What if the Doomsday Glacier Collapses?

“Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica” by sjrankin is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

What if the Doomsday Glacier Collapses?

by Robert Hunziker

The Thwaites “Doomsday Glacier” in West Antarctica is spooking scientists. Satellite images shown at a recent meeting December 13th of the American Geophysical Union showed numerous large, diagonal cracks extending across the Thwaites’ floating ice wedge.

This is new information, and it’s a real shocker if only because it’s happening so quickly, much sooner than expectations. It could collapse. And, it’s big — 80 miles across with up to 4,000 feet depth with a 28-mile-wide cracking ice shelf that extends over the Amundsen Sea.

Meanwhile, and of special interest because of the underlying threat posed by Thwaites, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) COP26 meeting in November 2021 held in Glasgow was panned by scientists as one more sleepy affair, failing to come to grips with Western Civilization’s biggest challenge since the Huns trampled Rome. This outrageous failure by the world’s leaders, evidenced by weak-kneed proposals, is decidedly threatening to coastal cities throughout the world, especially with Thwaites glacier showing signs of impending collapse.

According to glaciologist Erin Pettit of Oregon State University, the weak spots on the Thwaites ice sheet are like cracks in a windshield: “One more blow and they could spider web across the entire ice shelf surface.” (Source: Crucial Antarctic Ice Shelf Could Fail Within Five Years, Scientists Say, SFGATE, December 13, 2021)

An article in NewScientist d/d December 13, 2021 discussed the AGU meeting of the satellite images of massive cracks: “Antarctica’s Thwaites glacier could break free of the continent within 10 years, which could lead to catastrophic sea level rise and potentially set off a domino effect in surrounding ice.”

Thwaites is a monster, one of the largest glaciers in the world. A 2017 Rolling Stone article, which followed the footsteps of a team of glaciologists at Thwaites glacier, summed up the situation, according to Ohio State glaciologist Ian Howat: “If there is going to be a climate catastrophe, it’s probably going to start at Thwaites… if we don’t slow the warming of the planet, it could happen within decades.” (Source: The Doomsday Glacier, Rolling Stone, May 9, 2017)

That was five years ago but after rapidly changing conditions on the ice sheet in only five years, scientists are no longer saying: “It could happen within decades.” Now the timeline has changed to: “Within a decade,” meaning by 2032. Moreover, as suggested in the aforementioned SFGATE article, there’s some speculation that it could burst wide open “sooner rather than later.”

The world is not prepared for a major disaster on a scale that spreads across the planet unimpeded and totally out of control. In that regard, it’s unfortunate that the world’s leaders have failed to take adequate measures, especially since scientists have been warning for decades of dire consequences for failure to limit and/or stop CO2 emissions. The truth of the matter is the world’s leaders have failed to protect their own people because of ignorance, greed, and tons of dark money.

Thwaites is what scientists refer to as “a threshold system.” Which means instead of melting slowly like an ice cube on a summer day, it is more like a house of cards: It’s stable until it’s pushed too far, then it collapses with a resounding thud!

What happens after the Ice Shelf collapses?

Thwaites’ ice shelf is one of the most significant buttresses against sea level rise in West Antarctica. New data provides clear evidence that warming ocean currents are eroding the eastern ice shelf from underneath. Meanwhile, a major risk is that the series of cracks spotted on the surface shatter into hundreds of icebergs. In the words of glaciologist Erin Pettit: “Suddenly the whole thing would collapse.”

A collapse of the ice shelf would not immediately impact sea level rise as the ice shelf itself already floats on the ocean surface. Its weight is already displaced in the water. But, once it collapses, the landlocked glacier containing a much larger volume of ice behind the ice shelf will be released, or sprung lose, and dramatically increase its rate of flow to the sea.

A collapse of Thwaites is no small deal. Depending upon several factors, it would trigger the onset of raised sea levels by some number of feet, and paradoxically, it would be happening in the face of IPCC guidance expecting sea levels to rise by a foot or so by 2100, assuming business as usual. That could turn out to be peanuts compared to a collapse of Thwaites if it triggers a domino effect of surrounding ice in West Antarctica, as alluded to in the aforementioned NewScientist article.

Thwaites’ significance to the normal course of life is so potentially impactful as a negative force that a team of scientists studies the glacier under the title: The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. According to the lead glaciologist of the team, Ted Scambos (University of Colorado, Boulder): “Things are evolving really rapidly here… It’s daunting.” He spoke on Zoom from Thwaites glacier.

Once the ice shelf collapses, it’ll lead to massive “ice cliff collapsing,” ongoing collapse of towering walls of ice directly overlooking the ocean that crumbles into the sea. And, once ice cliff collapsing starts, it will likely become a self-sustaining “runaway collapse.”

This alarming signal of impending collapse of one of the world’s largest glaciers underscores a potent political message: What do the world’s leaders, e.g., the US Congress, plan to do about the fossil fuel-derived greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks, trains, planes, agriculture, and industry that blanket the atmosphere and heat up the oceans to the extent that a bona fide behemoth of ice is getting much closer to splintering apart and collapsing with attendant sea level rise that will flood Miami, just for starters?

Does Build Back Better include funding for continent-wide seawalls?

And yet, the biggest unknown in this grisly affair is timing, assuming Thwaites does collapse within a decade, how soon will ice cliff collapses bring on sea level rise that drowns the world’s coastal metropolises? Nobody knows the answer to that daunting question, but it certainly appears to be forthcoming.

Based in Los Angeles, 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.

Robert Hunziker can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on December 17, 2021 © Counterpunch

December 8, 2021March 11, 2022

Japan’s Upcoming Nuclear Waste Dump

Nuclear Power Station licensedby Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 — “TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (02813326)” by IAEA Imagebank licensed by Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0

Japan’s Upcoming Nuclear Waste Dump

by Robert Hunziker

Nuclear waste is an interminable curse that eternally haunts the future of civilization for hundreds/thousands of years.

“The challenge of making nuclear power safer doesn’t end after the power has been generated. Nuclear fuel remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years after it is no longer useful in a commercial reactor.” (Source: Nuclear Waste, Union of Concerned Scientists, April 22, 2016)

There are 440 nuclear power plants in the world, all of which use nuclear fission, prompting one simple question: Is the process of generating heat via nuclear fission with a byproduct of extremely toxic radioactive waste lasting hundreds, or more, years for purposes of simply “boiling water” the epitome of human stupidity?

In April 2021, the Japanese government announced its decision to discharge nuclear waste from Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean via a sub-seabed pipeline. At least 1.2 million tons of tritium-laced toxic water will be discharged.

As it happens, nuclear powers of the world regularly dump nuclear waste into the ocean in violation of the London Convention (1972) and the London Protocol (1996), which are the two principal international agreements against dumping nuclear waste into the oceans. But, they get around the rules by dumping under the cover of “detailed environmental impact assessments.”

The last known “deliberate nuclear waste dumping into the ocean,” outside of the “good graces” of what the industry refers to as “detailed environmental impact assessments” that somehow (questionably, mysteriously, are you kidding me!) seem to justify dumping toxic nuclear waste was October 1993 when the Russian navy illegally dumped 900 tons of nuclear waste into international waters off the coast of Vladivostok near Japan and Korea. Moscow claimed they were running out of storage space and that “radioactive waste is not hazardous and the dumping would be according to international norms.” Sound familiar?

