#climate breakdown

When Climate Breakdown Meets a For-Profit Health System The most dangerous consequence of climate breakdown may not be the disaster itself. It may be what happens after the floodwaters recede, the smoke clears, the power returns to some neighborhoods but not others, and the people who survived discover that the system meant to keep them alive cannot afford to treat them. A heatwave sends people…

The Last Subsidy The future does not first become impossible when the water rises. It becomes impossible when no one will insure the roof, finance the repair, or rebuild what the water takes. For most of industrial civilization, insurance has been treated as an afterthought: a bill attached to a house, a business expense, a clause in a mortgage agreement, a tedious piece of paperwork demanded…

The Knowledge We Will Not Use The soil crisis is not a mystery. The knowledge to slow erosion, rebuild organic matter, diversify crops, reduce pesticide dependence, improve water retention, protect pollinators, and restore fertility already exists. Cover crops exist. Rotations exist. Composting exists. Agroforestry exists. Managed grazing exists. Public grain reserves exist. So do diets that…

UNITED STATES – Across the United States, July’s heatwaves set more than 130 all-time records, following a years-long pattern of longer, more extreme summers around the world. While those with resources and power are able to protect themselves from high temperatures, vulnerable people have no choice but to live and work in life-threatening heat. On the first weekend of the month, at least 22…

The Forgotten Foundation For most of industrial civilization, soil has been treated as scenery: the brown material beneath the real business of tractors, fertilizer, seeds, markets, and machines. Supermarkets reinforce the illusion. Their shelves display food as though it emerged from a system of logistics and purchasing power, not from a thin, living layer of mineral particles, water, fungi,…

Dozens of people drowned, hundreds had to be rescued and thousands were displaced when floods struck the coasts of west Africa last month. Now scientists have concluded that the rains that caused the floods were supercharged by climate breakdown. Global heating, they say, turned what should have been a routine weather event into a climate catastrophe. They also warn that the countries affected must adapt to a frightening new reality. “The climate is changing faster than most nations can adapt,” said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London. “Adapting to these now common events is critical, but so is reducing emissions much further and faster, to allow us time to keep up with the changes we’ve already put into motion. Quite simply, until emissions stop these extremes will only grow worse.” Residents on the Gulf of Guinea coast expect rain this time of year. Rainy season runs from May until the end of July. Granted, this year it had been particularly heavy, but what began on 20 June caught people by surprise. Over the course of 72 hours, intense rainfall drenched the densely populated coastal regions of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria. More than 140mm of rain fell in some cities in less than a day. The deluge overwhelmed drainage systems, triggering a series of flash floods.

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Not so long ago, the Iran war could still be treated as a “shock” to the system—a sudden, violent anomaly that spooked traders, sent a few charts vertical, then, we were told, would be absorbed. Oil would spike and settle. Gasoline would lurch higher and then ease. Fertilizer prices would jump and “normalize.” Shipping would reroute. The machine would shudder, spit smoke, and then grind on. By…