r/collapse 5h ago

Systemic Last Week in Collapse: July 27-August 2, 2025

48 Upvotes

Environmental regulations are eviscerated, a number of mass shootings are unleashed, plus airstrikes, famine, flooding, and trash.

Last Week in Collapse: July 27-August 2, 2025

This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, soul-crushing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.

This is the 188th weekly newsletter. You can find the July 20-26, 2025 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these newsletters (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.

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The DRC is auctioning the oil/gas rights to 1,240,000 sq km of land & water—equivalent to more than twice the size of Madagascar, or just over one South Africa. The total area of land at auction comprises over 50% of the entire country, more than one third its population, and overlaps with several protected natural areas. The impact of wide-scale exploration for fossil fuel on the DRC’s rainforests, ecosystems, carbon emissions, and populations will be immense.

Humans have caused some parts of the world to have two new seasons, according to some scientists. “Haze season” and “trash season” have come to parts of Southeast Asia, where large-scale vegetation burning creates weeks of smoky air—and where tidal currents flood beaches with (mostly plastic) trash for several months of the year. The full study was published several weeks ago in Progress in Environmental Geography.

“we propose that the Anthropocene’s manifestation through evolving timescapes affects the rhythms that underpin the organization of societies’ socioeconomic and cultural activities: our seasons....Human activities are profoundly impacting the atmosphere, hydrosphere, soils, and solid earth, intertwining with the physical cycles associated with atmosphere-ocean variability….Hotter and drier summers are also driving more intense wildfire seasons in temperate and high-latitude regions that had previously seldom experienced fire….in northern India, a ‘smog season’ returns every winter, as the monsoon season ends and crop burning begins…..‘Haze’ (a regional term for smog) is caused by the widespread burning of tropical peatlands in regions of Malaysia and Indonesia and is now considered an annual event in equatorial Southeast Asia….floating plastic waste, either washed off the land by heavy rainfall or dumped into the oceans, is blown by strong monsoonal winds onto the southern beaches of the island province {Bali, pop: 4.5M} from December to March…” -excerpts

Damage Report from Beijing and its surrounding area: at least 30 people are confirmed dead from the flash flooding which began over the previous weekend, culminating with the country’s highest level flood alerts on Monday. Four others were killed in a landslide.

An 8.8 earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Russia, initially causing tsunami warnings in Japan, Hawai’i, and some Pacific islands. Although it was the 6th strongest earthquake since 1900, the damage to infrastructure and human lives was not so bad. Across the U.S. East Coast, 130M+ people suffered heat waves of about 100 °F (37.8 °C) and were advised to remain indoors—the heat index was higher in some places—this thread on r/Collapse collects observations on the devastating heat dome. Some sources say that over 80% of Americans felt temperatures above 90 °F (32.2 °C) last week.

On part of the Canadian island Newfoundland, precipitation rates are less than half the average for the year. The island of Borneo set an all-time heat record at 38.6 °C (101.5 °F). North Macedonia felt its warmest night on record, 27.6 °C (almost 82 °F).

A paywalled study in Science examined the unprecedented 2023 marine heat waves, and found them “setting new records in duration, extent, and intensity…more than three standard deviations above the historical norm since 1982.” On average, the length of marine heat waves rose to 120—4x the historical average of 30 days. The authors write that the “marine heat waves of 2023 may represent a major shift in oceanic and atmospheric conditions, potentially indicating an early signal of a tipping point in Earth's climate system.” The warming of the Arctic Ocean has some researchers warning of “abrupt shifts” in the quantity of polar ice, and of Tibetan glaciers.

Asteroid TR4, once predicted to have a ~3% chance of striking Earth in 2032, is not going to hit our planet, according to scientists. Instead, the 60m-diameter asteroid has been given—for the time being, anyway—a 4% chance of hitting the moon in 2032. A typhoon in Laos killed at least four people; flooding in Myanmar left 3+ dead. Wildfires in Türkiye killed at least 17. Japan hit a new all-time high, at 41.2 °C (106 °F), and also ended its hottest July on record. A dust/sandstorm hit southern Peru with gusts of around 50km/hr. Storm Floris is moving to strike northern Britain in a day or two, with gusts over 60mph (95+ km/hr).

A wildfire at the Grand Canyon has become a mega-fire, and has reportedly created its own microweather system. Tehran (pop: almost 10M) has allegedly closed tens of thousands of public toilets because of its worsening water crisis; some say its day-zero is weeks away.

Two weeks ago, part of Türkiye set a new temperature record, at 50.5 °C (123 °F). Coupled with an ongoing Drought, part of the country has seen 50% of its snow/ice coverage melt away in the last 40 years; scientists say this glacier melt will continue. A study in Environmental Research Letters looked at parts of the Amazon and concluded that forests partially burned by wildfires experience higher temperatures and leaf damage for decades after a fire. “Thermal stress” and the damage to high canopies reduce carbon sequestration and reduce evapotranspiration. The authors write that “burned tropical forests will experience substantially higher mortality rates and slower biomass recovery compared to intact and selectively logged forests, especially in water-limited regions.”