In 1993 Japan called the Russian dumping “extremely regrettable.” Yet, at the time, Tokyo Electric Power Company was itself discharging radioactivity into the ocean. At the time, Japanese power stations were allowed to dump nuclear waste into the ocean based upon “detailed environmental impact assessments.” (OMG is this real?) (Source: Nuclear Dumping at Sea Goads Japan Into Action, NewScientist, November 6, 1993)

“Jinzaburo Takagi, a physicist working with the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre in Tokyo, says: ‘If the Russians had done an impact assessment for their dumping, it would have proved safer than the Japanese power plants.’ He says local authorities in Japan have measured elevated levels of radionuclides in shellfish and seaweed near the nuclear plants. If the Japanese criticize Russian dumping, says Takagi, ‘then they will have to abandon the option of dumping nuclear waste,” Ibid.

The above-mentioned series of conflicting events surrounding disposal of nuclear waste brings to mind the complexity and hypocrisy that runs throughout the nuclear industry. It stems from the hideous fact that the industry does not know what to do with radioactive waste, which is the most toxic material on the face of the planet; they do make up weird excuses and protocols to actually dump the toxic material into international waters. Not only that, but, as mentioned in the quoted article above, “local authorities in Japan have measured elevated levels of radionuclides in shellfish and seaweed near the nuclear plants.” That’s a prime example of human insanity at work. And, that was 30 years ago, but it’s a safe bet that it’s the same today.

The bitter truth is that the citizens of the world are stuck with nuclear power and its offbeat craziness and its horrific potential destructiveness because the major powers have it and want to keep it.

Greenpeace has experts with “boots-on-the-ground” at Fukushima since the beginning. Here’s Greenpeace’s take on the situation, as of recent: “There are many technical and radiological reasons to be opposed to discharging Fukushima waste water into the Pacific Ocean. And Greenpeace East Asia has reported on these and continues to investigate. But the decision also affects you on a fundamental level. It should rightly trigger an outrage. In the 21st century, when the world’s oceans are already under the most severe threats including the climate and biodiversity emergencies, a decision by any government to deliberately contaminate the Pacific with radioactivity because it’s the least cost/cheapest option when there are clear alternatives seems so perverse. That it is Japan, given its historical role in securing the prohibition on nuclear dumping in the London Convention and London Protocol, makes it all the more tragic.” (Shaun Burnie, The Japanese Government and the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster – History Repeating Itself? Greenpeace, November 17, 2021)

Further to the point of the future impact of dumping toxic radioactive water from TEPCO’s storage water tanks into the Pacific Ocean: Tsinghua University analyzed the diffusion process of the treated Fukushima contaminated water to be discharged into the ocean from 2023 onward. The results show that the tritium, which is the main pollutant, will spread to the whole of the North Pacific in 1200 days. (Source: Tracking Contaminated Water From The Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Phys.org, December 2, 2021)

The Tsinghua University analysis went on to discuss the risks, stating: “Large amounts of radionuclides can affect marine biological chains and adversely influence marine fisheries and human health. The global effects of Fukushima discharge, which will last 30 to 40 years, remain unknown.”

As stated by Tsinghua, the pollutants will reach as far as the coast of North America to the east and as far as Australia to the south. Eventually, the South Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean (2400 days) will be affected. On day 3600 the pollutants will cover almost the entire Pacific Ocean.

According to a UN news release d/d April 2021: “Three independent UN human rights experts expressed deep regret on Thursday over Japan’s decision to discharge potentially still radioactive Fukushima nuclear plant water into the ocean, warning that it could impact millions across the Pacific region.”

The experts call the decision by Japan “very concerning,”

Moreover, according to the UN: “While Japan said that the tritium levels are very low and do not pose a threat to human health, scientists warn that in the water, the isotope organically binds to other molecules, moving up the food chain affecting plants and fish and humans.”

“Moreover, they say the radioactive hazards of tritium have been underestimated and could pose risks to humans and the environment for over 100 years.”

Robert Hunziker can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on December 7, 2021 © Counterpunch

December 3, 2021March 12, 2022

Burned-out Forests Are Not Regrowing

by Robert Hunziker

Trees are not re-growing in burned-out forests. This strange occurrence is becoming more frequent as global warming turns verdant flora into flammable tinder, causing more and bigger wild forest fires.

This article will examine the science behind failure of trees to regrow in burned-out forests. Additionally, and as a collateral issue, this puts one more distorted face on the consequential impact of the multi-billion dollar business called “woody biomass,” which burns trees in place of coal to meet carbon neutral protocols.

As a consequence, between the twin impacts of burned-out forests failing to regrow and woody biomass chopping down mature trees that are strong carbon sinks replaced by frail seedlings, one has to wonder about nature’s “carbon sink” capacity. Is it shrinking just when it’s needed like never before?

Woody biomass is as bad, if not worse, as burning coal. (See – The Woody Biomass Blunder, November 15, 2021)

Regarding the effectiveness of CO2 uptake by commercial tree plantations used to produce wood chips for sale in the international woody biomass market: “Single-tree commercial crop plantations may meet the technical definition of a ‘forest’ – a certain concentration of trees in a given area- but factor in land clearing to plant the crop and frequent harvesting of the trees, and such plantations can actually release more carbon than they sequester,” Simon Lewis, forest ecologist/University College London (Source: Why Planting Tons of Trees Isn’t Enough to Solve Climate Change, Science News, July 9, 2021)

There are several studies and outspoken scientists’ statements about woody biomass emitting more CO2 than burning coal. Yet, in order to meet carbon neutral standards, 60% of EU renewable energy is from wood chips. Somebody at the EU is cuckoo.

Failure of Tree Regrowth

A University of Colorado/Boulder study shows that when forests burn across significant portions of the Rocky Mountains, the forests do not regrow, even after 15 years post-fire, 80% of the surveyed plots contained no new trees. (Source: Lisa Marshall, Forests Scorched by Wildfire Unlikely to Recover, May Convert to Grasslands, CU Boulder Today, August 25, 2020)

The study looked at 22 separate burned-out areas from southern Wyoming thru central/western Colorado to northern New Mexico. The study included regions that had burned as long ago as 1988, including land ravaged by the 2002 Hayman Fire near Colorado Springs; the 1996 Buffalo Creek Fire southwest of Denver; the 2000 Eldorado Springs and Walker Ranch fires near Boulder; and the 2002 Missionary Ridge fire outside of Durango.

“This study and others clearly show that the resilience of our forests to fire has declined significantly under warmer, drier conditions,” coauthor Tom Veblen, professor of geography, CU Boulder, Ibid.

Global warming has contributed to a doubling of the number of acres burned across the country since the 1990s.

Increasing global temperature wipes out seedlings, especially in the US West where summer temperatures have increased so much that young trees do not have a chance to develop thick protective bark, and failure of regrowth in dry conditions finds seedlings shriveling before roots can grow deep enough to reach groundwater.

Anthropogenic global warming is inhibiting and/or destroying one of nature’s biggest, and best, solutions for combating CO2 emissions. And, even worse yet, humans are chopping down trees to burn for energy, thereby releasing years and years of stored CO2 from the trees into the atmosphere.

Global Warming Ravages Forests Throughout the World.

“New studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today.” (Source: We Need to Hear These Poor Trees Scream: Unchecked Global Warming Means Big Trouble for Forests, Inside Climate News, April 25, 2020)

According to Bill Anderegg, a forest researcher at the University of Utah: “Global warming has pushed many of the world’s forests to a knife edge… in the West, you can’t drive on a mountain highway without seeing how global warming affects forests,” Ibid.

