The Crisis Report - 97
The weirdness of the time we live in.
I got reviewed by an AI on Reddit.
Someone asked an AI if my articles were believable.
So. If you read my last article, you know that I am forecasting a reduction in the human population of around 7 billion by 2050. A lot of people have asked me to justify that number. I’ll come back to that.
Besides being active on Medium and Substack I have become active in the r/Collapse subreddit. If you want to follow me there for more “unfiltered” commentary I am u/TuneGlum7903.
In what is EXTREMELY symbolic of our current moment I was “shadow banned” from the r/Climate subreddit in less than a week.
If you are unfamiliar with the term, it means that I could post comments but that no one else could see them. I wouldn’t ever know that no one else could see my posts. To me, it would just look like I was being ignored. It effectively makes you a “ghost”.
“Shadow Banning” someone on Reddit is what Moderators do to “cranks”. On the r/Climate subreddit I am regarded as a FRINGE Person. The kind of person you might see on a street corner who tries to shove a pamphlet into your hands.
NOW, you might ask what heinous SIN I committed to bring this down upon myself. My crime was saying that the “science” is WRONG. That’s all it took. Just making that argument too often, too forcefully. That got me labeled as an annoying crank and “removed” from the premises.
Here's one example.
Mainstream Climate Science says that doubling the CO2 level to 560ppm should only cause +2.6°C to +3.6°C of warming. That’s THE OFFICIAL SCIENCE right now.
If you argue that the “Minority Report” says 2XCO2 will cause +4.5°C to +6°C then you are saying Mainstream Climate Science is WRONG. Not just that they are wrong, you are saying they are FOUNDATIONALLY wrong. That they got everything wrong in their interpretation of the data.
The value for 2XCO2 is the MOST important number in Climate Science. Everything else depends on that number. If you get that wrong, then all of your models will be wrong.
If you argue that Mainstream Climate Science got ‘Climate Sensitivity” wrong back in 1979 and has been WRONG since then. Well, you are going to be seen by people, even “Climate Change Aware” people as a “crank”. The weirdo who won’t shut up with his stupid “Doomer Crap”.
To the people on r/Climate who ask that everyone stick to “mainstream science” and avoid Denier or Doomer memes. I am a crank who needed to be escorted out by security for annoying the patrons.
My interpretation of the available data is extreme “worst case”. I obviously think I am right in my analysis and I am reporting to you the facts as I see them. Based on the information I have available.
Be aware though, to Mainstream Climate Science I am an Alarmist Doomer Crank. The ONLY place on Reddit I have found that will allow me to preach my “fringe” views on the Climate System is the fringe subreddit r/Collapse.
With all of that context out of the way. Here is what I posted.
There is probably less time than you think.
The Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) has now been above +1.5°C for 18 months now and shows no sign of dropping below that level.
The Rate of Warming is now estimated as +0.27°C/decade up to +0.37°C/decade.
In 2023 the fires in the Boreal Forests released as much CO2 as the 4th largest polluter in the world, or as much as the global aviation industry.
Those same forests, due to heat stress and wildfire smoke, did not take in CO2. Across the world the Terrestrial Carbon Sinks that absorb about 25% to 35% of our annual emissions failed in 2023.
That increased the atmospheric CO2 load by about a extra +9.5Gt in 2023. Resulting in a +81% increase in the year over year increase in CO2 levels. The CO2 increase in 2023 was over +3ppm for the first time.
2024 has been hotter than 2023.
With this election it is clear that the US will DO NOTHING about the Climate Crisis. If anything is going to be done it will have to be by the Chinese.
Let’s be REALLY CLEAR about this. It’s TOO LATE to do anything about this without attempting GEOENGINEERING the Climate System. Probably using SOx aerosols to increase the planetary ALBEDO to reflect more sunlight away from the planet.
James Hansen, and the team of climate scientists who work with him, are calling for a HUGE build out of nuclear power plants AND a global program to “turn the sky WHITE” with sulfate particulates. In conjunction with a CRASH effort to slash Global CO2 emissions as quickly as possible.
By their reckoning, “It’s the ONLY plan that has a chance of working and preserving our civilization.”
Anything short of that, “is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while we wait for the ship to go down”.
Start thinking in terms of COLLAPSE by 2050 now.
I used to think Collapse would be gradual and play out over the rest of the century. Last nights election means we are effectively going to do nothing to SLOW it down.
It probably means +4°C by 2050 and a -80% decline in agricultural outputs.
