that the United Nations has clearly underscored the impending risk of “total societal collapse” if the human system continues to cross the planetary boundaries critical to maintaining a safe operating space for the earth system.

Yet, despite this urgent warning, not only has it fallen on deaf ears, the UN itself appears to have diluted its own findings. Like the fictional film Don’t Look Up, we are more concerned with celebrity gossip and political scandals, seemingly unable – or unwilling – to confront the most important challenge that now faces us as a species.

Either way, these UN documents show that recognizing the risk of collapse is not about doom mongering, but about understanding risks so we can make better choices and avoid worst-case outcomes. As the report acknowledges, there is still much that can be done. But the time for action is not after 2030. It’s now.

Postscript: Effective Monday, July 4, the Italian government put restrictions on water on cities and towns in the north. The Po River, a source for agriculture, is at a 70-yr low. Global warming is hammering the country as drought has started to affect south-central Italy as well. Meanwhile, in South America the city of Santiago is rationing water to a population of 6.8 million, as human-caused global warming knows no boundaries. China has reduced water usage from January to October 2022 for Guangzhou (15M pop.) and Shenzhen (12.5M pop.) because the East River is down 50% The US Bureau of Reclamation is rationing some of the seven southwestern states as Lake Mead approaches the Dead Pool, getting frighteningly close! Only recently the Bureau demanded cuts by all seven states w/i 60 days in what’s considered an emergency situation.

For additional factual evidence of spreading drought worldwide, Google these articles: (1) World Drought Gets Worse, Cities Ration, May 8, 2022 or (2) Drought Clobbers the World, August 27, 2021.

The world climate system is no longer normal.

What does it take to get governments of the world to unify a global plan to combat their own destruction? For decades leaders of the world have failed to take global warming seriously. What now?

Then again, as suggested by Professor Chomsky, we’ll find out if the Fermi Paradox holds true for modern humans, as it has, in theory, for advanced (higher intelligent) civilizations over eons. But, that’s lights out, so what’s to find out?

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 8, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.