Category: Environment Page 1 of 16

A lot of people lump all environmental issues under “climate change.” It’s the big bad boogeyman, the easiest to observe, and the first that’s likely to cause catastrophe. This also leads some to think that the problem is relatively easy to deal with. We can simply do aerosol injections into the upper atmosphere, and that will reduce the temperature. (Once we start, however, we can’t ever stop.)

But this isn’t the case, the environment is under assault in many ways, and simple solutions may help, but won’t deal with the issue as a whole and may even make parts of it worse. Sulfate Aerosol injections would reduce the temperature, but actually cause acid rain and increase ocean acidification. That means phytoplankton still die off, algal blooms still happen, and we still lose most of the phytoplankton oxygen production.

Cirrus cloud thinning, in which we inject ice-nucleating particles into high altitude cirrus clouds to thin them, allowing more solar radiation to escape is less effective, probably damages the ozone layer, increases UV radiation (which damages phytoplankton, again) and deposits chemicals into the ocean whose effects are probably not benign.

And, again, once we start, we can’t stop, unless we have reached a point where we’re pulling significant CO2 from the atmosphere first.

There’s no free lunch here. This is a system with complicated feedback mechanisms which was more or less in homeostasis (it was actually tending to cool down very slowly and the long term trend was to another ice age. A little bit of extra CO2 was a good thing, but only a little.)

But the real issue is that climate change is only one issue out of a large number. The Earth has a bunch of systems in homeostasis, which have been that way since the end of the last Ice Age, or much longer. Each of them is required to sustain life. When they get knocked out of balance too much, mass extinctions follow and in every mass extinction, the top predator dies.

The”planetary boundaries” system is one way of thinking of it. Here’s the 2025 visualization:

7 of 9 planetary boundaries crossed

You’ll notice that biosphere integrity is actually worse than climate change right now and that’s why I say “environmental collapse” in the same breath as climate change. The ecological web of life, from microbes to apex predators, if it collapses, leads to a huge die-off very fast. Think of the famous example of “what if all the bees die?” But humble organisms which renew soil like various microbes and earthworms and insects matter. (We’ve lost most of the world’s insects already.) Those phytoplankton which produce most of the world’s oxygen. The Amazon and Congo rainforests which used to produce so much oxygen and store so much carbon.

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This stuff is complicated. We don’t understand it, not really (something denialists use to try and prove there are any problems.) When we tried to create simple biospheres, in which nothing is allowed in or out, they devolved into slime.

What that means is that if we fuck it up, we don’t know how to fix it.

Let me repeat, if we screw up biosphere integrity, we can’t fix it. We just don’t know how.

We can’t remake and seed all the creatures we extincted, from unicellular organisms to predators to plants to insects. Every one which goes extinct loses us unique biological information and resources. In most cases we haven’t even catalogued species going extinct, let alone analyzed their DNA.

Just continuing with “damn the torpedoes” is beyond stupid. I have lived a life in a society determined to self-destruct. Much of this blog’s output over the last few years has covered the end of Western hegemony, a colossal fuck up on the part of Western elites (and grats to China for playing our elites like the pathetic losers and suckers they are.)

But that issue really only matters to humanity as a whole if it descends into nuclear war. Hegemons change. It happens. Living thru it sucks if you’re on the losing side or get caught in the collateral damage, but whatever, humanity goes on.

Environmental risk is truly existential. Despite what some very bright people believe, it could kill us all. That risk, I think, is low, but it’s not zero. A two percent risk of extinction is not be sneezed at and it could be much higher. We don’t really know.

Further environmental risk is, let me repeat, essentially incalculable because we do not understand the systems involved very well. I have been right far more often than most climate scientists in my predictions because I have assumed feedback loops. My personal assessment is that we’ve reached the point where it’s self sustaining. If we haven’t, we’re close. Arctic permafrost melting is one of the atomic bombs of climate change and we also have, for example, the Amazon passing the tipping point: it will go away now, and that won’t and probably can’t be stopped and it no longer absorbs carbon but produces it.

