[✔️] July 30, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*July 30, 2021*/

[Flooding in China is dramatic - and hidden]
*Central China: Millions of villagers abandon homes/3 dams collapsed in 
48 hours/Why severe floods ?*
Jul 28, 2021
China Insights
Recently, as heavy rains continue to fall in the province, local 
governments in China have quietly opened reservoirs or dug up dikes to 
release floodwater, resulting in severe flooding in many areas. The 
hardest-hit areas have also moved from Zhengzhou, the capital city of 
Henan Province, to its northern part.
Villagers told overseas Chinese media that the local Chinese government 
opened the dams of the reservoirs to the downstream rivers, the Qihe and 
Weihe rivers, to release the floodwaters.
It has resulted in the dams in the downstream city of Weihui either 
breaching, collapsing, or being officially dug up, thus leading to 
significant flooding in the local townships.
Why do officials insist on opening the reservoir to release water when 
they know it will pose a great danger to the local people or downstream 
without issuing a safety warning in advance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlEXGijThFQ

- -

[Over the years, I have seen his excellent video journalism]
*Chinese Government Scared - Flood Truth Exposed*
Jul 29, 2021
laowhy86
The flooding in Zhengzhou China is exposing something very wrong with 
the Chinese government, and they are not happy about it. The coverup is 
showing the cracks in the foundation of the CCP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxmKcdrpHB4



[opinion in the Guardian - I say, by 3PM this afternoon]
*How many years until we must act on climate? Zero, say these climate 
thinkers*
Wed 28 Jul 2021
Jennifer Francis , Michael Mann , Holly Jean Buck and Peter Kalmus
We asked a panelist of experts on when we need to start changing our 
economies and ways of consuming and producing. Their answer: now
*Peter Kalmus: ‘Zero years’*
We have zero years before climate and ecological breakdown, because it’s 
already here. We have zero years left to procrastinate. The longer we 
wait to act, the worse the floods, fires, droughts, famines and 
heatwaves will get.

The primary cause of these catastrophes is burning fossil fuel. 
Therefore, we must shut down the fossil fuel industry as quickly as we 
can. Fossil fuel subsidies must end today. New fracking wells, pipelines 
and other fossil fuel infrastructure can no longer be built; that we 
continue on this path is collective insanity. Fossil fuel must be capped 
and rationed, and diverted to necessities as we transition to a 
zero-carbon civilization. If we fail, the planet will continue to heat 
up, creeping past 1.5C, then 2C, then 3C of global heating as we keep 
squandering precious time. With every fraction of a degree, the floods 
and fires and heat will get worse. Coastal cities will be abandoned. 
Ocean currents will shift. Crops will fail. Ecosystems will collapse. 
Hundreds of millions will flee regions with humid heat too high for the 
human body. Geopolitics will break down. No place will be safe. These 
disasters are like gut punches to our civilization.

There are tipping points lurking in our future, but it’s impossible to 
know when they will be triggered. What’s certain is that every day we 
fail to act brings us closer. Some, like the loss of the Amazon 
rainforest, may already have been passed.

Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He is 
the author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution
*Jennifer Francis: ‘We cannot wait’*
We need to immediately stop subsidizing all aspects of the fossil fuel 
industry. According to this report, the fossil fuel industry received 
$66bn in 2016, while renewables (excluding nuclear) only received 
$9.5bn. We should instead use those billions of subsidy dollars to ramp 
up the renewable energy industry: generation (wind, solar, nuclear), 
distribution (smarter grid), storage and electric transportation.

If we do not succeed in changing our destructive behavior, the 
increasing trends in extreme weather, sea levels, government 
destabilization and human misery will continue and worsen.

Extreme heatwaves, drought, wildfires and flooding events like those 
we’ve seen in recent summers will become commonplace. Many coastal 
cities and communities around the globe will be increasingly inundated 
by high tides and storm surges. Longer, more intense droughts will 
destroy cropland and force agricultural communities to uproot their 
families in search of a better life. The devastation of coral reefs 
around the world will worsen, wiping out fisheries that provide staple 
protein for millions of people. All of these impacts are happening now. 
If we don’t act fast, many communities, cultures and species will cease 
to exist.

Jennifer Francis is senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center
*Michael Mann: ‘Strictly speaking, zero’*
How many years do we have to act? Strictly speaking, zero – which is to 
say, that we must act, in earnest, now. We have a decade within which we 
must halve global carbon emissions. As I argue in The New Climate War, 
this requires dramatic systemic change: no new fossil fuel 
infrastructure, massive subsidies for renewables, carbon pricing and 
deploying other policy tools to accelerate the clean energy transition 
already under way.

