2023 smashes record for world’s hottest year by huge margin

Rapid reduction in fossil fuel burning urgently needed to preserve liveable conditions, say scientists, as climate damage deepens

Aftermath of a wildfire caused by a deadly heatwave near the city of Santa Juana, Chile, in February 2023. Photograph: Pablo Hidalgo/EPA
Aftermath of a wildfire caused by a deadly heatwave near the city of Santa Juana, Chile, in February 2023. Photograph: Pablo Hidalgo/EPA

2023 “smashed” the record for the hottest year by a huge margin, providing “dramatic testimony” of how much warmer and more dangerous today’s climate is from the cooler one in which human civilization developed.

Link to article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/09/2023-record-world-hottest-climate-fossil-fuel

This year ‘virtually certain’ to be warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists say

This year is "virtually certain" to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday

This year is “virtually certain” to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world’s hottest October in that period.

Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

“The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as “very extreme”.

The heat is a result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence this year of the El Nino weather pattern, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Globally, the average surface air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the same month in 1850-1900, which Copernicus defines as the pre-industrial period.

The record-breaking October means 2023 is now “virtually certain” to be the warmest year recorded, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016 – another El Nino year.

Copernicus’ dataset goes back to 1940. “When we combine our data with the IPCC, then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years,” Burgess said.

LINK: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/this-year-virtually-certain-be-warmest-125000-years-eu-scientists-say-2023-11-08/

The next pandemic could strike crops, not people

Genetic uniformity is central to modern farming. It leaves us vulnerable to plant disease breakouts.

Genetic uniformity is central to modern farming. It leaves us vulnerable to plant disease breakouts.

LINK: https://grist.org/agriculture/next-pandemic-will-be-plants-not-people/

‘A Wake Up Call’: The World Needs to Prepare for Massive Crop Failure

Climate change is messing with the jet stream, and it means more extreme weather events in the future.

 

Drought-stricken corn crops bake in the sun as temperatures continue to hover around 100 degrees Monday, July 25, 2011, in Tomball, Texas.

LINK: https://gizmodo.com/study-world-needs-to-prepare-for-massive-crop-failure-1850605691

Melting Himalayan glaciers pose serious dangers to humans, report finds

The world’s tallest mountains are losing ice — which could pose a serious danger to humanity. That’s according to a new report from the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, an agency that oversees the Hindu Kush Himalayas. Izabella Koziell, deputy director general of the agency, joins CBS News to break down the findings.

Breaking Down: Collapse

Interview with Shaun ChamberlinEpisode 114 – Interview with Shaun Chamberlin

Shaun Chamberlin is an author and activist who has been exploring collapse and possible responses for over twenty years.  He is the editor of ‘Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy’ and his late mentor David Fleming’s ‘Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It’, as well as executive producer of 2020 film ‘The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?’

He puts the theory into practice as one of the custodians of Ireland’s legendary free pub ‘The Happy Pig’ and was involved with the Transition Towns movement since its inception, co-founding Transition Town Kingston and authoring the movement’s second book, ‘The Transition Timeline’, back in 2009.  He was also one of the first Extinction Rebellion arrestees, in 2018, and now leads Sterling College’s online program ‘Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time’.

Shaun’s website: http://darkoptimism.org

‘Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Times’ courses/community: http://ce.sterlingcollege.edu/surviving-the-future…

David Fleming’s books: http://flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/books/

Free access to David Fleming’s Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It: http://leanlogic.online

Destination Morocco Podcast
Listen to our podcast before your trip to Morocco!

