18 Comments

1. 

   Rain on February 18, 2023 at 12:37 pm

   Another set of reports reinforcing my long-held view that climate science models in use for 20+ years, still have too much uncertainty in the maths.

   With economic systems, I have been reading about “imminent” collapse since around 2015. More recently deep-diving into analytics, theory and modelling, but I still think the financial system will limp along in glacially slow decline for several more years yet. Some countries will go through the inevitable decline in the energy-driven economic system much faster than others, but the “global” economy will remain for some time yet. Some say they were surprised the global economy proved so resilient during the COVID years, but I never was, because govts just borrowed more

   I’m not as sure about the decline in the biosphere though. So much is uncertain and ambiguous and even contradictory.

   In Australia, the cost of the massive flooding from 2020-2022 is still being calculated in human economic terms, but already some signs of silver-linings for Nature have started to emerge.

   Large chunks of the plains surrounding the Murray-Darling river basin have turned into wetlands. Much of these once highly productive farmlands are still flooded and are expected to remain so for at least another 3-5 years.

   Obviously really bad for the thousands of farmers who worked the agricultural plains now under water and now useless for anything to make an income from for many years at least. Even so some farmers saying, that in 3-5 years or so, when they eventually dry out it will leave behind super-rich silt to replenish the lands top-soils. Meanwhile, however, sooo many of these folk have gone bankrupt.

   In the meantime these wide swathes of “new” wetlands have burst into massive wild birdlife, in numbers never seen before, frogs, reptiles, fish etc long thought endangered or extinct have returned. Along with changing native plant varieties. My own local city have started a project of ‘Find-a-Frog’ through the schools, asking kids to collect photos of the huge increase in suburban frogs. I have even found huge lizards in my backyard I haven’t seen in decades in the remote areas of my youth, or only in National Parks, here in the city suburbs. Along with sea-birds, a long way inland and 3,000 feet above sea-level, and my local parkland ponds with its usual common ducks found everwhere, also now has seagulls and pelicans.

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     zip on February 18, 2023 at 4:32 pm

     That is a beautiful observation, a ‘ silver lining’ where nature comes to claim her rights. Let’s hope so. I also see it here on my plateau in the averaging of wet and dry years.

     It is true that nature is very resilient and quickly creates a new order when the opportunities are there.

     I worked for months in Sydney and especially the Outback in the Northern Territories in the Gibson desert. That was in the late 1980s.

     The time when Aborigines and their songlines were in the picture worldwide.
     Spent months with them and learned from them how to ‘read the land’. Coincidentally we experienced that the desert came alive and exploded for a short time with among others the desert rainbowfish….
     Very special to experience.

     In the link a summary of the documentary we made at that time.

     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4851696/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl

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       Rain on February 18, 2023 at 11:09 pm

       @zip “..Coincidentally we experienced that the desert came alive and exploded for a short time with among others the desert rainbowfish….
       Very special to experience..”

       WOW Zip *hugs* That is a classic film and poem – occasionally played on our NITV (National Indigenous Television) network. It is spectacular to see the central deserts bloom after a heavy rain year. I travelled around there in my youth, in the late 70s. It used to be rare to see the dry lakes fill, every 10-15 years maybe. Now, its been more common but the droughts in-between have also been more severe too.

       Australian Indigenous peoples have been on a very long road, and are getting a lot of attention again this year, as there will be a national referendum later this year to change the Constitution to enshrine recognition of the First Australians with a Voice to Parliament. I hope it passes, but it is very difficult to amend the Constitution, needs a 2/3 majority of the popular vote overall, and a 2/3 majority of the original 6 Colony States (ie 4 out of 6 States need to obtain 50+% of their popular vote as well as overall vote).

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     Cassandra on February 18, 2023 at 7:19 pm

     Rain – I appreciate hearing about the situation in the Murray-Darling river basin. There is nothing like reporting from people about where they live. Interesting about the silver lining. I believe it will be short-lived though as the whole planet moves ever faster toward temperatures incompatible with life as we know it. In the meantime, I feel bad for the farmers and am glad for the wildlife.

   • 

     Panopticon on February 18, 2023 at 8:15 pm

     “Some say they were surprised the global economy proved so resilient during the COVID years, but I never was, because govts just borrowed more.”

     It wasn’t clear to me at the time how much more debt they could take on, with rates having been at rock bottom levels for so long, and the enforced, piecemeal economic contractions of the lockdowns were really uncharted waters. Some were huge in historic terms. A deflationary collapse seemed very possible to me…

     And, if we managed to avoid that, a subsequent burst of inflation and a rise in the cost of borrowing looked inevitable – not good for a global economy that was already struggling to grow under energy-constraints before the pandemic even started. That is where we are now, with the major central banks, especially BoE, BoJ and ECB out of good options, and the British pension crisis hinting at major vulnerabilities lurking in the shadow banking system.

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       Rain on February 18, 2023 at 11:43 pm

       “It wasn’t clear to me at the time how much more debt they could take on, with rates having been at rock bottom levels for so long, and the enforced, piecemeal economic contractions of the lockdowns were really uncharted waters….And, if we managed to avoid that, a subsequent burst of inflation and a rise in the cost of borrowing looked inevitable – not good for a global economy that was already struggling to grow.”