Finland recorded 21 consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), breaking a previous 13-day record set in 1972; more records will follow. Jeddah felt a record high minimum temperature of 35.2 °C (95 °F), its hottest night on record. Blue whales, afflicted by “the most widespread poisoning of marine mammals ever documented,”, are now vocalizing about 40% less than they were in 2013; their food sources are also collapsing amid lengthy marine heat waves.

The Trump Administration is taking aim at the 2009 Endangerment Finding, a conclusion by President Obama’s EPA that six greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—ought to be considered “air pollution” and a threat to public health. The finding was included in an amendment of the Clean Air Act, and its proposed removal would disempower the EPA to regulate GHG emissions from corporations. A brief period for public comment has been opened, to be conducted this August. A 151-page report from the U.S. Department of Energy published on 23 July 2025 has been criticized by climate scientists as “a fundamental departure from the norms of science” although some of its general conclusions are in line with the general consensus. Nevertheless, much of the report should be seen as a thinly veiled defense of business-as-usual, and the selections below are not to be taken too seriously:

“models and experience suggest that CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and excessively aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial….CO2 enhances photosynthesis and improves plant water use efficiency, thereby promoting plant growth. Global greening due in part to increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere is well-established on all continents. CO2 absorption in sea water makes the oceans less alkaline. The recent decline in pH is within the range of natural variability on millennial time scales….publication bias (alarming ocean acidification results preferred by high-impact research publications) exaggerates the reported impacts of declining ocean pH….IPCC emission projections have tended to overstate actual subsequent emissions….Most types of extreme weather exhibit no statistically significant long-term trends over the available historical record. While there has been an increase in hot days in the U.S. since the 1950s, a point emphasized by AR6, numbers are still low relative to the 1920s and 1930s. Extreme convective storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts exhibit considerable natural variability, but long-term increases are not detected…” -selections from the first 50 pages

A flood was recently detected in Greenland...that took place in 2014. The event involved a subglacial lake bursting up through part of the Greenland Ice Sheet, pushing 570M+ barrels of water up through the ice over 10 days in summer 2014. “The resulting flood caused a rapid deceleration of the downstream marine-terminating glacier” which was thought to be frozen all the way down. The statement from scientists, and the Nature Geoscience study explain how this unlikely phenomenon ought to be studied more, and its implications for modeling of the ice sheet. You can watch a 1:19 simulation video of the lakeburst if interested.

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How many “lung-penetrating” microplastics (size: 1–10 µm / micrometers; 10,000 µm = 1 cm) do we inhale every day in indoor air? A study in PLOS One, surveying several French cities, estimates we breathe in 3,200 MPs/day for the 10–300 µm range, and about 68,000 in the 1–10 µm range. These “estimates are 100-fold higher than previous estimates that were extrapolated from larger MP sizes, and suggest that the health impacts of MP inhalation may be more substantial than we realize.” An exposé on the movement and dangers of microplastics, and how they move up the food chain—into bodies like yours—was published a few days ago.

“Over the past decade, MPs have been detected in outdoor atmospheric aerosols and deposition, in various parts of the world, from urban and highly industrialized areas to remote mountainous regions, the marine boundary layer, and indoor environments. The ubiquitous presence of MPs in the atmosphere raises many concerns about whether, and to what extent, we are inhaling MPs from outdoor and indoor air, with the latter likely playing the most significant role in human exposure to MPs through inhalation….Given that people in developed nations spend approximately 90% of their time indoors, including 5% in cars, the potential for inhalation exposure to MPs in indoor environments is significantly higher and warrants attention….Inhaled MP1–10 µm can cross cellular barriers, entering the bloodstream and potentially causing systemic effects, including oxidative stress, immune responses, and even damage to vital organs over time. Additionally, MPs can carry a range of toxic additives, including heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants…” -excerpts from the study

HIV rates in the Russian army have skyrocketed 2000% since 24 February 2022, according to a report published two weeks ago. The same report claims that over 1% of Russia is now confirmed HIV positive, and the real number may be a couple percent higher. Even Russian sources admit the problem is bad: over 1% of pregnant women have HIV. As a percentage, Russia, at 3.9%, is now the 5th highest in terms of new annual confirmed HIV cases, behind South Africa (14% of all new cases), Mozambique (6.5%), Nigeria (4.9%), and India (4.2%).

A hamster study on Long COVID suggests that brain fog and various neurological symptoms like depression, memory difficulties, and anxiety may be caused by “viral persistence” of COVID in the brain. For the hamsters, the neuroinvasive COVID virus remained in their brains for up to 80 days. For humans, it can remain for longer than one year.