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As California’s wells dry up, residents rely on bottled water to survive

In drought-parched Central Valley, thousands rely on trucked and bottled water as they wait for new wells

As California’s wells dry up, residents rely on bottled water to survive
Bryce Johnston of Big River Drilling works on drilling a new water well in August. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Wells are running dry in California at a record pace. Amid a hotter, drier climate and the third consecutive year of severe drought, the state has already tallied a record 1,351 dry wells this year — nearly 40 percent over last year’s rate and the most since the state created its voluntary reporting system in 2014. The bulk of these outages slice through the center of the state, in the parched lowlands of the San Joaquin Valley, where residents compete with deep agricultural wells for the rapidly dwindling supply of groundwater.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

The Fourth Revolution

The Light Age is the Dark Age, part two

The Fourth Revolution

By now, you might have heard about the rising threat of ‘eco-fascism’. If you haven’t you soon will, because the number of people warning about this alarming new danger to civilisation seems to be growing exponentially. In publications right and left and neither you’ll be able to read long expositions of the origins and intentions of this frightening movement, which seems to be taking root all over the world.

Those essays and articles could be rolled into one easily enough, and sometimes it seems like they have been. The formula is always the same, and can be usefully applied across the political spectrum. Start with talk of the ‘rising tide of authoritarianism’ all over the world, as evidenced by ‘populism’, Brexit, Georgia Melloni, Viktor Orban, Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump, Joe Biden or any other leader you don’t like. Move on to explore how much of this ‘rising authoritarianism’ is reflected in environmentalism, as evidenced by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, the Green New Deal, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg or [insert name of bête noire here]

After this, list the historical inspirations for these new green authoritarians: Ted Kaczynski, Pentti Linkola and Dave Foreman should do for starters. Dig into the most miserable chans and reddits of the Internet and ‘expose’ a few anonymised avatars promoting race war in the name of the planet. Mention the Christchurch shooter. Use the phrase ‘dark undercurrent’ a lot. Quote Murray Bookchin. Chuck in the names of a couple of nature writers from the 1930s who became fascists. Mutter darkly about ‘blood and soil’ and how Hitler was a vegetarian. Did you know there was an organic garden at Dachau? It makes you think. If you’re lucky.

Having got here, you can move on to the meat of the thing: sombrely intoning about the ‘new threat to democracy’ which is represented by this ominous movement. Depending on where you’re coming from, you can now explain how these new eco-authoritarians represent either [a] a threat to our God-given right to drive, mine, manufacture, fly, burn oil and freely enjoy the glories that only Western Progress can provide, or [b] a threat to diversity, equality, human rights, LGBTQIA++ people, refugees, ‘global justice’ and a woman’s right to choose. Either way, the conclusion will be much the same: a non-specific but ominous call for more monitoring of ‘problematic’ views, more work to tackle ‘radicalisation’, more ‘hate speech’ or anti-protest laws and probably more Internet regulation. For the safety of us all, of course.

The problem, though, is that actual ‘eco fascism’ is notable mostly by its absence. Dark corners of the Internet aside – you can find any craziness there, after all – it’s hard to find a single ‘eco fascist’ anywhere out in the real world. No public intellectuals, no writers, no philosophers, no politicians, no popular movements embrace anything of the kind. Plenty of people get the label applied to them of course – without the prefix, the word ‘fascist’ has been a meaningless, all-purpose insult for decades – but they all reject it. I was in and around the green movement for a long time, but I never met an eco-fascist, though I did have the pleasure of being called one.

So why all the dire warnings? I can think of two possible explanations.

RED

By now, you might have heard about the rising threat of ‘eco-fascism’. If you haven’t you soon will, because the number of people warning about this alarming new danger to civilisation seems to be growing exponentially. In publications right and left and neither you’ll be able to read long expositions of the origins and intentions of this frightening movement, which seems to be taking root all over the world.

Those essays and articles could be rolled into one easily enough, and sometimes it seems like they have been. The formula is always the same, and can be usefully applied across the political spectrum. Start with talk of the ‘rising tide of authoritarianism’ all over the world, as evidenced by ‘populism’, Brexit, Georgia Melloni, Viktor Orban, Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump, Joe Biden or any other leader you don’t like. Move on to explore how much of this ‘rising authoritarianism’ is reflected in environmentalism, as evidenced by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, the Green New Deal, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg or [insert name of bête noire here]

After this, list the historical inspirations for these new green authoritarians: Ted Kaczynski, Pentti Linkola and Dave Foreman should do for starters. Dig into the most miserable chans and reddits of the Internet and ‘expose’ a few anonymised avatars promoting race war in the name of the planet. Mention the Christchurch shooter. Use the phrase ‘dark undercurrent’ a lot. Quote Murray Bookchin. Chuck in the names of a couple of nature writers from the 1930s who became fascists. Mutter darkly about ‘blood and soil’ and how Hitler was a vegetarian. Did you know there was an organic garden at Dachau? It makes you think. If you’re lucky.