We are seeing unprecedented public awareness, renewed leadership from 
the US and diplomatic progress with China, the other of the world’s two 
largest carbon polluters. There is reason for cautious optimism that we 
can rise to the challenge. But there is much work to do, and precious 
little time now to do it. We must now choose between two paths as we 
face our future. One leads to massive suffering and collapse of our 
civilizational infrastructure. The other leads to a prosperous future 
for us, our children and grandchildren. But it requires that we leave 
fossil fuels behind. The choice is ours.

Michael E Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science and 
director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. He 
is author of the recent book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take 
Back our Planet
*Holly Jean Buck: ‘We need action now’*
We need to ramp up action now in order to transform all of our major 
systems by 2050: energy, transportation, industry, agriculture, waste 
management. We’ll need to eat less meat, farm in ways that store more 
carbon in the soils, reforest degraded or abandoned land and restore 
wetlands.

We need to force companies to outfit cement plants and other industrial 
facilities with carbon capture technologies. When it comes to energy, we 
need to electrify everything. This means replacing gas-fired heating 
systems with an electric heat pump in your home and swapping out 
gas-fired stoves. It means inventing new types of energy storage for 
those times when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, and 
getting used to responding to the grid – for example, turning down your 
air conditioning when the power company says there isn’t enough power 
(or letting them control your thermostat).

It means shutting down fossil fuel power plants and ramping up wind, 
solar, geothermal and probably nuclear, as well as building new 
transmission lines. Our targets should be 60% renewable electricity by 
2030, and 90% by 2050. This means tripling renewable installations by 
2030, or installing the equivalent of the world’s largest solar farm 
every day. If those power lines and solar panels look like they are 
industrializing the landscape, just think about the less visible but 
deadly costs of the old infrastructure. Fossil fuel combustion was 
responsible for 8.7m deaths in 2018.

Fossil fuels need to be phased out around the globe. What will people in 
those industries do? We will need entire new industries in hydrogen and 
carbon management, industries that turn captured carbon dioxide into 
fuels and other products as well as store it underground. We can’t just 
let fossil fuel companies pivot to becoming petrochemical companies, and 
find ourselves awash in more plastic. We can recycle, use products made 
from carbon, and innovate new bioproducts. It’s not just an energy 
transition, it’s a materials transition.

And it needs to be global. If we don’t succeed in transitioning away 
from fossil fuels globally, we could face an uneven world where a few 
rich countries congratulate themselves for going green, and a few oil 
producer nations are supplying the rest of the world with dirty fuel, 
which they use because they don’t have alternatives. In that world, 
greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising. Climate change exacerbates 
the risk of war and conflict. It’s hard to measure or model this for 
exact quantitative projections, but it’s a serious concern. Phasing out 
fossil fuels, and supporting other countries in exiting fossil fuels, is 
the best bet for a peaceful future.

Holly Jean Buck is assistant professor of environment and sustainability 
at the University at Buffalo. She is the author of After Geoengineering: 
Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/28/climate-crisis-zero-fossil-fuels-environment


[WAPO Opinion]
*Opinion: People are dying because of Republican hostility to science*
Max Boot - Columnist - July 28. 2012
If you want to know why the United States is in such big trouble, look 
at the findings of a new Gallup poll. The percentage of Republicans 
expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in science has 
plummeted from 72 percent in 1975 to just 45 percent today. (By 
contrast, the number of Democrats with confidence in science has grown 
from 67 percent to 79 percent.)...
- -
The Republican rejection of science makes it extremely difficult, 
verging on impossible, to deal with two of the biggest crises we 
currently face: global warming and the coronavirus pandemic.

Evidence of global warming’s calamitous consequences is growing daily. 
As my Post colleagues noted on Saturday: “Massive floods deluged Central 
Europe, Nigeria, Uganda and India in recent days, killing hundreds. 
June’s scorching temperatures, followed by a fast-moving wildfire, 
erased a Canadian town. More than a million people are close to 
starvation amid Madagascar’s worst drought in decades. In Siberia, tens 
of thousands of square miles of forest are ablaze, potentially 
unleashing carbon stored in the frozen ground below.”...
- -
How many more people have to die from global warming and covid-19 before 
Republicans realize the deadly consequences of their hostility to 
science? Alas, the GOP might have gone too far down the rabbit hole to 
return to the land of fact and reason.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/28/people-are-dying-because-republican-hostility-science/



