We're Toast 44

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.

Driftwood at Batchewana Bay

Heat Waves in the Ground Are Getting More Extreme—and Perilous. "The atmosphere is rapidly warming, but the soil is also prone to heat waves. Scientists are racing to understand the consequences."

Light pollution is disrupting the seasonal rhythms of plants and trees, lengthening pollen season in US cities. "City lights that blaze all night are profoundly disrupting urban plants’ phenology – shifting when their buds open in the spring and when their leaves change colors and drop in the fall. New research I coauthored shows how nighttime lights are lengthening the growing season in cities, which can affect everything from allergies to local economies."

We Are Witnessing the First Stages of Civilization’s Collapse. "Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?"

Rising methane could be a sign that Earth’s climate is part-way through a ‘termination-level transition’. "Since 2006, the amount of heat-trapping methane in Earth’s atmosphere has been rising fast and, unlike the rise in carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane’s recent increase seems to be driven by biological emissions, not the burning of fossil fuels. This might just be ordinary variability – a result of natural climate cycles such as El Niño. Or it may signal that a great transition in Earth’s climate has begun."

Risks to Food Security Severely Underestimated. "345 million people facing acute food insecurity today."

New study definitively confirms gulf stream weakening. "The Gulf Stream transport of water through the Florida Straits has slowed by 4% over the past four decades, with 99% certainty that this weakening is more than expected from random chance, according to a new study."

Sadly, It's Not 'Just Another Summer.' We Must End the Fossil Fuel Industry. "My fellow human beings, we're in the process of losing basically everything, as the latest data demonstrates. September was more like your average July, The Washington Post wrote on Tuesday. All that we've been experiencing recently—the worsening fires, smoke, heat, floods, and collapsing ecosystems—is just the beginning. This is what experiencing the early stages of Earth's unraveling feels like. The immediate cause is the fossil fuel industry, and the overarching cause is extractive-colonial capitalism."

Mary Trump’s Horror Prediction if a Republican Wins 2024. "The niece of the former president joins The New Abnormal with a dire warning for Democrats if Republicans take the win in 2024."