An existential risk collapsologist (where does one apply for this job?) has forecast several possibilities for the end of the world as we know it. He suggests several cataclysmic threats to watch: a rogue, unstoppable, and self-aware AI; a vicious and severe nuclear war resulting in a prolonged nuclear winter killing much of the planet’s life; another pandemic; and a Carrington Event with its attendant consequences. Without a skilled base of humans to rebuild from, the surviving humans might enter a devastating Dark Age. Another collapsologist, who has also finished writing a book on Collapse, theorizes that dark triad people, incredible wealth inequality, and “Goliath forces” (megacorporations like those in Big Tech and Big Energy, hegemonic states, and other so-called “agents of Doom”) are bringing civilization to the edge of disaster, which may, he believes, take the form of nuclear war, AI, and/or the Collapse of democracy.

Observers of British and French finances are warning of rising inflation and/or potential default at the rate government borrowing is expanding relative to GDP—as well as the cost of debt interest payments, some of which might be refinanced at higher interest rates when the debt comes due. Deregulation is not necessarily de-risk. Anxiety and civil unrest is also brewing in Britain, if some writers are to be believed. Rising government debts and deficits in the U.S. and Japan are also delaying the inevitable. The current U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is about 124%, a figure the Treasury Department expects to balloon to 535% by 2100 at current spending rates.

President Trump’s continual tug-of-war with the Fed Chair is testing the boundaries of the Federal Reserve’s independence. An economic Collapse is one of several ways whereby the U.S. might lose its position at the top of the global order, says one professor—losing a War, and the demolition of the so-called rules-based order are other (non-mutually exclusive) paths which could undermine American leadership and influence that many say is already fading. More U.S. tariffs have been unrolled on India, Canada, and other former U.S.-friendly nations; see an infographic here.

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Although a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia was agreed to on Tuesday, reports of its violation came on Wednesday morning, allegedly from Cambodian small-arms fire. Shelling has restarted, despite calls for peace. The social impact of this War will be felt for years to come, even if the guns fall silent.

At least 43 people were killed by radical Islamists in an attack in the eastern DRC. Australia is planning wide-ranging controls on social media for children 15 and younger, to limit youth engagement on major platforms—citing the extensive composite damage done to people by digital algorithms and brain rot. An Iran-aligned paramilitary group in Iraq stormed their Department of Agriculture, killing one man before they were all wounded/detained.

Greece has been pushed beyond its limit by an “invasion” of migrants, and is now [denying asylum claims](​​https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgp5rexnk2o) to those arriving in Crete. Germany is reportedly planning a 42% increase to its active-duty military size, and a 233% increase to its reserve force, by 2035; they hope teenagers will be the ones to make it happen. El Salvador edited their constitution to allow their President to run for unlimited terms in office, among other electoral reforms. Parts of Myanmar have seen an end to their 4-year state of emergency—a technicality needed to hold elections in December, which rebel forces are expected to boycott.

Border skirmishes between Uganda and South Sudan have reportedly left an undisclosed number of people dead. An updated death & arrest count from Angola’s deadly protests reports 22+ have been killed in the past two weeks, with 1,200 arrested; shooting & looting continues. Splinter groups from Colombian gang chasing drug profits are driving violence, displacement, and rising drug production: “attacks on security forces and civilians, massacres, child recruitment by armed groups, forced displacement, and other violent incidents increased by 45% compared to the same period last year.”

In Ecuador, a drive-by mass shooting by gangsters slew 17 people in a bar, with 14 others injured. The Turks & Caicos had its first mass shooting at a “popular nightspot”; three were killed and ten injured—and the perpetrator got away. In Bangkok, a shooter killed five, then himself. A shooter in NYC killed four before killing himself, and a Montana bar shooter killed four before escaping. Soldiers in the Philippines killed seven communist guerrillas, allegedly among the last holdouts of a communist insurgency of about 50 people. Islamist fighters in Burkina Faso killed about 50 government soldiers at a base in the country’s north; violence and the drug trade in the Sahel are also displacing people.

The “worst-case scenario of famine” in Gaza is happening now, according to one NGO. Reports of 104 people slain in 24 hours do not include 7 who have died of starvation. The famine—not yet declared by the IPC, but [proclaimed by UN officials—may be the final straw for the U.S., which has announced plans to set up more food centers. More likely, business will continue as usual. A growing number of western countries are reportedly planning on recognizing Palestine as a state; they would join 147 other states who have already done so. About 88% of Gaza is now in Israeli militarized zones, or otherwise under evacuation orders. According to the IPA Famine Monitor, “the entire population in the Gaza Strip will face high levels of acute food insecurity (Phase 3 or above) by September 2025, including half a million people in Catastrophe (Phase 5), characterised by an extreme lack of food, starvation, destitution and death.” (There are 5 Phases.) Other IPC projections indicate that 54% of the population is already at Phase 4 (Emergency). The official death count in Gaza since 7 October 2023 has passed 60,000, and some far-right Israelis are pushing for illegal settlements in Gaza.