Giant Sequoias, the Grand Daddy of the world’s trees are “dying from the top down.” This has never been documented before. According to Christy Brigham, chief of resource management for national parks: “We’ve never observed this before.” (Source: Craig Welch, The Grand Old Trees of the World are Dying, Leaving Forests Younger and Shorter, National Geographic, May 28, 2020)

According to the National Geographic article: The loss of Giant Sequoias is but one example of a worrisome worldwide trend: “Trees in forests are dying at increasingly high rates, especially the bigger, older trees,” Ibid.

Nate McDowell, an earth scientist at the US Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the lead author of a major worldwide study of tree loss, says: “We’re seeing it almost everywhere we look.” (Nate G. McDowell, et al, Pervasive Shifts in Forest Dynamics in a Changing World, Science, Vol. 268, Issue 6494, 29 May 2020)

The numbers are staggering: From 1900 to 2015 the world lost more than a third of its old-growth forests. Ever since, the numbers are accelerating. The causes are mostly anthropogenic, meaning logging and land-clearing, plus fossil fuel emissions that bring forth rising global temperatures significantly magnifying the rate of dying, as droughts extend longer and harsher, resulting in extremely brittle tinder, leading to massive wildfires. The upshot is a world on fire like never before as dead trees burn quickly and easily.

According to Henrik Hartmann of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, in central Europe: “You don’t have to look for dead trees… They’re everywhere,” Ibid.

Africa and South America are likewise feeling the brunt of massive tree deaths. Global warming has brought drought conditions that are severe, repeating within ever-shorter time sequences that don’t give nature enough time to revive, to regrow, to survive.

Recent Siberian fires have been Biblical in scale and intensity. A June 2020 article in SciTechDaily headlined: “Meteorologists Shocked as Heat and Fire Scorches Siberia.” One half of the massive fires are peatlands, which, once started can burn almost forever if the heat is intense enough, which it was/is, emitting both CO2 and CH4.

The CO2 Cycle at Work

The curse of CO2 blanketing the atmosphere and trapping heat, as the planet gets ever-hotter, causes the atmosphere to suck excessive levels of moisture, which causes trees to shed leaves and/or close pores to hold in as much moisture as possible. This, in turn, curtails CO2 uptake. It’s a vicious cycle that impedes the carbon uptake cycle that’s key to maintaining an ecological balance for the planet.

In the final analysis, “Forests are our last, best natural defense against global warming. Without the world’s trees at peak physical condition, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.” (Eric Holthaus, Up in Smoke, Grist, March 8, 2018)

Robert Hunziker can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on December 3, 2021 © Counterpunch

November 24, 2021March 11, 2022

The Dreaded Rainforest Shift

Photograph Source: Ivan Mlinaric – CC BY 2.0

The Dreaded Rainforest Shift

by Robert Hunziker

Major portions of the Amazon rainforest have shifted from a carbon sink to a carbon source. This shift has severe planet-wide negative implications.

Studies of the Amazon Rainforest over the past decade have shown telltale signals of an impending shift from a carbon sink of heat-trapping gases to a source of greenhouse gases. It’s a dangerous shift that will destabilize the atmosphere of the entire planet. Alas, the dreaded shift has been confirmed via a laborious ten-year airborne detailed study.

The study shows the eastern Amazon rainforest has become a significant source of carbon emissions, competing with cars, trains, planes, and power plants. This travesty is officially confirmed via hundreds of aircraft vertical profiling measurements of the air above the rainforest over a period of nearly one decade. (Source: Amazonia As A Carbon Source Linked to Deforestation and Climate Change, Nature, July 14, 2021)

The implications of the world’s largest rainforest competing with human-generated greenhouse gases is alarming and foreboding of danger ahead, especially in consideration of current circumstances which guarantee further deterioration of the rainforest, thus putting at risk the world’s climate system.

Recent deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is beyond the pale, up 22% in one year at the highest level in nearly two decades. This according to Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE. This is the third year in a row of increases under the Bolsonaro government.

In a remarkable coincidence of timing, in October of this year, on the doorstep of COP26/Glasgow, INPE said deforestation registered the worst month of October on record.

Within two weeks, Brazil was a signatory to an international pledge at COP26 to end deforestation by 2030. The world waits and watches to see if that promise is kept. Bolsonaro’s strong anti-environmental stance will be put to the test.

Marcio Astrini, head of the Climate Observatory that brings together environmental groups operating in Brazil, said: “The latest figures were ‘the result of a persistent, planned and continuous effort to destroy environmental protection policies’ under the Bolsonaro administration.” (Source: Brazil Amazon Deforestation Up 22% in a Year, 15-yr Record, Phys.org, November 19, 2021)

The aforementioned airborne study published in Nature found “a massive continental-size swath of tropical forest releasing more carbon dioxide than it accumulates, thanks to deforestation and fires,” Ibid.

It is the first-ever study to actually measure carbon dioxide in the air above the forest and not dependent upon estimates by models that rely upon imprecise measurements. The airborne measurements where taken in a descending column starting at 14,500 feet down to just under 1,000 feet. These measurements were reproduced every two weeks for a period of nine years to assure accuracy.

The analyses point to a convergence of factors behind the shift from carbon sink to carbon emitter, i.e., global warming, deforestation, and fire all happening in the eastern Amazon where the forest no longer takes up CO2. As a consequence, the temperatures across the southeastern Amazon have risen dramatically in comparison to the western part of the rainforest.

Luciana Gatti, senior researcher Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, the lead author of the study, stated: “The southeast is 28 percent deforested and has 24 percent precipitation loss, and the temperatures in August and September have changed 3.1 degrees. This is unbelievable in tropical latitude to have this kind of change in temperature. Is this a rainforest?”

Gatti is concerned that western Amazon will soon look like eastern because of pressure from logging, agriculture and mining, extending deeper into the forest.

Of utmost importance to life on the planet, the Amazon rainforest serves as the generator of “flying rivers” for the planet. The millions of trees work together like a “biotic pump” that releases water vapor into the air and circulates water and weather patterns throughout the globe.

Dr.Antonio Nobre (retired senior research scientist INPE) in an interview with National Public Radio described the invisible flying rivers of the rainforests: “Trees are like geysers acting as conduits that pump water vapor up into the sky. Transpiration is evaporation, but it’s evaporation of water that went through the tree,’ he says, ‘so this huge flow of vapor into the atmosphere is like an irrigation [system] upside down.’ That creates these immense, invisible flying rivers. ‘Rivers of rainfall,’ Nobre says. He points out that a calculation for the entire Amazon was done. ‘Twenty (20) billion tons of water evaporate per day’ in the region. To put that number into perspective, it is more water than what the Amazon River discharges into the Atlantic Ocean in one day.” (Source: Flying Rivers of the Amazon Rainforest – A Critical Rain Generator for the Planet, Pachamama Alliance, October 4, 2016)

As the “collapse phase” of the Amazon rainforest is underway an emerging worldview acknowledges the interconnectedness of all living things, as one of the most important roles for humans to act as caretaker and protector of natural systems. This new worldview is spreading like wildfire among the young, and it signals hope for humanity, assuming it can breakthrough the veneer of neoliberal capitalism’s dicta of growth at any costs, trampling ecosystems along the way to riches for the few tacitly supported by right-wing charlatans that easily overpower very weak traditionalist national parties that are filled with pushovers.