[Me thinks Chevron doth deny too much ]
*Marianne Williamson: Steven Donziger Found GUILTY After DRACONIAN 
Treatment, Chevron RESPONDS*
Jul 27, 2021
The Hill
Marianne Williamson, former Democratic presidential candidate, reacts to 
Steven Donziger being found guilty of contempt.
About Rising:
Rising is a weekday morning show with bipartisan hosts that breaks the 
mold of morning TV by taking viewers inside the halls of Washington 
power like never before. The show leans into the day's political cycle 
with cutting edge analysis from DC insiders who can predict what is 
going to happen. It also sets the day's political agenda by breaking 
exclusive news with a team of scoop-driven reporters and demanding 
answers during interviews with the country's most important political 
newsmakers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInq2G0hxdM



[Play the 4 min video] - why the drumbeat sound track ?  I dont need that]
*Climate crisis: what one month of extreme weather looks like – video*
In the last month, devastating weather extremes have hit regions across 
the world. From flash floods in Belgium to deadly temperatures in the 
US, from wildfires in Siberia to landslides in India, it has been an 
unprecedented period of chaotic weather. Climate scientists have long 
predicted that human-caused climate disruption would lead to more 
flooding, heatwaves, droughts, storms and other forms of extreme 
weather, but even they have been shocked by the scale of these scenes
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2021/jul/29/climate-crisis-what-one-month-of-extreme-weather-looks-like-video



[Harvard study]
*Deaths from fossil fuel emissions higher than previously thought*
Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for more than 8 million people 
worldwide in 2018
By Leah Burrows |February 9, 2021
More than 8 million people died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution, 
significantly higher than previous research suggested, according to new 
research from Harvard University, in collaboration with the University 
of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and University College 
London. Researchers estimated that exposure to particulate matter from 
fossil fuel emissions accounted for 18 percent of total global deaths in 
2018  — a little less than 1 out of 5.

Regions with the highest concentrations of fossil fuel-related air 
pollution — including Eastern North America, Europe, and South-East Asia 
— have the highest rates of mortality, according to the study published 
in the journal Environmental Research.

The study greatly increases estimates of the numbers killed by air 
pollution. The most recent Global Burden of Disease Study, the largest 
and most comprehensive study on the causes of global mortality, put the 
total number of global deaths from all outdoor airborne particulate 
matter — including dust and smoke from wildfires and agricultural burns 
— at 4.2 million.

The findings underscore the detrimental impact of fossil fuels on global 
health....
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/deaths-fossil-fuel-emissions-higher-previously-thought



[what are you sayin]
*Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, 
study finds*
The analysis draws on public health studies that conclude that for every 
4,434 metric tons of CO2 produced, one person globally will die
The lifestyles of around three average Americans will create enough 
planet-heating emissions to kill one person, and the emissions from a 
single coal-fired power plant is likely to result in more than 900 
deaths, according to the first analysis to calculate the mortal cost of 
carbon emissions.

The new research builds upon what is known as the “social cost of 
carbon”, a monetary figure placed upon the damage caused by each ton of 
carbon dioxide emissions, by assigning an expected death toll from the 
emissions that cause the climate crisis...
- -
The figures for expected deaths from the release of emissions aren’t 
definitive and may well be “a vast underestimate” as they only account 
for heat-related mortality rather than deaths from flooding, storms, 
crop failures and other impacts that flow from the climate crisis, 
according to Daniel Bressler of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, 
who wrote the paper.
Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels is also directly 
killing people, with a landmark Harvard University study published in 
February finding that more than 8 million globally are dying each year 
from the health effects of toxic air.

“There are a significant number of lives that can be saved if you pursue 
climate policies that are more aggressive than the business as usual 
scenario,” Bressler said. “I was surprised at how large the number of 
deaths are. There is some uncertainty over this, the number could be 
lower but it could also be a lot higher.”..
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/carbon-emissions-americans-social-cost



[new publication]
*New report on the UN Security Council’s work on climate security published*
This is a cross-post from the Planetary Security Initiative
In the past 18 months, the emergence of climate security as a 
mainstreamed and core risk for national governments and IGOs has 
accelerated. In particular, the UN Security Council (UNSC) is becoming 
more cognizant of climate change being a core security risk that should 
be under the remit of the organ and subsequently integrated into 
peacekeeping considerations and mission deployments.