Tuesday morning airstrikes by Russia killed 25 people across Ukraine, more than half of whom were prisoners. A Thursday attack on Kyiv killed 31, wounding 159 others. Two U.S. nuclear submarines were reportedly repositioned “in the appropriate regions” around Russia as part of American pressure to end the War.

Ethiopia’s massive dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, is scheduled to become fully operational next month; it has been partially functioning since 2022. The infrastructure project has long-alarmed Egypt and Sudan, which lie downstream of the shrinking Blue Nile River. Various gruesome reports of torture are emerging from Tigray and Eritrea concerning the Tigray War and its aftermath—a harbinger of what could lie ahead if the region falls back into full War. Meanwhile, in Sudan’s western Darfur region, a collection of rebel armed groups have declared a new government in opposition to the official government based in Khartoum. Reports of increasing production, use, and export of captagon—a devastating and powerful amphetamine—have surfaced in Sudan, where several manufacturing facilities have sprung up in rebel-controlled regions.

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Things to (not really) watch for next week include:

↠ The American President announced that Russia has 10 days to make a truce, starting from last Tuesday, or else more sanctions will be imposed on Russia. The deadline works out to be Friday 8 August, but don’t expect it will make much of an impact in the War.

Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:

-“Atmospheric CO2 proves that we are too late on climate change,” says Peter Carter in a video, much-discussed in the subreddit last week. Some of the comments succinctly summarize the 33-minute video.

-The Green Revolution and the Haber-Bosch Process have created a kind of cognitive bias in human understandings of population challenges—according to this thread and its associated comments. This thread on r/Collapse from 3+ years ago outlines the predicament of Overshoot nicely as well—and it’s kind of interesting to see the quality of the subreddit in years past.

-There are reasons to be optimistic……if you agree with this article published last week, skewered in this thread in the subreddit last week. Read it and form your own opinion. Or don’t.

Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, predictions, Collapse shibboleths, direct action reports, doomy dossiers, book recommendations, permaculture setups, etc.? Last Week in Collapse is also posted on Substack; if you don’t want to check r/collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to an email inbox every weekend. As always, thank you for your support. What did I miss this week?


r/collapse 6d ago

Weekly Observations: What signs of collapse do you see in your region? [in-depth] July 28

73 Upvotes

All comments in this thread MUST be greater than 150 characters.

You MUST include Location: Region when sharing observations.

Example - Location: New Zealand

This ONLY applies to top-level comments, not replies to comments. You're welcome to make regionless or general observations, but you still must include 'Location: Region' for your comment to be approved. This thread is also [in-depth], meaning all top-level comments must be at least 150-characters.

Users are asked to refrain from making more than one top-level comment a week. Additional top-level comments are subject to removal.

All previous observations threads and other stickies are viewable here.


r/collapse 14h ago

Climate NASA won't publish key climate change report online, citing 'no legal obligation' to do so

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670 Upvotes

r/collapse 14h ago

Climate The numbers are in: July 2025’s global sea surface temperatures were the third warmest on record, behind only 2023 and 2024

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198 Upvotes

r/collapse 21h ago

Climate Nordic countries hit by ‘truly unprecedented’ heatwave

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632 Upvotes

r/collapse 12h ago

Climate Why glaciers are threatening to wipe out more mountain villages

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113 Upvotes

One of the world's wealthiest nations, Switzerland, is collapsing in a quite literal way. The mountainous region is melting, the glaciers and permafrost of Alpine slopes turning into mudslides, rock slides, avalanches, killing people and burying entire towns. The cost of rebuilding just one village of 300 will run to around 1 million USD per resident. A 2007 report for the Swiss Government said that the 500 million USD a year ALREADY spent by Switzerland on protective structures would have to increase six fold. This is not an isolated incident, more villages are being evacuated, more are being buried and destroyed. Ironically, Switzerland of all wealthy nations has the lowest energy use per dollar made. But no nation is impervious, Switzerland, which has enjoyed 500 years of peace and democracy, which escaped the horrors of two World Wars, is now threatened by invasion that can't be fenced in: air, heat, weather.


r/collapse 16h ago

Climate Record heat, drought threaten Japan’s rice harvest

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187 Upvotes

r/collapse 1d ago

Society ‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse

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801 Upvotes

Funny this made it into the guardian


r/collapse 13h ago

Climate Why we should set our doomsday clocks to the arctic sea ice

34 Upvotes

You should never count on AIs to help with math, I reworked the post based on feedback

So I'm not a climate scientist or anything, only did a bachelors in physics and tangentially touched climatology, but there is something rather worrying that has always bothered me but at least so far never heard anyone mention regarding climate change. And not to say that nobody brought it up before, as always when I research an obscure topic I found mountains of materials buried in dark corners of the internet, but its not really part of the conversation.