This new emerging worldview is concentrated among the youngest, for example: (1) SustainUS, dismantling the political elite’s narrative and demanding “urgent climate action” (2) Youth Lawsuits in defense of climate to hold governments accountable, e.g., 21 young plaintiffs suing the US government over fossil fuel support (3) Uplift tackling “energy sacrifice zones” or millions of acres of federal land in the Southwest abused and polluted for energy extraction (4) University Divestment Campaigns with 133 schools divested from fossil fuels, including Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale (5) Sunrise combining protest organizing and electoral organizing together into one strategy, for example, support of the Green New Deal and in support of 100% US renewable energy by 2030.

The insultingly anemic response by nation/states to warnings by scientists at COP26 is indicative of a world order out of touch with an upside down broken climate system that is in a perennial state of upheaval.

Only the youth can change this distortion of reality because only the youth recognize adult stupidity for what it truly is, a reality.

Robert Hunziker can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on November 23, 2021 © Counterpunch

October 12, 2021March 11, 2022

Code Red on FacingFuture.TV

Photograph Source: Emertz76 - CC BY 2.0 — Photograph Source: Emertz76 is licensed by CC BY 2.0

Code Red on FacingFuture.TV

by Robert Hunziker

FacingFuture.TV recently hosted a preview of the upcoming IPCC 2021 UN climate report, which report guides the gathering of dignitaries from around the world meeting in Glasgow this November to discuss, analyze, and decide how to deal with global warming/climate change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrivG4h7B8M

According to the Code Red interview, the IPCC is taking off its ultra conservative face mask of prior years to reveal a surly cantankerous grim sneer on a darkened background. In short, climate change is much worse than the IPCC has previously been willing to admit.

The FacingFuture.TV interview features Mark Andersen, CEO of Strategic News Service, Brian Wright a natural medicine expert, and Peter Carter an IPCC expert reviewer. The threesome expressed dismay over the failure of the general public to “get the climate change message” clearly enough to force policymakers to take some kind of massive urgent all-hands-on-deck immediate without hesitation corrective measures to head off an undeviating course of surefire destruction.

The following snippets from that interview underscore a level of frustration and a sense of urgency as a clarion call for anybody and everybody to demand an immediate halt to fossil fuels.

What’s new with the IPCC?

For starters, according to Dr. Carter, the new report is a “definitive report.” Its conclusions are definite. In other words, the IPCC is taking the issue much more seriously than ever before. This is the first report to state that global climate change is “unequivocally caused by human activities.”

Moreover, previous IPCC reports inadvertently gave the impression that society has plenty of time until 2050 to make the necessary changes, which has unintentionally served to bolster the interests of the fossil fuel industry and extend forecasts for future production by the International Energy Agency.

In strong opposition, this new report forcefully and effectively states that unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that limit warming to close to 1.5° C or even 2° C, the problem will extend “beyond reach” and beyond any chance for some level of control. The three key words are: 1) immediate (2) rapid (3) large-scale.

The three participants discussed climate mega events that, by any and all standards, should be turning heads amongst the general public and certainly amongst policymakers as mega events openly display powerful destructiveness of a crazed climate system that’s been thrown off kilter by human activity.

Mega events are world-changing events that literally alter the dynamics of the climate system from friendly and supportive of life to difficult and horribly challenging for life. Alas, the worse has already started, for example, carbon sinks are starting to fail, meaning, nature is starting to emit greenhouse gases in competition with cars, planes, trains, and factories. What could possibly be more troubling?

According to Dr. Carter, one mega event that sends a clear message of unbridled double-trouble dead ahead: “We’ve lost the Amazon Rainforest. It’s a very hard thing to say… The Amazon has tipped. It is no longer a carbon sink buffering and soaking up some of our CO2 emissions. It has now started to emit CO2 emissions, and that is very, very clear from the satellite images… The Amazon is pouring out CO2.”

Equally troubling, “The other mega event is the Arctic has also switched… first recognized by the NOAA in 2016, and in 2019 published via a report that the Arctic has definitely tipped and is now a source of greenhouse gas emissions.”

Additionally, “Permafrost is emitting all three of the main greenhouse gases. It’s emitting methane, much more carbon dioxide than anybody anticipated, just discovered by research five years ago, but it’s also emitting the third and extremely powerful greenhouse gas, which is nitrous oxide … an absolute definite mega event.”

Moreover, “A huge change in the amount of methane being emitted from the Arctic,” is now prevalent: “There is a vast amount of methane this year for the first time being emitted and it’s coming from a huge area of Siberia where the deepest permafrost is located. We’re talking about a thousand miles of permafrost.”

1,000 miles of permafrost emitting greenhouse gases could easily be a stopping point for this quickie review of the interviews, especially as Biblical scale fires have raged in Siberia for all to see on TV. The Barents Observer recently reported more than 40% of Northern Russian buildings starting to collapse, including risks to hydro dams and a nuclear power plant. How much worse does it have to get to spell out the message that the planet is experiencing severe extreme levels of duress?

Yet, there is more.

Craters formed by methane bombs are erupting as permafrost melts, when methane vaporizes underneath causing enormous explosions leaving craters 100 feet across and 100 feet deep. Seventeen of these methane bomb explosions have been recorded in only one region of Siberia, indicating that methane under the permafrost tundra is reaching a critical stage and exploding.

Ipso facto, the planet is dispelling/forcing gas so powerfully that craters form, as if asteroids hit, like the surface of the moon.

Moreover, not only is permafrost blowing up in plain sight, the heating of the oceans is way ahead of the heating of the atmosphere. This is but one more example of a major carbon sink starting to lose its mojo by absorbing way too much CO2 and having absorbed way too much heat.

Indeed, the entire planet is bordering on a scale of trouble never experienced by humankind as major carbon sinks start to fail, one after another. There are no backups, and once carbon sinks completely fail, climate change will be wide open for rapid-fire expansion, but when? Answer: Nobody knows for sure but the early signals are not good.

According to the interview, the IPCC in the past has inferred that the carbon sinks that keep the planet in balance will be just fine. And scientific assessments of the carbon sinks, until only recently, said the carbon sinks would be fine. But no, all of that has changed in the new IPCC “Working Group I Report” major carbon sinks are going to fail, land first and then the ocean is going to fail. For innocent bystanders, that information is almost impossible to process, as believable.

This review of the FacingFuture.TV interview could easily stop right here, even though there is much more, but in point of fact, the big dance is over if the planet’s major carbon sinks fail. Thereafter, there’s not much to discuss.

For whatever reasons, which are likely obvious and right under our collective noses, with dispatch, the IPCC has taken off the gloves and decided it’s time to fight. Hopefully, policymakers wake up to the fact that time for dilly-dallying is up.

Stop talking, do something momentously big.

Still, here’s more crucial data from that interview: “There’s been a big shocking recent paper from NASA and NOAA on energy, in which they’ve done something pretty brilliant. They’ve combined, and reviewed, the satellite data on land energy and they’ve used the NOAA buoys (Argo floats) which are distributed all around the world’s oceans, and they’ve checked energy from the heat point of view, which is very reliable… what they found was that the energy imbalances doubled in just the past 14 years.”

If the energy imbalance for the planet doubled in only 14 years, which nature by itself should take centuries (100s) or more likely thousands (1000s) of years and not a measly 14 years, then, it’s almost impossible to know what else to say about the dire stage of climate change humanity is about to face.

The wake up call implied in the FacingFuture.TV interview is overwhelming and way beyond further attempts to try to explain more of the details in this lonely article.

Bottom line, it’s no surprise that the IPCC has finally decided to come out of its protective conservative shell because the data is one shocking event after another after another, almost impossible to describe without, by default, coming across as excessively pessimistic and fatalistic and difficult to read as well as almost impossible to accept. Therein lies the problem of conveying the message.