Collapse is going to play out now over the next 25 years. By 2050 the human population is likely to be less than 20% of current levels and most of civilization will be gone. We are about to start our DESCENT into RAPID INTENSE COLLAPSE.
Enjoy today’s bounty.
After 2030, unless you are wealthy, you are likely to spend the rest of your life being slightly hungry.
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A few hours later I got this comment.
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I just ran your post through ChatGTP, just to see how accurate it was. At first ChatGTP was giving me softball answers, but then I pushed it by saying “I think you are incorrect, and the original poster is right, we have much less time than we originally thought.”
This was it’s response:
“The urgency of the climate crisis is indeed greater than initially thought, and recent findings increasingly validate the concerns expressed in the post. Many of the impacts discussed — such as temperature rise, weakened carbon sinks, and accelerated CO2 accumulation — are corroborated by recent scientific observations. I’ll go over each aspect for clarity:
Temperature Increases: The claim that global temperatures have reached and surpassed the +1.5°C threshold temporarily aligns with recent reports, particularly as we experience one of the strongest El Niño events in recent history. The global average temperature has fluctuated near or above +1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels for several months in 2023, signaling that this level is closer to becoming a more permanent mark rather than just a temporary peak.
Rate of Warming: According to the IPCC and recent studies, the average rate of warming has accelerated due to sustained CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases. Current estimates place the rate at around +0.2°C per decade under normal conditions, though new models suggest that this could increase up to +0.3°C or higher under scenarios of continued emissions and feedback mechanisms like reduced carbon sinks. These higher rates of warming mean we could exceed the +1.5°C threshold consistently by early 2030s and approach +2°C by mid-century if emissions remain high.
Impact of Boreal Fires: In 2023, boreal forest fires released unprecedented levels of CO2. Studies estimate that these fires contributed emissions comparable to the annual output of a major industrialized country, reflecting the increasing vulnerability of these carbon-rich ecosystems. The post is accurate in noting that these forests, which usually act as carbon sinks, have been compromised not only by fires but also by prolonged heat waves and droughts.
Failure of Terrestrial Carbon Sinks: It’s true that terrestrial carbon sinks, which usually absorb around a quarter of human CO2 emissions, are showing signs of stress. Factors like heat waves, droughts, and wildfires have weakened these systems, especially in boreal and tropical regions, which affects their ability to mitigate atmospheric CO2. This problem has become so pronounced that some research estimates a temporary increase in atmospheric CO2 of about +3 ppm, a record high.
Geoengineering and Nuclear Power Proposals: Climate scientists, including figures like James Hansen, have indeed raised the possibility of using geoengineering measures as a last resort if warming trends continue unchecked. Proposals such as injecting sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere to increase planetary albedo and reflect more sunlight are being discussed, though they remain controversial due to potential ecological risks. At the same time, a significant expansion of nuclear power, alongside other clean energy sources, is widely supported as a necessary measure for reducing emissions quickly.
Predictions of Collapse: While the exact timeframe and scale of a societal “collapse” are more speculative, many scientists and researchers emphasize that without substantial emissions reductions, risks of severe food insecurity, displacement, and economic destabilization will increase by mid-century. Some studies do project that parts of the world could face unlivable conditions by 2050, leading to significant disruptions if global warming reaches +3°C or more.
In conclusion, the post’s sense of urgency is largely justified, especially considering the accelerating climate feedback loops and the scale of required mitigation efforts. The scientific community broadly agrees on the importance of rapid emissions reductions and acknowledges that, without such actions, extreme outcomes could unfold faster than previously projected.”
😳
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Now, the poster got jumped on by a lot of other people. Typical comments were like this.
“How much energy did ChatGTP consume to tell you that? And why do you trust that it is reasonable, logical, or accurate? Especially when we have so many examples of these AI programs responding with incorrect tinfo”
“Stop using ChatGPT for frivolous reasons (or at all ever for any reasons) if you actually care about collapse.”
“I asked ChatGPT and it didn’t say I what I wanted, so I told it what I wanted it to say and it repeated it right back to me!”
“Why do you think “[running a] post through ChatGPT” is a useful contribution?”
They got down voted and this comment vanished before many people saw it. Which is how social media works. However, I was gobsmacked by the whole thing.
It has never even occurred to me to ask an AI to validate or “fact check” my work. No one else has ever mentioned doing this and I don’t read to much into the AI agreeing with me.
But what about you, my readers?
Does hearing that my work has been AI “fact checked” and certified as “realistic” make it any more believable to you? Does it change your opinion in any way?