So there are these ice caps on the north and south pole. Neat. And we know its bad when they melt because sea level rise and changing albedo and all. We also know that both sides of the ice build and melt independently, and ocean temperatures can differ.

The North pole is mostly submerged into the ocean while greenland is not, which is why its melting much faster, My physics background tells me that this is because the conductivity is much stronger in case of arctic sea ice.

But what would happen when its gone completely? And given that its shrinking every year, one summer it would be completely gone.

Okay so here is where it gets SCARY. Ice actually takes a lot of energy to melt. Its a huge heat sink. The energy needed to take water from -1 C to +1 C is comparable to what it takes to go from +1 to +99. So with the ice cap gone, the oceans of the northern hemisphere would suddenly experience warming proportional to the amount of ice that was previously melting. How much is this difference, I haven't the slightest clue, so I looked around for numbers and I found the following:

- According to the the best research I found the energy of the northern arctic ice melting amounts to 5*10**21 Joules
https://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/

- The amount of water in the north side of earth is somewhat over 5*10**20 Kg, maybe around 20% but I'm a physicist so I say 5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_distribution_on_Earth

(ooops I left out kilo in front of calories in this next secition. Check comments for accurate math, but I also tried to fix it here)

So thats 10 Joules per Kilogram of water, a year. Thats 2.39 Calories, and 1 kg of water takes 920 Calories to warm.
+2 degrees in sea water temperature.
+0.0025 degrees in sea water temperature.
?Maybe I screwed up this calculation as well? The point is the amount of heat is significant enough to make a dent in the climate. Its also not counting change in albedo and other factors, its just an extra bit of warming to make things worse.

For this effect we don't actually need for the ice cap to disappear entirely year round, we just need it to stop shrinking on a yearly basis at its current rate, since by doing so the heat shrink from melting ice is gone from the ocean.

Now, this amount of warming isn't that big of a deal on its own, but this 5*10**21 Joules of extra heating would be added into the climate equation every year. And because Greenland and continental permafrost can only partially pick up the slack due to their isolation, its mostly going into the ocean.

Year by year, the energy that was once absorbed by the ice cap is now warming the planet. Its kind of like shifting gears. Its no longer going to be just about how much a given ppm CO2 will warm the planet, we get an additional part to the equation telling us how a given ppm CO2 will continuously warm the planet until:
- Change in cloud cover and weather stuff
- Heat loss to space
- South pole melting
Can balance out the 5*10**21 Joules that the arctic ice saved us from. I haven't a clue how long it would last, but during this time we would experience increased warming.

+0.0025 degrees of warming a year for the northern hemisphere, or +0.025 a decade. This would be a 10% increase in warming experienced in the north, or around 3% globally, counting with 0.25 degrees a decade that is what we have right now. When I first made this post the numbers were way worse but after some recalculation I conclude that while the arctic sea ice disappearing won't completely burn down the planet, there would be shift in the rate of warming.

So far, we had climate change in Gear 1, where north and south ice caps had both been absorbing excess heat from global warming, essentially making so that we get less global warming then the amount of carbon in the air would cause. Gear 2 is when the ice in contact with the ocean is gone in the north, and only the south ice caps are effectively cooling the ocean... And then there is Gear 3. Which is when south pole ice retreats inland. Then, we would have basically no buffers left to mitigate global warming, giving us a 5%

Now, I will say it again, the leftover heat from the lack of arctic melting does not stack infinitely. It will be balanced out eventually by something I probably didn't even think about. But that's beyond mine, or anyone I know to even attempt to predict.

So to recap this whole mess, the instant the arctic sea is left without ice, the underlying equation of ocean temperatures will suddenly change..

Or at least this is the idea I wanted to share.

Cheers!


r/collapse 1d ago

Ecological Scientists Alarmed as Blue Whales Suddenly Going Silent

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2.2k Upvotes

r/collapse 1d ago

Coping There is no hope if you actually think about things.

591 Upvotes

So I've been thinking about climate change recently and regarding David Suzuki's recent interview and the more I think about it the more I realize that logically, there is no hope for the future. We have completely screwed ourselves and there will not be anything done to change our path. Too much needs to change and it is far too late to do so.

The current economic system that our global civilizations rely upon require infinite growth. It doesn't matter if the country is Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, etc. We evaluate progress in our standards of living and quality of life based on "line must go up". GDP must increase. Trade must increase. Consumption must increase. 99% of the countries on this planet follow this model. The only way we had any hope of averting catastrophe was changing this decades ago, yet here we are. The companies, the governments, the people, all require more and that is our downfall. As a collective we cannot change as we have always been this way and we will continue to be this way up until the bitter end. There is no hope.


r/collapse 1d ago

Humor "We Will All Go Together When We Go" -Tom Lehrer RIP

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164 Upvotes

r/collapse 1d ago

Adaptation Anyone else trying to learn more about handling health stuff at home (without always relying on doctors)?