[This article was first published in CounterPunch on October 12, 2021.]

October 4, 2021October 4, 2021

Siberia’s Hot Streak

Loss of Arctic Sea Ice — Photograph Source: Анастасия Игоревна Петухова is licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

Siberia’s Hot Streak

by Robert Hunziker

[This article was first published in CounterPunch on October 4, 2021.]

Global warming in Siberia is on a hot streak! It was +6°C last year. In like manner, if the entire planet hit +6°C above pre-industrial, it would be lights out, life snuffed out, sayonara.

Meanwhile, the Siberian hot streak theoretically threatens the entire planet with methane-induced runaway global warming, the dreaded monster of the North that takes no prisoners. As it’s happening now, in real time today, Siberia is demonstrating the impact of deadly serious climate reactions to too much heat, too soon. This fiasco cannot be dismissed or ignored. It should be at the top of the agenda for COP26 in Glasgow this coming November.

Moreover, it should also be at the top of the agenda for every leader of every country that attends COP26, or does not attend. The underlying message is straightforward and simple: Clean up the fossil fuel death warrant or risk a red-hot planet with concomitant premature deaths of complex life at lower latitudes by the bucketful. And, that’s just for starters.

After all, already at only 1.2°C above baseline for the planet, where we are today, the Wet Bulb Temperature effect has been detected at the UAE and in Pakistan, accordingly, at 95°F and 90% humidity a person seated under a shade tree with a bottle of water will die in approximately 6 hours, as organs shut down because the body cannot shed heat at that combination of heat/humidity.

Now, Siberia is presenting the world with a new problem. There’s a new methane kid on the block. Inordinate levels of methane in Siberia were traced to hydrocarbon reservoir rocks, not wetlands, not permafrost, not microbial methane. This ancient methane is stored in carbonates. This is not good news. It is horrible news. (Source: Nikolaus Froitzheim, et al, Methane Release from Carbonate Rock Formations in the Siberian Permafrost Area During and After the 2020 Heat Wave, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 10, 2021)

The aforementioned study of a previously unexplored region in Siberia discovered large quantities of methane released from exposed limestone in the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin, which is a few hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, one of the coldest regions of the planet, until recently, hmm.

A headline in Smithsonian Magazine tells the story: “Permafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking ‘Methane Bomb’ of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 5, 2021.

According to the lead author of the methane study, Nikolaus

Froitzheim, a geoscientist at the University of Bonn: “Interpreting this data correctly ‘may make the difference between catastrophe and apocalypse’ as the climate crisis worsens,” Ibid.

Those two alternatives as mentioned by Dr. Froitzheim do not leave much room for error.

Scientists were surprised by the discovery, as stated by Dr. Froitzheim: “We would have expected elevated methane in areas in wetlands… But these were not over wetlands but on limestone outcrops. There is very little soil in these. It was really a surprising signal from hard rock, not wetlands,” Ibid.

According to the Smithsonian article, methane in the Far North is very rambunctious, to say the least, and very dangerous for numerous reasons that could impact the entire planet. In fact, along similar lines, the Climate Crisis Advisory Group/UK is calling for a “Global State of Emergency.” Sir David King chairs the Climate Crisis Advisory Group with an advisory team at Cambridge University.

A Moscow Times article “Rapid Arctic Warming Is Accelerating Permafrost Collapse in Siberia, New Report Warns,” (Sept. 7, 2021) goes on to explain that Arctic temperatures are now 3.5°C above pre-industrial while the planet in general is 1.2°C above that baseline. Furthermore, “Scientists have been shocked that the warm weather conducive to permafrost thawing is occurring roughly 70 years ahead of model projections.”

Meaning, certain aspects of climate change are already at the year 2090 when compared to climate models. Does this mean that climate science and policymakers for major countries are behind the eight ball, by a lot, really by a lot? Answer: Yes, it does!

Of particular interest and of more than passing concern, the Moscow Times article claims the nuclear facility Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant, as well as numerous hydro dams around Magadan (far northeastern Russia) are threatened with collapse because of cascading permafrost. It should be noted that Russia is home to 10% of the world’s hydro resources, mostly in Siberia.

Furthermore, according to a terrifying article in The Barents Observer: “The Looming Arctic Collapse: More Than 40% of Northern Russian Buildings are Starting to Crumble” d/d June 28, 2021, up to 30% of Russia’s oil and gas production facilities are not operable now because of the collapse of infrastructure (thank god for small favors). That same article quotes Dmitry Drozdev, Head of the Russian Cryosphere Institute: “This process is irreversible, and it is impossible to stop it.”

Does anybody anywhere on the planet doubt the importance of COP26 getting it right?

September 18, 2021February 13, 2022

What’s Up With COP26?

Sunset Sky - Image by Junior Peres Junior from Pixabay — Sunset Sky – Image by Junior Peres Junior from Pixabay

What’s Up With COP26?

by Robert Hunziker

[This article was first published in CounterPunch on September 17, 2021.]

The UK (in partnership with Italy) will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP26 in Glasgow on October 31- November 12, 2021.

COP26 will be one of the most significant meetings in modern human history, comparable to the meeting of the Big Three at the Tehran Conference November 28, 1943, when the Normandy invasion was agreed, codenamed Operation Overlord and launched in June 1944. Thenceforth, tyranny was stopped, an easily identified worldwide threat symbolized by a toothbrush mustache. Today’s tyranny is faceless but recklessly beyond the scope of that era because it’s already everywhere all at once! And, ten-times-plus as powerful as all of the munitions of WWII.

What’s at risk at COP26?

Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs answers that all-important query in a summary report intended for heads of governments, entitled: Climate Change Risk Assessment 2021.

The report introduces the subject with three key statements:

1) The World is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals.

2) The risks are compounding.

3) Without immediate action the impacts will be devastating in the coming decades.

The report highlights current emissions status with resulting temperature pathways. Currently, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) indicate 1% reduction of emissions by 2030 as compared to 2010 levels. To that end, and somewhat shockingly, if emissions are not drastically curtailed by 2030, the report details a series of serious impacts to humanity locked in by 2040-50, which is the time frame for item #3 to kick in, which states: “Impacts will be devastating.”

But, hark: Governments at COP26 will have an opportunity to accelerate emissions reductions by “ambitious revisions of their NDCs.” Whereas, if emissions follow the current NDCs, the chance of keeping temperatures below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (the upper limit imposed by Paris ’15) is less than 5%.

Not only that, but any relapse or stasis in emissions reduction policies could lead to a worst case 7°C, which the paper labels a 10% chance at the moment.

The paper lambastes the current fad of “net zero pledges” which “lack policy detail and delivery mechanisms.” Meanwhile, the deficit between the NDC targets and the carbon budget widens by the year. In essence, empty pledges don’t cut it, period!

Failure to slash emissions by 2030 will have several serious negative impacts by 2040:

1. 3.9B people will be hit by major heatwaves at various intervals of time.

2. 400 million people will be exposed to temperatures that exceed “the workability threshold.” Too hot to work!

3. Of more immediate and extremely shocking concern, if drastic reductions do not occur by 2030, the paper suggests “the number of people on the planet exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold is likely to surpass 10 million a year.” This can only refer to the infamous Wet Bulb Temperature, meaning: A threshold is reached when the air temperature climbs above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and the humidity is above 90 percent. The human body has limits. If “temperature plus humidity” is high enough, or +95/90, even a healthy person seated in the shade with plentiful water to drink will suffer severely or likely die. Climate models only a few years ago predicted widespread wet-bulb thresholds to hit late this century; however, global warming is not waiting around that long. Indeed, the Wet Bulb Temperature death count of 10 million per year nearly scales alongside WWII deaths of 75 million, both military and civilian, over six years or 12.5M per year.