       Yes indeed, all those debt bubbles floating around for a long time now, and continuing to grow but at a slower rate. The CoVID lockdowns just enforced a 2-year time delay and allowed some restructuring, for the wealthiest countries like the US which can continue to export *something*.

       For government borrowing, in contrast to the private sector debt, the ‘balance of payments’ of imports/exports is more important than the level of debt. It depends on their fiscal policies, not financial.

       Like the emerging economies of the poorest nations – in the west – countries like the UK, (which have SFA to sell/export to anyone else), are in the worst position – because governments can’t borrow without resource collateral (ie exporting products/services). While there is argument about how much the US is/was involved in engineering the de-industrialisation of the European manufacturing base – for whatever reason – France, Germany etc etc are also becoming unable to sell/export much either.

       That’s why I think the ‘global’ economy – averaged out as it is over so many nations — will limp along for a decade or more – private sector and household debt bubbles will cause a great deal of pain for large percentages of the population in the west, although delayed beyond the developing nations (which are falling now) – but the govts of the countries that can keep up exporting *stuff* will be able to carry that debt for much longer.

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         Panopticon on February 19, 2023 at 9:02 am

         “That’s why I think the ‘global’ economy – averaged out as it is over so many nations — will limp along for a decade or more.”

         You may be right but that is a bold prognosis.

         Re exports, global trade contracted 0.1% in 2019, prior to the pandemic, and is forecast to pretty much flatline in 2023 as pent up demand eases. And, although it can be helpful to look at the global economy in the aggregate, some bits of it are more critical than others; problems in one part of the financial system have the potential to overwhelm it in its entirety – certainly if they emanate from those major, fiscally challenged nations you mention.

         Again, the British pension crisis looks to me like just a small foretaste of the sort of turbulence we can expect in government borrowing markets.

         Meanwhile, in addition to the tightening noose of energy constraints, the global economy is going to have to contend with a ratcheting up of climate change and environmental problems, continued if not worsening geopolitical friction (and its bedfellows interventionism and protectionism) and demographic challenges. I can well imagine a black swan emerging from that brew.

         It’s also worth bearing in mind that in general terms there is an unpredictable, psychological component to the lending system. It relies on a certain amount of good faith and confidence in the future. 2008 demonstrated that it has the potential to be paralysed, in effect, by fear. That fear was eased by massive central bank interventions that we are no longer in a position to replicate.

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           Rain on February 19, 2023 at 10:30 am

           I hear you, Panopticon, but I just can’t see it happening so rapidly, like a Seneca cliff everywhere at once. Not when I see Sydney spending billions putting on a massive 2-week street festival for “World Pride”LOL .

           An aggregate contraction in trade, still hides a number of regions/countries under the radar, there is enough resilience especially in the US, to accommodate aggregate contractions for quite some time yet. I see very little concern about the US ‘debt crisis’, govts just refinance, restructure, renegotiate and extend terms etc if they are countries like the US. Poor countries can’t do it, of course.

           Although Not without enormous pain for millions of people, as govts are forced to cut public spending to pay some of their own debt, and the CBs print money to bail out what they define as “essential”, while forcing other “inessential” sectors into bankruptcy.

           In short, I see the financial system collapse coming, but not that soon or suddenly.

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           Panopticon on February 19, 2023 at 10:45 am

           I think we have become so normalised to central bank interventions and debt-accrual on a mind-boggling scale that like frogs in the boiling pot we fail to see how dangerous our predicament is, Rain.

           I am still swayed by David Korowicz’s “Trade Off” paper, which posits that international supply-chains could fail in a matter of weeks if the ability of central banks to respond to another debt-crisis is overwhelmed. And I see the central banks’ pandemic interventions as a last major hurrah, leaving them out of ammo and caught between trying to cool off inflation and prevent economies/currencies from cratering.

           Now, whether a financial coronary is what actually puts paid to the global economic superorganism and on what timescale we cannot know but nor can we dismiss the possibility that one occurs apparently out of the blue in the near term.

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           Rain on February 20, 2023 at 1:25 am

           “I am still swayed by David Korowicz’s “Trade Off” paper, which posits that international supply-chains could fail in a matter of weeks if the ability of central banks to respond to another debt-crisis is overwhelmed.”
           Yes, you sent it to me some months ago 🙂 I’m still not swayed, partly because that excellent paper is getting dated now, and included a lot of assumptions based heavily on Europe-US supply-chain activity, and delineating events that had to combine time-wise into a ‘perfect storm’ – and while possible, is it probable?

           I saw a youtube video recently on international supply-chains for making jeans – but I couldn’t stop thinking of mountains of thrown-away jeans sitting around polluting the planet.