AI is seeping into our lives in unexpected ways and places. For a lot of people there seems to be the perception that it offers unbiased interpretations of the data. That it can be an “honest” advisor in judging the TRUE from the FALSE.
I can understand why someone might want that kind of feedback after reading one of my more recent articles. I am forecasting the COLLAPSE of civilization and the deaths of 80% of humanity over the next 25 odd years. Am I a loon or do I know what I’m talking about?
YOU have to decide that for yourself and that’s tough if you lack the knowledge base to make an informed choice. Who, do you TRUST when you have to make “life changing” decisions?
I guess for a lot of people AI is becoming an oracle.
That’s “my take”.
rc 11/14/2024
Personal Notes:
Estimating the Population Crash.
“In the end, it always came down to food” Morgan Jones, Walking Dead, Season 3
Drought Expands Across the U.S.
Dry conditions parched all but two states in October 2024 and worsened as the month progressed.
Global drought threatens food supplies and energy production
Record temperatures and low rainfall have had impacts on food security, livelihoods, and energy production in many…
joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu
Intense, Widespread Drought Grips South America
Insufficient rainfall in 2023-2024 has taken a toll on the regions rivers and groundwater and upended daily life…
There are about to be SEVERE shortfalls in production.
Growing wheat is getting harder in a hotter world: study — The Hill 06/02/2023
Two of the world’s major wheat-growing regions are skating on the ragged edge of a catastrophic failure.
Since 1981, wheat-withering heat waves have become 16 times more common in the Midwest, according to a study published Friday in the journal NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science.
Potential for surprising heat and drought events in wheat-producing regions of USA and China.
That means a crop-destroying temperature spike that might have come to the Midwest once in a century in 1981 will now visit the region approximately every 6 years, the study has found. In China, such frequency has risen to every 16 years.
Wheat is the main food grain produced in the United States. These findings are a sign that farmers need to be prepared for a future that is markedly more disrupted than the past, the authors wrote.
“The historical record is no longer a good representation of what we can expect for the future. We live in a changed climate and people are underestimating current day possibilities for extreme events,” — Coughlan de Perez Tufts University
Everything's About to Get a Hell of a Lot More Expensive Due to Climate Change
Intensifying hurricanes, floods, and heat waves are wreaking havoc across the country-and on all of our bank accounts.
Agricultural yields for important commodities produced in those states (fruits, nuts, corn, sugar, veggies, wheat) are withering, thanks to punishing heat and soil-nutrition depletion. The supply chains through which these products usually travel are thrown off course at varying points, by storms that disrupt land and sea transportation. Preparation for these varying externalities requires supply-chain middlemen and product sellers to anticipate consequential cost increases down the line — and implement them sooner than later, in order to cover their margins.
It goes beyond groceries, though. It applies to every basic building block of modern life: labor, immigration, travel, and materials for home building, transportation, power generation, and necessary appliances. Climate effects have been disrupting and raising the prices of timber, copper, and rubber; even chocolate prices were skyrocketing not long ago, thanks to climate change impacts on African cocoa bean crops.
When all the economic indicators that take highest priority in Americans’ heads are in such volatile motion thanks to climate change, it may be time to reconsider how traditional economics work and how we perceive their effects.
We’re no longer in a world where climate change affects the economy, or where voters prioritizing economic or inflationary concerns are responding to something distinct from climate change — we’re in a world where climate change is the economy.
SO.
As of today there are about 8b of us globally. The US has exported on average about 77 million tons of grain annually for the last 10 years. That feeds about 1.2b people annually.
Russia exports about 35m tons annually. Enough to feed about 500m.
Ukraine exports about 20m tons annually. Enough to feed about 300m.
The other 5 breadbasket zones that produce the surplus grains that are traded on the open market produce about 35m tons combined.
About 2.5b people are fed by this grain.
About 1.5b people are currently in a state of “food insecurity” according to the UN.
About 1b live in a state of food insufficiency”.
The best study by Cornell found that for every +1°C increase to the GMST cereal grain output declines -16% to –22%.
Report: Warmer planet will trigger increased farm losses | Cornell Chronicle
Extreme heat is already harming crop yields, but a new report quantifies just how much that warming is cutting into…
The first +1°C has already cost us the 20% productivity gain we should have seen since 2013. In the paper they say “it’s as if we hit the pause button on productivity gains back in 2013.