4. Population demands will necessitate 50% more food by 2050, but without huge emissions reductions starting now, yields will decline by 2040 as croplands hit by severe drought rises to 32%/year. Fifty percent more food demand in the face of 32% rise in drought impact does not add up very well.

5. Wheat and rice account for 37% of calorific intake, but without drastic cuts, >35% of global cropland for these critical crops will be hit by damaging hot spells.

6. By 2040, without the big cuts in emissions, 700 million people per year will be exposed to droughts lasting at least 6 months duration at a time. “No region will be spared.”

Accordingly “Many of the impacts described are likely to be locked in by 2040, and become so severe they go beyond the limits of what many countries can adapt to… Climate change risks are increasing over time, and what might be a small risk in the near term could embody overwhelming impacts in the medium to long term.” (Pg. 5)

Chapter 4 of the paper covers Cascading Systemic Risks, which is an eye-opener. Systemic risks materialize as a chain, or cascade, impacting a whole system, inclusive of people, infrastructure, economy, societal systems and ecosystems. 70 experts analyzed cascading risks, as follows: “The cascading risks over which the participating experts expressed greatest concern were the interconnections between shifting weather patterns, resulting in changes to ecosystems, and the rise of pests and diseases, which, combined with heatwaves and drought, will likely drive unprecedented crop failure, food insecurity and migration of people. Subsequently, these impacts will likely result in increased infectious diseases (greater prevalence of current infectious diseases, as well as novel variants), and a negative feedback loop compounding and amplifying each of these impacts.” (Pg. 38)

“Climate change contributes to the creation of conditions that are more susceptible to wildfires, principally via hotter and drier conditions. In the period 2015–18, measured against 2001–14, 77 per cent of countries saw an increase in daily population exposure to wildfires, with India and China witnessing 21 million and 12 million exposures respectively. California experienced a fivefold increase in annual burned area between 1972 and 2018. There, average daytime temperatures of warm-season days have increased by around 1.4°C since the early 1970s, increasing the conditions for fires, and consistent with trends simulated by climate models.” (Pg. 39)

And, the biggest shocking statistic of all pertains to the high risk red code danger region of the planet that is ripe for massive methane emissions: “In Siberia, a prolonged heatwave in the first half of 2020 caused wide-scale wildfires, loss of permafrost and an invasion of pests. It is estimated that climate change has already made such events more than 600 times more likely in this region.” (Pg. 40)

“600 times more likely” in the planet’s most methane-enriched permafrost region is reason enough to cut CO2 missions to the bone, no questions asked.

Several climate change issues dangerously reflect on fragility of the food system and a pronounced lack of adaptation measures as well as natural systems and ecosystems “at the edge of capacity.” Lack of social safety and social cohesion is found everywhere, all of which can erupt as a result of an unforgiving climate system that is overly stressed and broken.

Cascades will likely lead to breakdown of governance due to limited food supplies and lack of income bringing on increasingly violent extremists groups, paramilitary intervention, organized violence, and conflict between people and states, all of which has already commenced.

Already, migration pressures are a leading edge of climate-related breakdowns in society. Each year in 2008-20 an average of 21.8 million people have been displaced by weather-related disasters of extreme heat, floods, storms, and wildfires. In the most recent year, 30 million people in 143 countries worldwide were displaced by such climate disasters.

Without doubt, the eyes of the world will be focused on COP26 to judge commitments by governments.

There is no time left for failure because failure breeds even worse failure.

September 4, 2021September 4, 2021

Brazil’s Fierce Drought

by Robert Hunziker

[This article was first published in CounterPunch on September 3, 2021.]

The Amazon rainforest is arguably the world’s premier asset. Indeed, it’s the world’s most crucial asset in a myriad of ways, nothing on Earth compares. Yet, it is infernally stressed because of inordinate drought. The bulk of the Amazon rainforest is located in Brazil, where, according to the title of an article in NASA, Earth Observatory, the country headline says it all: “Brazil Battered by Drought.”

Moreover, the planet is becoming a drought-besieged planet (see- Drought Clobbers the World, August 27, 2021). As for the Amazon, according to NASA, it has been battered by serious bouts of drought every 5 years 1998, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020-21. As such, the normally resilient forest does not have a chance to catch breath and repair damage.

Sassan Saatchi, NASA JPL claims; “The old paradigm was that whatever carbon dioxide we put up in (human-caused) emissions, the Amazon would help absorb a major part of it… The ecosystem has become so vulnerable to these warming and episodic drought events that it can switch from sink to source depending on the severity and the extent. This is our new paradigm.” (Source: NASA Finds Amazon Drought Leaves Long Legacy of Damage, Capitals Coalition)

The Amazon rainforest is 60% of the world’s rainforests; the rainfall and rivers cover 70% of South America’s GDP; its skyborne river of moisture sends rainfall to the Western US and as far as Iowa cornfields and Central America; its trees store 86B tons of carbon; 30% of world species, medical discoveries galore, and automatically one of the biggest consumers of the industrial world’s CO2. Its health is crucial to the functionality of the entire planet. As it goes, so goes the world.

All of its great attributes, and yet, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil last week said the country’s hydroelectric dam reservoirs are: “At the limit of the limit.” (Source: Diane Jeantet, Associated Press, Brazil Water survey Heightens Alarm Over Extreme Drought, Midland Daily News, Aug. 27, 2021)

Reservoirs in the Paraná River, which provide power for Sao Paulo and several states in Brazil “have never before been so depleted, the grid operator said this month,” Ibid.

The Paraná River basin is home to several hydroelectric dams and reservoirs. Water levels on the river are more than 30 feet below average at the Brazil – Paraguay border. This threatens to disrupt cargo ship traffic. Brazil’s National Weather and Basic Sanitation Agency has declared a “critical situation” for the river basin.

For the first time in 100 years, because of the long drought, the National Meteorological System (Inmet) issued an emergency alert for Brazil at the end of May 2021.

The Paraná River runs from Brazil to Argentina. It is the second-longest, 4,800 km or approx. 3,000 miles, river in Brazil, just behind the Amazon. It supplies electricity and water to 40 million people. At the current hydro flow rate, blackouts are likely this year, especially during peak hours.

Additionally, Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, not only suffers from global warming’s knack for spiking severe drought, additionally, more than 25% of Brazil’s Pantanal forest went up in flames last year in the worst annual fire devastation since records started. As it happens, developers set fires to clear land to grow crops, raise cattle and mine. People are responsible for 95% of the fires. It’s important to emphasize that fires in rainforests are not a regular part of the natural environment.

As it happens, Brazil is not alone as hemispheric drought is now occurring in parallel, north, and south.

Both northern and southern hemispheric droughts are running in parallel, sending a strong message that something’s horribly wrong. It should not be this pervasive. Brazil’s depleting reservoirs provide electricity and water to 40 million people. In tandem, the depleting Colorado River provides electricity and water to 40 million people. Both systems, at the same time, will likely be subject to water rationing within months, not years, which is currently under consideration by authorities in both hemispheres.

The worldwide drought is universally connected and thus compounded, maybe feeding on its own energy, enhanced by massive human-generated emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and CH4 (methane) blanketing the atmosphere.