The Amazon and Congo rain forests are also major repositories of biodiversity. (The loss of medical advances we’ll never even know about from losing so many species is absolutely massive, put aside environmental concerns.)

From the point of view of humanity as a whole, for the medium run (not even the long run now, if you’re 20 you’re going to see Hell, if you live thru it) environmental/planetary issues are by far and away number one. Nothing else even comes close.

And while I salute the Chinese shift to cleaner tech, I also see the 38 lane superhighways. Electric vehicles are better than gas ones, but they aren’t environmentally neutral, let alone good. When cars remove more harmful chemicals than are required to produce and run them, then “everyone has a car” societies will make sense. Till then, just more insanity. “Let’s have the same lifestyle as Americans, but more and with flying cars” is admirable, but mass suicide.

We’re past the point where we can stop this without massive change, and far past the point where we aren’t going to be hurt badly by it. That doesn’t mean nothing could, in theory, be done, and some of it will be. I’m sure we’ll see stratosphere injections for example. If we don’t do it before the first massive famine to hit a country with enough launch capacity, we’ll do it after.

And it’ll help, but as we discussed at the start of this article, it won’t help enough. It’s a tourniquet on a bleeder, not a cure. A palliative that still allows the patient to become sicker.

And that, my friends, is where we are. If you’re old, you may die before the worst of it. We’ll talk about this more, including what proper solutions would look like. The weird thing about those solutions is that they produce much nicer worlds for the majority of the world’s population.

We’ll also look at what failing to deal with the problem means. That’s the more likely path, alas, and it starts with billions of dead people.

More later. Be well.

When I talk about the environment I usually say “Climate change & Environmental Degradation.” It’s important to understand that while these two reinforce each other, they aren’t the same thing.

A UK-wide decline in bug splats recorded on car number plates indicates an “alarming” fall in the number of flying insects, UK scientists said in a survey published yesterday.

The 2024 Bugs Matter report revealed the numbers of flying insects found stuck to vehicle number plates had dropped by nearly 63 per cent since 2021.

This study from Germany in 2017 found a:

More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

And there were decreases in the 1900s as well. Bug biodiversity and biomass is WAY down. Here’s a lovely chart from 2019.

We’re seeing this sort of crash, in both biodiversity and biomass for all sorts of species, not just bugs. Problem is that our food production and a pile of environmental processes related to water and atmosphere renewal are dependent on animals and plants. There’s massive loss of plankton, mammals, reptiles, bacteria in our soil and so on.

This stuff isn’t independent of climate change, but even without any climate change there’d still be plenty of it. The loss of wild areas, plus tons of pollution and the side effects of extraction and energy generation are largely to blame.

Collapse of this “web of life” or “food web” is a huge danger to us, as well as being a monstrous crime against other forms of life.

So don’t think “climate change is it”. It isn’t, and it may not even be as important as loss of biodiversity.

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Actuaries are probably the world’s foremost experts on risk. The Institute & Faculty of Actuaries has weighed in on the likely effects of climate change (pdf):

They expect this between 2050 and 2070, but it appears to be based on reaching over 2 degrees increase. I’d personally expect it sooner. Whatever the case, 2 billion deaths is one of the more extreme numbers I’ve seen from a mainstream source. (I personally expect at least half of the world’s population to die.)

The full report has a range of probabilities, and 4 billion deaths is on the table as one of the possibilities. (pdf)

By 2070 to 2090 they expect as much as a 50% loss of GDP.

The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090, unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken. Populations are already impacted by food system shocks, water insecurity, heat stress and infectious diseases. If unchecked, mass mortality, mass displacement, severe economic contraction and conflict become more likely.

I think the simplest and most important quote is this one:

Our society and economy fundamentally depend on the Earth system which provides essentials such as food, water, energy and raw materials.

A lot of people seem to miss that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. Mother nature has the final say on everything.

As long as we’re banging on about climate change, this lovely little chart shows the effects on precipitation of climate change. (Hotter air means more water in the air, and thus more rain and snow.) In other words, expect more floods, mudslides and so on. Notice that the slope appears to be accelerating.