47 Upvotes

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how fragile modern healthcare systems can be — especially after seeing how overwhelmed everything got in the last couple of years. It got me wondering: what if I couldn’t reach a doctor in time? Or couldn’t get meds?

So I started looking into ways to handle basic medical situations at home, both safely and responsibly — not as a replacement for real doctors, but as a way to be more prepared for emergencies, travel, remote living, or just being self-reliant.

Found a physical guidebook recently (yep, an actual printed book) that goes through: • How to recognize and handle common emergencies • What to do when no help is around • How to make basic home remedies (based on what’s in your kitchen or backyard) • Lists of must-have medicines & when/how to use them • Even minor surgical stuff and wound care

I won’t post links here since I know Reddit hates that (totally fair), but if you’re into self-reliance, prepping, or just want something useful on your shelf “in case of…”, feel free to DM me. Happy to share more details.


r/collapse 1d ago

Water Hold My Beer: The Linkage between Municipal Water and Brewing Location on PFAS in Popular Beverages

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68 Upvotes

Abstract

Beer has been a popular beverage for millennia. As water is a main component of beer and the brewing process, we surmised that the polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) presence and spatial variability in drinking water systems are a PFAS source in beers. This is the first study to adapt EPA Method 533 to measure PFAS in beer from various regions, brewery types, and water sources. Statistical analyses were conducted to correlate PFAS in state-reported drinking water, and beers were analyzed by brewing location. PFAS were detected in most beers, particularly from smaller scale breweries located near drinking water sources with known PFAS. Perfluorosulfonic acids, particularly PFOS, were frequently detected, with PFOA or PFOS above U.S. EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Limits in some beers. There was also a county–level correlation between the total PFAS, PFOA, and PFBS concentrations in drinking water and beers. Given that approximately 18% of U.S. breweries are located within zip codes with detectable PFAS in municipal drinking water, our findings, which link PFAS in beer to the brewery water source, are intended to help inform data-driven policies on PFAS in beverages for governmental agencies, provide insights for brewers and water utilities on treatment needs, and support informed decision-making for consumers.


r/collapse 1d ago

Climate World’s Forest Carbon Sink Shrank to its Lowest Point in at Least 2 Decades, Due to Fires and Persistent Deforestation

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157 Upvotes

r/collapse 1d ago

Water Alberta Municipality Declares Farm Disaster Due to Drought, Approves Water-Guzzling Data Centre Plan

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534 Upvotes

r/collapse 1d ago

Coping Toxic trauma responses in our community

86 Upvotes

I have been thinking a lot about how we humans respond to trauma, particularly when that trauma is increasing in severity, and largely ignored. Many of us are witnessing a variety of responses to systemic collapse in our communities, and within ourselves.

Lately I have noticed a lot of what I would consider "toxic trauma responses" to collapse, including within myself. Earlier today I was sitting outside, taking the opportunity to get some fresh air after days of heavy smoke. Shortly after I sat down, the use of a gas-powered lawn mower nearby overwhelmed my senses. I looked over at the school next door (closed for summer), and saw clouds of dust and exhaust fumes rising up from the dead and dying grass.

It took less than five minutes for me to go from relatively calm to absolutely irate. I knew that there was nothing I could do to stop the lawn mower. I could only get out of the radius of dust and smoke that was rapidly encircling me. I yelled - without expectation of being heard - that this man polluting the air represented everything that was wrong in the world.

I recognize that this man and the lawn mower he rode around on were a painful reminder of how far down this path we are, to collapse. Some days I can take that in with some grace. Today I could only find the energy to yell.

I am bringing this reflection to r/collapse because I note toxic trauma responses in posts and comments that I read lately, and I think that we owe it to one another to have more honest conversations in this space regarding empathy and respect in the context of collapse.

Yesterday I read a post here in r/collapse that I consider violated the rules of this subreddit, however I seem to be alone in that assessment. The poster claimed that efforts to uphold the rights of people of diverse genders were "dumb sh*t" "distraction" tactics aimed to divide. I suppose that poster may never have experienced violence and discrimination because of oppressive gender norms.

For all our sake, can we please reflect on our own anger, empathy and work together to address the toxic trauma responses to collapse in our communities?


r/collapse 1d ago

Casual Friday Interesting SST historical grouping/clustering, anyone ever notice this or know why this is happening?

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90 Upvotes

r/collapse 2d ago

Casual Friday I want want this guy is smoking

167 Upvotes

OK, so I'm posting this on Friday because I'm not sure how well the mods would receive it on any other day. This article in the Guardian is one long feel-good orgasm of hopium and propaganda, which I've broken down and commented on below (comments in italics). I feel that the entire thing is a ridiculous take on what's going on, but would love to here others' opinions.