Additionally, in Brazil and only recently, scientists have discovered a very disturbing consequence of drought: Brazil’s share of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, has seen its water-cover area drop to one-quarter (25%) of its area of only 30 years ago. However, that analysis does not include 2021, which is shaping up as Brazil’s worst drought in over 90 years.

Pantanal wetlands are enormous, sprawling across three countries. The loss of so much water cover is a real shocker to the scientists that conducted the study. According to Mažeika Patricio Sulliván, an ecology professor at Ohio State University, the human footprint of deforestation, fires, and plowing under wetlands is, in part, to blame as well as greenhouse gas emissions, prompting global warming: “We’re altering the magnitude of those natural processes… This is not just happening in Brazil. It’s happening all over the world,” Ibid.

Increasingly, scientists send the same message… “It’s happening all over the world.”

Nearly 90% of South America’s wetlands have vanished since 1900. Wetlands are the kidneys of the planet, essential for wildlife and retaining water to be released into rivers and aquifers all of which also serve to prevent destructive flash floods, think Germany’s and China’s loss of wetland regions, thereafter submerged in flash floods.

According to Cassio Bernardino, a project manager for WWF-Brazil: “The prospects are not good; we’re losing natural capital, we’re losing water that feeds industries, energy generation and agribusiness… society as a whole is losing this very precious resource, and losing it at a frighteningly fast rate,” Ibid.

By now, with a Brazilian quasi-dystopian experience front and center for all of the world to see, plus the affront by society’s lack of concern for life-sourcing ecosystems, a provocative question arises: Where is all of this headed?

The current trajectory looks dark and bleak.

What can be done?

A good starting point would be for the world’s leaders to agree to tackle the source of the problem, fossil fuels, by first admitting there is a problem, which is the problem. They really have not admitted it forcibly enough to make a big enough difference. Will they?

And, so it stands.

August 30, 2021September 4, 2021

Drought Clobbers the World

by Robert Hunziker

[This article was first published in CounterPunch on August 27, 2021.]

According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, no continent is spared the ravages of severe drought, except for Antarctica. This is happening at a global temperature of 1.2°C above baseline, not 1.5°C above baseline which climate scientists agree is locked in. This article explores the countrywide impact of 1.2°C above baseline for the most vulnerable as well as the most privileged. The journey starts in Glasgow.

The world’s political leaders need to pay special attention to the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference scheduled for October 31st-12th in Glasgow as scientists of the world meet to present the latest info on climate change/global warming.

Those world leaders need to hone in on the most far-reaching, most effective, most promising ideas to fix the climate, tame global warming, and stop fossil fuels by doing whatever it takes to halt carbon emissions (Biden’s plan won’t do it).

Climatically, how much longer can the planet hang in there?

The world is coming apart at the seams as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from factories, utilities, cars, planes, trains, agriculture, and a horrifying meltdown of permafrost in the farthest northern latitudes, spiked by Biblical fires, and soon the rainforests will kick in as tipping points trigger, thus reversing the world’s greatest carbon sinks to carbon emission sources in competition with cars, trains, and planes. The entire planet is trapped in a drought that’s so severe that it’s difficult to quantify. It’s that pervasive.

By ignoring science for far too long, leaders of the world have failed their own people. To that end, if the world’s leaders cannot figure out what’s happening to the climate system as fire, drought, and floods strike like never before (explained in more detail herein) then they should be tossed out of office. Weak leaders beget feeble solutions.

After all, there is little room for error for society at large. Climate change has backed them into a corner from which they can barely escape, maybe not at all. Soon, there will be no choice other than outright revolution, forcing the world’s leaders out, similar to the French Revolution of the late 18th century when aristocracy and royalty, the one percent (1%) of the era, holding onto their heads for dear life, fled Paris by the thousands, many fleeing to England (See: Ninety-Three, by Victor Hugo, 1874 publication detailing The Great Terror)

Throughout history, when the masses are harmed or abused beyond some undefined incongruous limit, but enough to seek recompense, they follow the money, similar to The Revolutions of 1848 and actually witnessed in person by aristocrats in the streets, holding their breath whilst horrified by the Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789.

As it happens, ubiquitous drought conditions know no boundaries. A Middle East water crisis is threatening millions of people to the precipice of famine. According to a recent AP article, Aid Groups: Millions in Syria, Iraq Losing Access to Water d/d August 23, 2021, it is a dire situation that, by default, could lead to desperate open warfare and massive human tragedy.

In the face of extreme heat, millions of people in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon are at risk of losing access to essentials for life: (1) water (2) electricity (3) food. Similar to America’s West, water resources are at record lows due to little rainfall and drought conditions caused by global warming now widely recognized as an anthropogenic affair, meaning “human-caused” for the benefit of those who’ve missed class.

More than 12 million people in those countries are at risk, today, right now. And, making matters much worse, two dams in northern Syria that supply power to 3 million people face “imminent closure” because of low water levels (a new phenomena starting to appear throughout the world). Moreover, drought conditions are spreading water-borne diseases throughout displacement settlements. Alas, the Middle East crisis stands above all crises.

What will the people do? Will they fight for survival? Indeed, the situation is fraught with danger. It’s a time bomb that’s already ticking.

In Lebanon, 4 million people face severe water shortage. Not only that but making matters equally bad, in addition to severe drought, the Litani River is overloaded with sewage and waste and polluted nearly beyond recognition. It is the country’s longest river and major source for water supply, irrigation, and hydropower.

The planet is aching, crying out for relief. It’s truly a worldwide crisis. Global warming is strutting its stuff whilst greenhouse gases increase beyond all-time record levels, never decreasing, heating up the planet more and more to the breaking point at the global temperature of 1.2°C above baseline, not 1.5°C above, not 2.0°C above.

What of 1.5°C (IPCC’s top end preference) or 2.0°C above baseline as discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, levels that should not be exceeded? Yet, uh-oh, the planet is already in trouble at 1.2°C above baseline. Indeed, it’s an open secret that the climate system is struggling; it’s in trouble.

“The climate in trouble” resonates far and wide, e.g., Fridays for Future, started in 2018 by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, which is a very popular org for young activists, is openly critical of the outright stupidity and blatant ignorance of adults. “How Dare You!” blurted Greta Thunberg age 16 at the UN Climate Summit in NY in 2019, as she addressed an imperial body of climate intellects.

Droughts take no prisoners, as the entire Mediterranean region has been hit hard. Turkey faces its most severe drought in a decade. Istanbul is dangerously close to losing its water supply. Dr. Akgun Ilhan, a Turkish water management expert told Euronews: “The natural water cycle is already interrupted by climate change,” but Dr. İlhan suggests it’s also affected by urban surfaces that are sealed with asphalt and concrete (the human footprint) “leaving very little green spaces where water can meet soil and fill groundwater resources.”

Worldwide, wetlands are down 87% over the past 200+ years, only 13% remains as they’re plowed under or covered over with no green spaces for water to meet soil or fill groundwater resources. It is significant that wetlands are the primary source for replenishment of aquifers.

Alas, with 87% of wetland hydrologic systems gone, massive destructive floods precede ironic losses of aquifer resources. With wetlands gone, water goes to where the people live (think Germany or China) and not through nature’s wetlands for distribution via the natural hydrology network. Meantime, according to NASA, one-third of the world’s largest aquifers are “stressed” because of the loss of wetland feeder systems. This is an invisible monumental festering problem.

In the United States, nearly one-half of the country is currently afflicted by drought. Worse yet, the West is experiencing ultra dire conditions, the worst in 1,200 years, with several small outlying communities suffering complete (100%) loss of water. Arizona is already calculating what industries will be forced to cut water in the near future as the Colorado River is already overly stressed and overly depleted, unable to meet heavy demand.