           But probably most likely because I do live in a relatively small and ‘lucky country’, LOL. A kind of attitude of, ‘we’ll be all right mate, who cares about the rest of you?’ j/k

           Methinx the CBs and related govts do still have one more tool, one more card to play – a ‘war economy’ even just a type of faux war-footing at home – increasing restrictions and rationing, heavily stage-managed economic contractions @ Home & Away. You Brits in particular, should have experience of that, memories of coupons and queues built into your national cultural psyche? j/k

           My English born mother, turned 21 in 1939 and immediately joined up in the WAAFs. A coal-mining village girl – one of 9 kids born, 6 surviving to adulthood, and all 6 joining up in late 1939 — a Derbyshire village where for generations the boys went down the coal pits at 12-13, and girls went into ‘service’ at 13-14. She thought a fancy uniform, a free winter coat? a decent wage, and getting enough to eat was heaps better than being an upstairs/downstairs maid. And nobody really thought a war would break out, after – was it Lloyd George?? – waving that infamous piece of paper – but she was then stunned by how quickly everything turned around in days/weeks – she said ‘they must have been secretly preparing for a long time’.

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           Panopticon on February 20, 2023 at 12:30 pm

           “I’m still not swayed, partly because that excellent paper is getting dated now, and included a lot of assumptions based heavily on Europe-US supply-chain activity, and delineating events that had to combine time-wise into a ‘perfect storm’ – and while possible, is it probable?”

           I’ll post a link, so that readers can make up their own minds about the relevance of David Korowicz’s paper ten years on:

           https://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Trade_Off_Korowicz.pdf

2. 

   zip on February 18, 2023 at 4:12 pm

   Hello Panopticon
   Another extremely hot winter day today! The drought here seems to continue until at least Thursday.

   Thanks for your link from NG.

   Whether yet another ‘conference’ this spring is going to make a difference I wish to doubt. Indeed what you don’t see like groundwater basins, you pay little attention to. The underground resources and especially the ‘nappe phreatique’ are in lousy shape in France.

   This autumn, by the way, there were huge protests against the construction of megabasins in western France. Tens of thousands of protesters and 1,500 agnets clashed with each other with at least 61 officers injured. It was a veritable battle.

   The “Bassines Non Merci” collective, which brings together environmental associations, trade unions and anti-capitalist groups that oppose this “theft of water” for “agro-industry”. The basins are open-air craters, covered with a huge plastic tarpaulin, which pump water from groundwater in winter to store up to 650,000 m3 (260 Olympic swimming pools). In summer during drought, that water is released for irrigation for the agricultural industry.

   That this threatens the groundwater level and the nappes phreatiques, especially during recurring dry periods, is seen as less ‘important’ under the motto that it will not be that bad.

   Such projects are increasingly common in France, but tensions between the farming world and environmentalists are crystallising in the Deux-Sèvres, France’s second-largest wetland. A project to build 16 basins has been launched in the south of this department.

   Environmental associations believe these reservoirs constitute a “monopolisation” of water and denounce the ecological consequences of these mega-structures that capture groundwater resources.
   Opponents of the basins argue that other levers should be developed first: agroecology, change of crops, return to grassland, before possibly creating smaller water resources.

   https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/energie-environnement/retenues-d-eau-pour-l-agriculture-dans-les-deux-sevres-des-milliers-de-manifestants-attendus-contre-les-bassines-938807.html

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     Cassandra on February 18, 2023 at 7:22 pm

     Wow, Zip, I was unaware of these megabasin projects in France. Like I said to Rain above, I so appreciate reporting from fellow readers on their situation locally! Glad to hear of the opposition though we know so often it is just rolled over and crushed and the bulldozers of civilization carry on.

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     Panopticon on February 18, 2023 at 7:50 pm

     “Another extremely hot winter day today!” One of my preferred sources, Maximiliano Herrera on Twitter, is reporting:

     Exceptional warmth in Europe:

     21.7C [71.1F] at Innsbruck, Austria hottest winter day in Tyrol history
     20.1C in Germany at 720m asl
     and 91 monthly records of February highest Min. temperatures !
     Including Munich with 10.3C
     25C in Galicia (Spain) for 2 days in a row
     23.1C in France

     https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1626992199803060234

3. 

   Heather on February 18, 2023 at 4:59 pm

   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/02/17/lake-powell-water-level-drought-water-crisis-west/11257099002/
   Yeah officals are now admitting that the colorado river and dams could possibly collapse in the near future

4. 

   Heather on February 18, 2023 at 6:13 pm

   https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-02-18/federal-officials-consider-overhauling-glen-canyon-dam
   Here is another one on the dire situation of the colorado river. I think there is only 1-2 years before total collapse of the system

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     Cassandra on February 18, 2023 at 7:26 pm

     Heather – Thanks for both these links! It’s definitely getting to crunch time in the Colorado River basin. Not looking good for Phoenix, Tucson or Las Vegas. Not good for Los Angeles either. But, eh, no worries. All those folks can move east. We still have a lot of water here. Shouldn’t be any problem accommodating 40 million people…right?

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     Panopticon on February 18, 2023 at 7:46 pm

     Heather, good to hear from you! That is a sobering article: ““There is now an acknowledgment, unlike any other time ever before, that the dam is not going to be suited to 21st century hydrology,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the environmental group Great Basin Water Network.”

     I guess a lot of human infrastructure is not going to be suited to 21st century hydrology.