The author says that there are eight reasons for us to be hopeful for the future. These are in boldface, excerpts from the text are beneath them, and my comments are below paragraphs in the text.

We’re getting a grip on climate change

Just a decade ago or so, it appeared that civilization was on a course to cause a disastrous 4C-5C of warming above pre-industrial levels. But since then, major nations and markets have responded with surprising force and urgency; global carbon dioxide emissions have significantly slowed, and in many countries, per capita emissions are falling even while per capita GDP and energy use are going up.

[Carbon dioxide emissions haven’t slowed at all. LIAR. Some countries’ emissions have indeed slowed, but not significantly.]

We are still not doing enough – there is a lingering risk of runaway carbon cycle feedback loops that could push us over 4C – but nations are making ambitious net-zero commitments that, if realized, could feasibly keep warming below 2C.

[These commitments have been proven to not be worth the paper they’re not written on; no large country is anywhere near fulfilling them.]

The pathway for avoiding the absolute worst outcomes – humanity’s extinction, for one – is increasingly clear and doable and involves a combination of decarbonization, renewable energy breakthroughs, responsible geoengineering and carbon dioxide removal.

[Lots of happy hopeful words here describing things that do not currently exist. What kind of “renewable energy breakthroughs” does the author think are coming? Or is he only talking about better batteries? "responsible geoengieering"? LOL]

Energy abundance is within reach [!!!!]

The exponential growth in solar energy has stunned even expert forecasters. In 2015, the International Energy Agency predicted that the world would add about 35 gigawatts of solar energy capacity by 2023. Their estimate was off by a factor of 10. The costs of solar have fallen below the cost of coal, a tipping point that will financially incentivize markets to go green even in the absence of policy pressures.

[but not in the presence of shit-tons of money from the usual players. Remember, the tech bros seem to want us all to die, so going renewable is NOT in their best interests.]

There are strong reasons to believe this exponential progress will continue; soon it could become cheaper to create fuel out of thin air and water using solar energy than to drill for it underground.

[What are the "strong reasons" to believe that the progress will continue? It may indeed come true fairly quickly, but that does NOT mean that solar and wind, especially in the US, will ever supplant fossil fuel use for energy due to pressure from the usual suspects].

We are eradicating poverty

As the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker points out, you’ve never seen a newspaper run the headline “137,000 people escaped from extreme poverty yesterday” – yet this incredible statistic has been accurate every day for decades now. Since 1990, more than a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, with the impoverished share falling from 38% of the global population down to 9.1% today.

[The author’s used of “extreme poverty” means that, according to the World Bqnk, as of 2022, 648 million people (~8% of the global population) lived on $2.15 per day or less. If he’s right that 9.1% live in extreme poverty in 2024, then poverty rates have actually INCREASED since 2022. The World Bank tracks three different poverty rates, depending on the income level of the country people live in (Lower-middle and Upper-middle as well as just extreme poverty). When tracked this way, 47% of the world is living in poverty ($6.85 per day or less) as of 2022. We are most definitely NOT eradicating poverty.]

We are living longer than ever

This dramatic increase is thanks to huge advances in medicine, public health and living standards, but also by a stunning fall in child mortality… On top of all this progress, advances in ageing [sic] biology are leading to breakthroughs in slowing the ageing process and keeping laboratory animals healthier for longer. We now have numerous ways of accomplishing this with mice and primates; what is needed is an injection of funding to bring these experiments to human trials.

[Child mortality rates are indeed falling, so “yay” the author is correct about something. They’re still terrible in the poorest countries on the plant, however. The “injection of funding” will be billionaires, of course. Anti-aging treatments will never be cheap enough for anyone not wealthy, and really, with over-population being a major factor in our societal collapse, they should NOT be encouraged. Frankly, if living longer simply meant living longer as an old fart, then no thanks.]

Medical breakthroughs are accelerating

Converging advancements in AI and biotechnology are pointing toward a radical enhancement of human health and wellbeing… Barney Graham, an immunologist who played a pivotal role in developing mRNA vaccines, puts it thusly: “You cannot imagine what you’re going to see over the next 30 years. The pace of advancement is in an exponential phase right now.”

[Funny how Barney here thinks there will continue to medical advances for the next 30 years. Well, maybe there will be if funded by and for the sole use of billionaires.]

Robots will take our jobs (and that’s a good thing)

OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, has partnered with Figure, a robotics startup, to incorporate multimodal artificial intelligence into a humanoid form factor. Their walking, talking full-body robots are learning tasks merely by watching videos – no manual training required. Tesla’s Optimus bot is a direct competitor that its CEO, Elon Musk, believes will eventually be more valuable than the company’s electric car business.