“For decades, the U.S. agricultural sector has seen 1.5% productivity growth every year, year over year — few countries have seen that kind of sustained growth,” Ortiz-Bobea said. “Globally, we’ve found that climate change has already slowed productivity growth. Global agricultural productivity is 20% lower today than what it could have been without anthropogenic climate change.”
Getting to +2°C between now and 2030–2035 will cut outputs annually by another 20%. Plus it increases the risk of “multifocal output failure” in which multiple breadbasket regions fail at once.
The risk of that increases to about 1 in 6 at +2°C.
Given those inputs, how many fatalities would you predict by 2035?
Because 20% of the global population is about 1.5 Billion people.
Then project warming between +3°C to +4°C by 2050.
+3°C another 1.5 Billion.
+4°C another 1.5 Billion.
That’s a population decline of roughly 4.5 Billion by 2050 just from the declines in agriculture. That’s not even considering the effect global warming is having on the oceans.
According to most estimates, around 10% of the global population relies on the ocean as a primary source of food and protein, with the majority of these people living in developing countries. In addition over 3 billion people depend on the ocean for a significant portion of their diet.
Even if just the 10% die, that's about another 1 Billion dead by 2050.
We are looking at global fatalities of 5.5 Billion JUST from starvation by 2050.
I think that the “secondary die off” from war, disease, infrastructure failure, migration, etc. will kill off another 1 to 2 Billion during this period.
That's how I get to an estimated 80% population decline by 2050 as global temperatures soar into the +3°C to +4°C range due to the BURNING of the Boreal Forests and the surge in CH4 from the melting permafrost.
We have “tipped”, the DESCENT has started.
Your analysis is the only one that fits what's happening. Your sourcing is consistently great. We know that the IPCC and other components of climate science are controlled by capital, in the sense that what they are allowed to say is limited in specific ways to avoid blaming capitalists or capitalism for the problem, and to avoid solutions that compromise the ability of extremely wealthy people to be able to continue being extremely wealthy.
Interestingly, the Club of Rome estimate for collapse is also 2050. That estimate was based on nothing significant changing, and nothing significant has changed. So it isn't "your" estimate so much as the estimate that fits the data.
I just rewatched part of the Noam Chomsky movie "Manufacturing Consent" and one of the things he talks about is how important it is for the "political class" (which includes everyone working in the field of climate science) must be boxed into specific, safe narratives in order to keep the overall system on track. Dissenting voices must be marginalized or they disrupt the entire system. It's a miracle, really, that we even have the accurate data available to us.
Richard -- I felt shadowbanned in r/collapse because they don't let you post anything about potential solutions, even extremely radical ones ("solutions" so violent and chaotic that they would be synonymous to "collapse" -- the collapse of the capitalist order. I tried to link my recent post there and the mods wouldn't let it through.
Either way, as the resident crank of climate Substack (for the communism thing) and a passing crank on r/collapse (for the same), I totally feel you on being pushed to the sides as a crank in other spaces, but you are completely right. The science is wrong. Climate sensitivity is way higher than they think it is. Qualitatively, immensely higher; we just don't know the full impact of doubling the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and when you look into deep time or geologic time, it's even more; we've drastically reversed the course that the planet was on, and that will have reverberations even after the earth system has regained stability at a new, warmer/more enthalpic level.
My thing is, So why do we STILL look to the SCIENTISTS for LEADERSHIP around this issue? They are wrong. They are wrong on the science and they are VERY wrong on the possible solutions, the politics, on WHAT IS TO BE DONE. If anything -- I know that the answer in r/collapse is that there's nothing to be done.* But I think it's not fair to ask people to live with this painful cognitive dissonance that comes from making the problem worse with our every motion. People are going to start seeking revolutionary solutions. Is the CLIMATE movement going to embrace them or push them away, as has been the traditional move?
This is now a problem not for bourgeoisie scientists to deal with, this is now something that can only be handled by "professional revolutionaries", to take Lenin's phrase.
*edit, more thought: The gap between the stance of r/collapse and my own is not about how extreme the situation is, but whether people are given any agency. For r/collapse, and from what I've seen from most writers on this issue, we as people are subjects of this historic catastrophe but have no agency to make change, because to this point change has been impossible to achieve. But I believe in revolution; it's happened before and when conditions are right, it can happen again. Everything will already be destroyed and collapsed when that revolution comes but it doesn't matter, we still must hold on to the dignity of knowing that we as people have agency, that there are other ways of looking at the problem outside of neoliberalism. This is all summed up in Fred Jameson's immortal words, "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." Well, I'm asking us to imagine the latter.