Brazil’s drought is the worst ever recorded. Hydroelectric plants can’t fully operate because of low reservoir levels. Chile has endured a mega drought for years. According to a recent Reuters report: 400,000 people who live in rural areas of Chile today receive water via tanker trucks. Chile’s spectacular “Mediterranean climate” in the central region, home to vineyards and farms, has taken a big hit. Scientists doubt it’ll ever recover its spectacular climate zone.

Even Israel, which invested $500 million in the world’s largest desalination plant, supplying 20% of its water needs, is warning citizens that the drought/water crisis is so severe that it will “struggle” to provide all residents with enough water to meet basic needs by next summer.

In Russia, some agricultural regions are at risk of losing up to one-half of their harvest because of punishing drought. Russia’s famous Black Earth Region, nicknamed as such because of its world famous high soil moisture content is now a bleak greyish color. Meanwhile, drought in Madagascar has pushed the country to the edge of famine.

A recent major research report claims that since 2014 Europe has experienced the most extreme series of droughts and heat waves in more than 2,000 years. (Source: Recent European Drought Extremes Beyond Common Era Background Variability, Nature Geoscience, March 15, 2021)

According to BBC News, in Taiwan, considered one of the “rainiest places in the world,” many reservoirs are at less than 20% of capacity and some below 10%. At the primary water source for Taiwan’s $100B semiconductor industry, the water at Baoshan No. 2 Reservoir is at 7%. This has serious international business ramifications.

The list of drought conditions hitting every continent, except Antarctica, is overwhelming. Indeed, the worldwide drought should be categorized as a triple-extra-alarm emergency with all hands on deck. Will it be?

Will world leaders convene to stop fossil fuel destruction of the planet?

Or, will a neglected broken climate system force people to fight for survival, and what does that imply?

August 20, 2021August 26, 2021

GPI vs. GDP: Does Size Matter More Than Substance?

GDP vs. GPI in US — “File:GDP vs GPI in US.jpg” by Trinifar is licensed under CC BY 2.0

GPI vs. GDP: Does Size Matter More Than Substance?

By Robert Hunziker

[This article was first published in CounterPunch on August 16, 2021.]

U.S House Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) recently introduced a bill in Congress to overhaul GDP, the nation’s most watched economic indicator. On July 30th she introduced the Genuine Progress Indicator (“GPI”) Act. It would be a significant change for the trajectory of the socio-economic system.

GPI is a new way to calculate GDP, but passage of the act in Congress is dependent upon whether it can displace the all-important “only size matters” syndrome that underlies and determines GDP. In contrast, GPI offers considerable substance and a new way to measure economic performance that’s in concert with the planet and with its inhabitants.

Hopefully, GPI gets a decent hearing in Congress because major turning points in socio-economic and political affairs can make a difference for generations to come.

A prime example of a positive turning point is the Battle of Saratoga in the 1777 victory by the colonists over the British, which was the world’s greatest army at the time. It was a crucial turning point in the American Revolution, convincing France to enter the conflict on behalf of the colonists. That turning point brought forth a new nation.

In contrast, an example of a negative turning point is the Supreme Court 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision upholding Louisiana’s statute mandating segregation in all public facilities, thus legally embedding bigotry for nearly 60 years. That turning point still stings.

Today, we may be witnessing one more major turning point via Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Her proposal has the potential to change the socio-economic trajectory of America and the world in a multitude of ways by leveling the playing field for income distribution, infrastructure development, fair labor practices and ecosystem sustainability, none of which GDP recognizes.

GDP only measures the “size of the economy” whereas GPI measures the true breadth of economic benefits and losses, such as: (1) unpaid labor (2) sustainable job skills (3) infrastructure and (4) ecosystems services, as well as accounting for the costs of growth and its collateral issues: (a) resource depletion (b) greenhouse gases (c) income inequality, and (d) domestic abuse. GDP ignores all of the aforementioned.

GPI may be the only way to unify attention for badly needed mitigation efforts of life-sourcing ecosystems. Without them, the planet will die.

Meanwhile, as for GDP, certain questions must be addressed: Growth for whom and at what costs? GDP does not husband life-sustaining resources, but it does consume those same resources, which is an overt expression of a civilization that has lost its way on a trip down the proverbial rabbit hole.

Omar’s proposed bill says: “To direct the Secretary of Commerce to establish an alternative metric for measuring the net benefits of economic activity, and for other purposes… the ‘genuine progress indicator’ to measure the economic well-being of households, calculated through adjustments to gross domestic product that account for positive and negative economic, environmental, and social factors that contribute to economic activity….” That is brilliant!

The “costs” listed within GPI actually define the impending extinction risks for the world at large, for example, costs that are missing from GDP but included within GPI: (1) water, air, and noise pollution at the household and national level (2) loss of farmland and productive soils, including soil quality degradation (3) loss of natural wetlands, primary forest area and other at-risk ecosystems (4) high amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions (5) depletion of the ozone layer (6) depletion of nonrenewable sources of energy.

Unfortunately, it’s not likely that GPI will get out of committee in the House of Representatives for several obvious reasons: If the costs listed in GPI were adapted to GDP, actual reported GDP would be all minuses, like -5% to -25%, not +2% to +6%.

Oops! How would the Dow Jones Industrial Average react? Most likely, it would go haywire, directionless, out of control, similar to many ecosystems of the planet that have gone haywire, like the Amazon Rainforest (alarmingly becoming a carbon emitter instead of a carbon sink) or the Great Barrier Reef (>50% of corals bleached in only 5 years) or Siberian permafrost (biggest fires ever recorded) or the Arctic (tragic loss of world’s biggest reflector of solar radiation) or Greenland (big super meltdown underway) or Antarctica (glacial ice flow accelerating way beyond expectations) or the 2/3rds loss of wild vertebrates in less than 50 years.

So, yes Representative Omar’s GPI bill is an excellent idea, but it will likely fail because only size matters in America, and America’s GDP proves it by ignoring reality: (1) pollution costs ignored (2) loss of crucial farmland (3) toxic poisoning (pesticides) of soil (3) mono-culture artificially fertilized crop soil degradation (4) paved wetlands destroy the “kidneys of the planet” (5) excessive greenhouse gases (the US emits 28% of world emissions with only 5% of world population) (6) subsidizing depletion of nonrenewable sources of energy.

It’s little wonder that the planet is regurgitating a sickness that is endemic to anthropogenic influence throughout the biosphere with raging fires, destructive flooding, and killer heat waves.

Alas, the focus on GDP will never heal a broken planet.

GDP does not calculate its own costs of infinite growth. It cannot because the calculation would be negative every year. And, in an act of absolute absurdity, GDP is measured quarterly, as are corporate profits. So, every three-month performance is meaningful, which is insane, childish, and flat-out stupid. This “hurry up and report the quarter” dicta resembles a shell game. In contrast, ecosystems require a lot of time, much longer than three months. Nature doesn’t compute by the quarter. Conversely, GDP is in such a hurry.

Ilhan’s proposal for GPI is geared to a society that values sustainability of resources and concern for the health of the biosphere and for its inhabitants. But, sad to say, it doesn’t realistically fit into today’s world of neoliberal capitalism. There’s no open slot for anything other than profits. We all pay a price for those profits.

Moreover, it is doubtful that an accurate calculation of depletion and destruction of ecosystems is possible at today’s rapid rate. Who could possibly keep up with it?

Still, it’s brilliant to get the concept into the public domain, and one can only hope.