A new report just published by “Security Council Report” is a first 
comprehensive analysis on the centrality and action of the UNSC, 
commissioned by the member states of the ‘Group of Friends on Climate 
and Security’. It seems to fill the void of no official UNSC report 
existing yet on the topic. The overarching message is that the issue is 
becoming increasingly talked about and embedded within the UN, but that 
disagreements over climate change’s impacts on security and whether it 
should be dealt with by a security organ persist.  The Security Council 
itself has seen 2 debates hosted on climate security in 2020 and 2021 
respectively and the establishment of an Informal Expert Group to push 
for greater focus on the UNSC attention on climate security.

More widely, the report praises the integration of climate security 
within the wider UN architecture. Examples such as the assignment of 
specific climate security advisors to UN missions in the Sahel and 
Somalia, the growth of the Climate Security Mechanism and precise 
reference to the role of climate change in worsening security in mandate 
extensions for UN missions in Cyprus and Iraq are all seen as indicators 
of progress being made faster in the UN at large compared to the Council.

Indeed, the report has a high amount of self-criticality by openly 
discussing the headwinds and reasons why climate security is not more 
entrenched at a Council level. The issue is not around the recognition 
of climate change, but its impact on security. Several states consider 
climate change above all a civilian issue and they fear domination by 
the security sector, once it receives a mandate. By officially 
recognising climate security as a risk, the Security Council may be 
empowered to prosecute or levy sanctions at states deemed to be 
contributing more to climate change for example. This is why Russia and 
China, some of the largest emitters, are sensitive to any changes in 
recognition and thus act as conscious objectors to the growing movement. 
Finally, there are divisions between states regarding the scientific or 
empirical link between climate security and worsening security 
situations. The criticisms seem to be driven by the ‘Group of Friends’ 
disagreements with Russia, China and India on their positions on the 
links between climate and security.

Moving forward, the report recognizes the seismic nature of an American 
shift in position, with US President Joe Biden’s 180 degree policy 
reversal from Donald Trump has seen the US taking a lead in embedding 
climate security into the UNSC focus. This has helped push more climate 
change language to be considered in mission extensions in Haiti, 
Afghanistan and the Central African Republic. More funding is expected 
to be given to embedding environmental peace-building and climate 
security experts across UN missions in Africa as well as further 
political lobbying to formalize climate security into the UNSC’s risk 
matrix and subsequent purview.For more on climate security and the UNSC, 
check out the Planetary Security Initiative’s latest report on the topic 
here, and the Center for Climate and Security’s previous blog posts here 
and here.
https://climateandsecurity.org/2021/07/new-report-on-the-un-security-councils-work-on-climate-security-published/
- -
[monthly report]
*In Hindsight: The UN Security Council and Climate Change *
https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/2021-07/in-hindsight-the-un-security-council-and-climate-change.php




[positive]
*Katharine Wilkinson | What Could Possibly Go Right?*
Jul 27, 2021
Post Carbon Institute
#50 Katharine Wilkinson: Making Our Hearts Public in Climate Conversation

Listen on your favorite podcast app: https://link.chtbl.com/wcpgr

Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is an author, strategist, teacher, and co-host 
of the podcast, A Matter of Degrees. Dr. Wilkinson co-founded and leads 
The All We Can Save Project with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, in support 
of women leading on climate. Her books on climate include the 
bestselling anthology All We Can Save (2020, co-editor), The Drawdown 
Review (2020, editor-in-chief and lead writer), the New York Times 
bestseller Drawdown (2017, lead writer), and Between God & Green (2012).

She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?” with 
thoughts including:

- The acknowledgment of how much has been and will be lost in our 
current systems, but still showing up for the work of what we can save 
in “this hard and magnificent moment”

- That “at our very best, we as human beings are active and generative 
collaborators with lifeforce... in these relationships of reciprocity 
and almost play with the planet's living systems.”

- The “different kind of leadership that women are bringing in droves on 
climate”

- That dialog about solutions is often about scale and speed; yet, we 
would benefit from considering solutions at depth with “heart-centered 
wisdom” and love as a powerful leverage point

- The value of “making our hearts public”, bringing feelings and stories 
into climate conversation

- That what could go right is “in the onslaught of the quest for power 
and profit and prestige, that maybe these things could actually be 
replaced with care and courage and connection and community and creativity.”