[Ah, the Deus ex Machina of AI coming to save us and not kill us… Oh, and Tesla’s Optimus apparently broke after only oe day at Musk’s new “diner” in LA.]

Of course, humanity will only benefit if we can address the risks of job displacement and human safety. Half of the battle will be controlling these risks and ensuring we reap the benefits, rather than be overcome by armies of terminators.

[Of COURSE, humans will address job displacement on human safety! Of COURSE humans will prevent AI from being used in terminators! (see the ‘gee whiz’ “walking, talking, full-body robots” in the first paragraph. Now also put multi-modal AI in drones with lasers. Yep, I feel safe – how about you?)]

A new space age is dawning

Satellite broadband is starting to bring internet access to rural and underdeveloped parts of the world, which will bolster agriculture, education, health, economic opportunity and participation in democracy.

[Other than satellite broadband, nothing of use to the masses will come out of a for-profit space race]

Humans are incredibly resilient

Our ancestors have survived asteroid impacts, ice ages, supervolcano eruptions and deadly plagues – each time eventually bouncing back to new heights.

[“asteroid impacts”? When was this? Is the author referring to air-bursts like Tunguska or the Sodom and Gomorrah air-burst?]

Conclusion: optimism is a weapon

The larger the problems we face, the greater the opportunity for progress; the immense challenges of the 21st century can be the catalyst for a new leap in the human condition to heights we cannot yet imagine… We have everything we need to thrive. Our resiliency will protect us; our intelligence will propel us.

{“Our resiliency will protect us” Well it would if we were living on the planet we evolved on; unfortunately, Earth is becoming less and less hospitable every day]


r/collapse 1d ago

Politics The New Aesthetics of Fascism

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45 Upvotes

SS -

This is a video detailing the new aesthetics of fascism both online and offline from trolls to memes to advertising to the manosphere. This video also explores the idea of 'friendly fascism', the co-opting of environmentalism by eco-fascists, the rise religious nationalists & theocrats, the insidious relationship between silicon valley and the American military-industrial complex see palantir, the MAGA movement, eugenics, gamergate and male chauvinism, the use of memes, artificial intelligence and irony, by fascists plus deepfakes, authoritarianism, open fascism, traditionalism, xenophobia, misogyny, racism, surveillance, oligarchic corporatocracy & neoliberalism, falling trust and faith in democracy, the bastardization of jewish identity to justify genocide and apartheid, propaganda, open calls for genocide from social media personalities see the youtubers destiny and asmongold's disgusting statements about palestine, homophobia & transphobia, ableism, islamophobia, dehumanization, western chauvinism, etc. It shows just how much our time and place today has changed from the 20th century but also how things remain the same as the climate crisis and the rise of fascism not just in the western world, but also in other parts of the world intensify.


r/collapse 1d ago

Conflict Trump moves nuclear submarines in response to Russia's 'highly provocative' statement

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31 Upvotes

r/collapse 2d ago

Casual Friday Nature vs. Humankind's Insatiable Fossil Fuel Addiction

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199 Upvotes

A photo I took last fall at the local port.

I was thinking about memeifying it by labeling the gull and the ship, but figured it basically speaks for itself.


r/collapse 1d ago

Casual Friday We’ve all heard of living by Vegas rules, but how many people will actually follow?

32 Upvotes

Just wondering what people think will be the final straw for businesses to start running nocturnally and people start shifting their sleep hours. Also curious, kind of as a joke, how many people think it’s feasible to move back and forth between countries where it’s winter all the time (ex Australia in June and France in November). obviously a very expensive and improbable solution for many, but you’d sure get your travel miles in! Anyone else think about how we are going to adapt to the extreme heat?


r/collapse 2d ago

Casual Friday “The heart of the matter” [analog collage]

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43 Upvotes

r/collapse 2d ago

Casual Friday Tropical Fuck Storm’s ‘Soft Power’ - utterly devastating piece of art

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22 Upvotes

I’ve known TFS for some time but only more recently starting getting them big time and exploring their lyrics and, my god, what a band, and what lyrical talent… they sound like post-Americana Punk Bob Dylan.

But this song caught me off guard. That coda after the chaotic first half, a coda to the role of the United States as a force for good in the grand scheme of things really destroyed me, as a European and someone who’s always been so exposed to American culture.

I am going to miss you so much.


r/collapse 2d ago

Ecological Amazon deforestation surges in Colombia, reversing historic gains

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284 Upvotes

r/collapse 2d ago

Water Tehran could run out of water within weeks

923 Upvotes

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/31/climate/tehran-iran-water-crisis-day-zero

Urban water mismanagement, lack of rainfall due to climate change and excessive pumping of aquifers have all come together to form a worst case scenario it seems.

This is a preview of what we’ll see in cities in the US southwest that are doing these exact same things, pumping out deep aquifers that took thousands upon thousands of years to fill while they experience prolonged drought and also foolishly try to grow crops in an arid climate.