Having got here, you can move on to the meat of the thing: sombrely intoning about the ‘new threat to democracy’ which is represented by this ominous movement. Depending on where you’re coming from, you can now explain how these new eco-authoritarians represent either [a] a threat to our God-given right to drive, mine, manufacture, fly, burn oil and freely enjoy the glories that only Western Progress can provide, or [b] a threat to diversity, equality, human rights, LGBTQIA++ people, refugees, ‘global justice’ and a woman’s right to choose. Either way, the conclusion will be much the same: a non-specific but ominous call for more monitoring of ‘problematic’ views, more work to tackle ‘radicalisation’, more ‘hate speech’ or anti-protest laws and probably more Internet regulation. For the safety of us all, of course.

The problem, though, is that actual ‘eco fascism’ is notable mostly by its absence. Dark corners of the Internet aside – you can find any craziness there, after all – it’s hard to find a single ‘eco fascist’ anywhere out in the real world. No public intellectuals, no writers, no philosophers, no politicians, no popular movements embrace anything of the kind. Plenty of people get the label applied to them of course – without the prefix, the word ‘fascist’ has been a meaningless, all-purpose insult for decades – but they all reject it. I was in and around the green movement for a long time, but I never met an eco-fascist, though I did have the pleasure of being called one.

So why all the dire warnings? I can think of two possible explanations.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

The US megadrought won’t just end – it will change the land forever

Patterns of drought and deluge are common throughout history, but human-driven climate change is disrupting these cycles, making it more difficult to predict exactly how the current megadought in south-western North America will end

An abandoned pomegranate orchard during a droughtGetty Images/Bloomberg Creative/ David Paul Morris
An abandoned pomegranate orchard during a drought
Getty Images/Bloomberg Creative/ David Paul Morris

The current drought began when Kent Norman was just 2 years old. Farming is in his blood. His family has worked the land in Stockton, California, for generations. But the last two decades have created one of the most severe droughts in the region history: Over the course of his life, south-western North America has become drier than it has been in more than 1000 years.

LINK: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2344912-the-us-megadrought-wont-just-end-it-will-change-the-land-forever/

WINTER WHEAT CROP IN POOR SHAPE AMID DROUGHT

WINTER WHEAT CROP IN POOR SHAPE AMID DROUGHTOnly 28% of the U.S. winter wheat crop is in good or excellent condition, one of the worst starts for the crop in years, said the USDA’s Crop Progress report on Monday. Three-quarters of winter wheat land is in drought, including nine of every 10 acres in Kansas, the top wheat producing state.

By comparison, at this point in 2021, 45% of the U.S. crop was in good or excellent condition and in 2020, 43% rated as good or excellent. Brownfield Ag News said this year’s rating of 24% was the lowest since 1992, when it was 23%.

Wheat is a hardy crop grown in a wide range of climates and soils but best suited to temperate regions with annual rainfall of 12 to 36 inches. In the United States, the central and southern Plains are the heart of winter wheat production. Winter wheat is sown and sprouts in the fall, lies dormant during the winter and is harvested in late spring and summer.

In its first listing of winter wheat condition this fall, the USDA said 22% of wheat in Kansas was in good or excellent condition. In Oklahoma, the corresponding rating was 11% and in Texas, it was 4%.

Nationwide, 35% of winter wheat rated as poor or very poor, compared to 21% one year ago.

LINK: https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/winter-wheat-crop-in-poor-shape-amid-drought