Resources
- The All We Can Save Project: www.allwecansave.earth
- Book: All We Can Save edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine 
K. Wilkinson www.allwecansave.earth/anthology
- Podcast: www.degreespod.com
- Marge Piercy poem ‘To Be Of Use’ from Circles on the Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ypOjbqzGk


[Heat]
*‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study*
More heatwaves even worse than those seen recently in north-west of 
America forecast in research...
- -
Preparing for such unprecedented extremes was vital, said the 
scientists, because they could cause thousands of premature deaths, and 
measures taken to adapt to date had often been based only on previous 
heat records.

Scientists already know that heatwaves of the kind mostly seen today 
will become more common as the climate crisis unfolds. But heatwaves are 
usually analysed by comparing them with the past, which means the vast 
majority are only marginally hotter than before. This can give a false 
sense of a gradual rise in record temperatures...
- -
The new computing modelling study instead looked for the first time at 
the highest margins by which week-long heatwave records could be broken 
in future.

It found that heatwaves that smash previous records by roughly 5C would 
become two to seven times more likely in the next three decades and 
three to 21 times more likely from 2051–2080, unless carbon emissions 
are immediately slashed. Such extreme heatwaves are all but impossible 
without global heating.

The vulnerability of North America, Europe and China was striking, said 
Erich Fischer, at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who led the research. “Here 
we see the largest jumps in record-shattering events. This is really 
quite worrying,” he added.

“Many places have by far not seen anything close to what’s possible, 
even in present-day conditions, because only looking at the past record 
is really dangerous.”...
The study also showed that record-shattering events could come in sharp 
bursts, rather than gradually becoming more frequent. “That is really 
concerning,” Fischer said: “Planning for heatwaves that get 0.1C more 
intense every two or three years would still be very worrying, but it 
would be much easier to prepare for.”

Prof Michael Mann, at Pennsylvania State University in the US and not 
part of the new research, said: “This study underscores something that 
has been apparent in the record weather extremes we’ve seen this summer: 
dangerous climate change is here, and it’s now simply a matter of how 
dangerous we are willing to let it get.” Mann’s own research published 
in May showed a possible doubling of heat stress in the US by 2100.

But he said: “If anything, this latest study, and our own, are 
underestimating the potential for deadly heat extremes in the future, in 
the absence of significant climate action.” That is because current 
climate models do not capture the slow-moving and very persistent nature 
of the extreme weather phenomena seen in the Pacific north-west heatwave 
and German floods recently...
The new research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, 
concluded: “Record-shattering extremes are [currently] very rare but 
their expected probability increases rapidly in the coming three decades.”

It found the rate of global heating was critical in increasing the risk, 
rather than simply the global temperature reached. This indicates that 
sharp cuts in emissions are needed as soon as possible, rather than 
emissions continuing and being sucked back out of the atmosphere at a 
later date...
- -
“The good news is that we can prevent the worst case shown in this 
study,” she said. If emissions start falling immediately and rapidly, 
the study showed, the risk of record-shattering extremes is cut by about 
80%. “With Cop26 looming, we must hope that policymakers use evidence 
like this to show the need for global emissions reductions,” Thompson said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/record-shattering-heat-becoming-much-more-likely-says-climate-study

- -

[From the Journal Nature]

*Increasing probability of record-shattering climate extremes*
E. M. Fischer, S. Sippel & R. Knutti
Nature Climate Change (2021)Cite this article
Abstract
Recent climate extremes have broken long-standing records by large 
margins. Such extremes unprecedented in the observational period often 
have substantial impacts due to a tendency to adapt to the highest 
intensities, and no higher, experienced during a lifetime. Here, we show 
models project not only more intense extremes but also events that break 
previous records by much larger margins. These record-shattering 
extremes, nearly impossible in the absence of warming, are likely to 
occur in the coming decades. We demonstrate that their probability of 
occurrence depends on warming rate, rather than global warming level, 
and is thus pathway-dependent. In high-emission scenarios, week-long 
heat extremes that break records by three or more standard deviations 
are two to seven times more probable in 2021–2050 and three to 21 times 
more probable in 2051–2080, compared to the last three decades. In 
2051–2080, such events are estimated to occur about every 6–37 years 
somewhere in the northern midlatitudes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01092-9



[Not very smart]
*A Florida city wanted to move away from fossil fuels. The state just 
made sure it couldn’t.*
The story behind Florida’s new laws that strip cities of their ability 
to fight climate change.
https://grist.org/cities/tampa-wanted-renewable-energy-resolution-florida-lawmakers-made-sure-it-couldnt-gas-ban-preemption/



[Snow falls, then surface melts]
*High concentrations of 'forever' chemicals being released from ice melt 
into the Arctic Ocean*
by Lancaster University--JULY 27, 2021

The research has shown these chemicals have traveled not by sea, but 
through the atmosphere, where they accumulate in Arctic sea ice. Because 
Arctic ice is melting more quickly than before, these harmful chemicals 
are efficiently released into surrounding seawater resulting in some 
very high concentrations.