Remember, realism is not pessimism.

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An area larger Manhattan has burned down. In the middle of fucking winter.

I’ve been watching the reaction, and there’s a lot of screeching about DEI and bad fire management and so on and it’s true that California’s fire management isn’t good.

Whatever.

California’s had shit water management forever, and decades of shitty fire management. What’s changing is the climate.

California was paradise because it had a mediterranean climate. That climate is shifting north. California is moving towards a new climate. Like most such changes it’s a fits and starts thing: some years its the old normal, others it’s the new normal. The old vegetation, suited for the old climate, will go, often in fire, sometimes replaced more gently.

So, when building and rebuilding all homes need to be fire proof. The right type of concrete, thick brick, old fashioned masonry, ICF bricks, steel. A fireproof roof. Fireproof windows which don’t shatter under heat. A metal door. No foliage too near the house. You may have to evacuate, but when you come home, the house will still be there. Build to protect your pipes and electrical infrastructure, as well.

This the general rule, folks. The climate is changing. You need to adapt to the new climate wherever you live. If you’re a Californian and you want the old climate, move north, because that’s where the Meditteranan climate is moving.

In addition, expect instability. More extreme weather: California had floods not long ago—your home needs to be fireproof and floodproof. You prepare for fire, flood, wind and power and water outages. If you have money, get your own power and water supplies. (There are now machines which can make water from the air, even in pretty dry places.) If you’re doing the whole food thing, it needs to be done in a climate controlled space, not outdoors, because of the instability.

We aren’t stopping climate change. All indications are that it is accelerating, and we aren’t doing shit all about it. I suspect we are now at the self-reinforcing stage anyway. To stop it we’d actually have to not just stop fueling it but work on reversal, or it will continue.

Politically that isn’t going to happen any time soon enough to matter.

The world is changing. Prepare.

(Haven’t forgotten the Europe piece.)

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I ran across an article on a century old collection of grain seeds. Seems that saving them may turn out to be important:

A UK-Chinese collaboration has sequenced the DNA of all the 827 kinds of wheat, assembled by Watkins, that have been nurtured at the John Innes Centre near Norwich for most of the past century.

In doing so, scientists have created a genetic goldmine by pinpointing previously unknown genes that are now being used to create hardy varieties with improved yields that could help feed Earth’s swelling population.

Strains are now being developed that include wheat which is able to grow in salty soil, while researchers at Punjab Agricultural University are working to improve disease resistance from seeds that they received from the John Innes Centre. Other strains include those that would reduce the need for nitrogen fertilisers, the manufacture of which is a major source of carbon emissions.

“Essentially we have uncovered a goldmine,” said Simon Griffiths, a geneticist at the John Innes Centre and one of the project’s leaders.

“This is going to make an enormous difference to our ability to feed the world as it gets hotter and agriculture comes under increasing climatic strain.”

If some obsessive, one individual, hadn’t collected these seeds, then an institution had kept them safe, we’d be a lot more likely to starve in the future.

The most bio-diverse land ecosystem are rainforests, and we’re cutting them down, destroying entire ecosystems. Destroying ecosystems is like burning your house to save on heating bills. Leaving aside all the climate change issues, and that collapsing ecosystems may lead to collapse of life support for humans, each animal, plant, microbe or insect we make extinct has the potential to have genes which could lead to scientific advances: not just in food crops but in medicine and if we don’t have civilization collapse, for gene therapies and enhancements of incalculable value to humanity.

Increased longevity, faster healing, improved immune systems, greater heat or cold tolerance and far, far more could be lost because of this short sightedness.

It took hundreds of millions of years to create such a diverse web of life, and on the human scale, once it’s gone, it’s gone and we aren’t getting it back.

We should either stop (we aren’t going to) or at the least preserve samples of everything we can, in vaults designed to run for at least centuries with minimal human support and without requiring more than simple maintenance. If we’re young enough, the lives we save might be our own, if not our grandchildren and later descendants will thank us, and, just perhaps, we might may be able to bring back to life some of the species we are currently genociding.

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