Lancaster's Dr. Jack Garnett and Professor Crispin Halsall along with 
colleagues from HZG, Germany, have been investigating the long range 
transport and deposition of PFAS to the Arctic as part of EISPAC—a 
project jointly funded by UK's NERC and Germany's BMBF as part of the 
Changing Arctic Ocean program.

PFAS comprise of a very large number of chemicals that have myriad uses, 
including processing aids in the manufacture of fluoropolymers like 
Teflon, stain and water repellents in food packaging, textiles and 
clothing, as well as use in firefighting foams.

One particular group of these chemicals—the perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) 
- are extremely stable and do not degrade in the environment but can 
bioaccumulate and are known to be toxic to humans and wildlife.

PFAAs can enter the food chain due to their mobility in the environment 
and protein-binding characteristics. The longer carbon chain compounds 
of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid 
(PFOS) are generally associated with liver damage in mammals, with 
developmental exposure to PFOA adversely affecting fetal growth in 
humans and other mammals alike.

Dr. Jack Garnett discovered an unusual phenomenon whereby PFAAs present 
in the atmosphere are deposited with snowfall onto the surface of ice 
floes where they can eventually accumulate within the sea ice. Jack made 
this observation while taking ice and water samples as part of a 
scientific expedition under the Norwegian Nansen Legacy project 
(arvenetternansen.com/).
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-high-chemicals-ice-arctic-ocean.html



[really old news that everybody knows anyway]
*New Zealand rated best place to survive global societal collapse*
Study citing ‘perilous state’ of industrial civilisation ranks temperate 
islands top for resilience
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/new-zealand-rated-best-place-to-survive-global-societal-collapse
- -
[from 2018]
Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New 
Zealand
How an extreme libertarian tract predicting the collapse of liberal 
democracies – written by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s father – inspired the likes 
of Peter Thiel to buy up property across the Pacific

by Mark O’Connell
- -
The Sovereign Individual’s co-authors are James Dale Davidson, a private 
investor who specialises in advising the rich on how to profit from 
economic catastrophe, and the late William Rees-Mogg, long-serving 
editor of the Times. (One other notable aspect of Lord Rees-Mogg’s 
varied legacy is his own son, the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg – a 
hastily sketched caricature of an Old Etonian, who is as beloved of 
Britain’s ultra-reactionary pro-Brexit right as he is loathed by the left.)

The Sovereign Individual book cover
I was intrigued by Byrt’s description of the book as a kind of master 
key to the relationship between New Zealand and the techno-libertarians 
of Silicon Valley. Reluctant to enrich Davidson or the Rees-Mogg estate 
any further, I bought a used edition online, the musty pages of which 
were here and there smeared with the desiccated snot of whatever 
nose-picking libertarian preceded me.

It presents a bleak vista of a post-democratic future. Amid a thicket of 
analogies to the medieval collapse of feudal power structures, the book 
also managed, a decade before the invention of bitcoin, to make some 
impressively accurate predictions about the advent of online economies 
and cryptocurrencies.

The book’s 400-odd pages of near-hysterical orotundity can roughly be 
broken down into the following sequence of propositions:

1) The democratic nation-state basically operates like a criminal 
cartel, forcing honest citizens to surrender large portions of their 
wealth to pay for stuff like roads and hospitals and schools.

2) The rise of the internet, and the advent of cryptocurrencies, will 
make it impossible for governments to intervene in private transactions 
and to tax incomes, thereby liberating individuals from the political 
protection racket of democracy.

3) The state will consequently become obsolete as a political entity.

4) Out of this wreckage will emerge a new global dispensation, in which 
a “cognitive elite” will rise to power and influence, as a class of 
sovereign individuals “commanding vastly greater resources” who will no 
longer be subject to the power of nation-states and will redesign 
governments to suit their ends.

The Sovereign Individual is, in the most literal of senses, an 
apocalyptic text.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand



[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming July 30, 2010*
July 30, 2010: On MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," fill-in host Chris 
Hayes and Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard discuss the coal 
industry's role in killing climate-change legislation.
http://youtu.be/sWlwmzgLzVc

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