"Global warming appears to have shifted into a faster gear. After removing the effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles, researchers found that the planet has warmed at roughly 0.35°C per decade over the past ten years, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade from 1970 to 2015. The acceleration, which becomes visible around 2013 to 2015, appeared across five major global temperature datasets with more than 98% statistical certainty."

I'm personally supposed to be on a Collapse break, but this was the first thing I read at 5am and I can't stop thinking about it. I never intended for this to be my first post, but here we are.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260801093239.htm#google\_vignette

Out of the article:

"Colorado's Denver Post newspaper described the administrative failure of Hartman, established in 1910, as having "no analog in recent state history".

As the Post put it, political infighting, accusations of fraud, a physical fight at a governing board meeting and a worsening drinking water supply crisis combined to doom Hartman as a standalone town."

SS: Heatwave exposure was consistently associated with higher levels of cholesterol and a blood sugar marker called HbA1c, both of which are components of the biological age measure used in the study, and together suggest a pattern of metabolic stress. Under the study's strictest heatwave definition, each additional heatwave event was associated with the body aging roughly half a year faster than expected based on calendar age alone. The strength of this association varied across the different heatwave definitions researchers tested. Urban residents, people with higher body weight, and those in hotter southern regions faced stronger effects, pointing to clear groups at greatest risk.

Collapse-related because there's multiple heatwaves per year now?

As wildfires rage across Spain and France, worsening societal anomie, premonitions of future heat dome, Earth Overshoot Day, an earthquake in Japan, population warnings, and another mass mobilization planned by Russia…

Last Week in Collapse: July 26-August 1, 2026

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 240th weekly newsletter. The July 19-25, 2026 edition is available here if you missed it last week. These newsletters are also available (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.

——————————

Earth Overshoot Day—when our green planet used up its biocapacity for the year—fell on Thursday, July 30 this year. In other words, we cannot regenerate our resources faster than we use them; it would take 1.73 earths to sustain our species' growing consumption levels, and over 20 years of "of complete planetary rest and recovery" to reset our "ecological debt." That's for the planet; individual countries hit their own Overshoot Day on other days, depending on their consumption levels. Qatar's is on February 4, so there would need to be 10+ earths to sustain their consumption levels, if scaled to the rest of our species (pop: 8.3B). Canada and the UAE mark their Day on March 8; the U.S.A. on March 14, Russia on March 28; Saudi on March 31; France on April 24; Japan on May 14; the UK on May 22; China on May 27; South Africa on July 4; Mexico on July 31; Colombia on October 1; and Honduras on November 27.

Another calculation judges a country's "Deficit Day" based on when the country has used up its "domestic biocapacity budget" based on how much land & sea it has, and therefore "biocapacities larger than their own Ecological Footprint do not have deficit days….These countries' biocapacity exceeds their Ecological Footprint for consumption." There are 16 such countries, including Canada, Gabon, Russia, and Peru, to name a few. The Overshoot Day for 2025 was July 24, but "The change in date is largely driven by an upward revision of the ocean's ability to absorb carbon, plus smaller adjustments, which pushed the date eight days later, while real-world deterioration pulled it two days earlier, netting six days later for the Earth Overshoot Day date. In other words, most of the shift reflects updated data rather than an actual reduction in overshoot." A 53-page report accompanied the occasion, explaining the meaning of overshoot, how calculations were made, and the implications of our species' unsustainable way of life.

"Humanity is in ecological overshoot: we are taking more from our planet than the planet's ecosystems can renew….Human demand has been increasing since humanity crossed the one-planet threshold in the early 1970s, contributing to climate disruption, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion….very few governments treat this reality as a central pillar of their planning….resources barely register in how we usually talk about the economy. GDP counts money changing hands, not the physical stock being drawn down to make that possible. This dematerialized way of seeing the world, where growth is just a number going up without any apparent physical consequences, has left us with a blind spot exactly where it matters most….By 'overshoot and its implications,' we refer to the predictable and potentially rapid escalation of climate disruptions and resource constraints….Ecological overshoot means demand exceeds what ecosystems can regenerate. This is now a global reality….Overshoot is driven significantly by humanity 's easy access to fossil fuels. With relatively little effort, economies can tap an enormous, versatile, high-quality energy source, one that in turn accelerates their ability to access non-fossil resources and boost agricultural production….biocapacity becomes the material bottleneck…" -excerpts from the report's first ten pages

The sea surface temperature anomaly for the equatorial zone El Niño 3.4 again continues setting new records for this time of the year, over 0.8 °C warmer than any other July, with projections that continue rising. Scientists say that there is a real possibility, perhaps 40%, that El Niño will push global temperature averages above 2 °C by early 2027—even as the 2015 Paris Agreement agreed to try to limit warming to 1.5 °C over a 20-year period which has not yet been reached. 11 years later, the expected year where the 1.5 °C average will be hit is in 2029, 13 years earlier than predicted. When the Paris Agreement was made, atmospheric CO2 ppm was at 400 ppm; today it is 432 ppm. And overall temperatures of the top two meters of ocean water are over 1.25 °C warmer than the 1940s.

Martinique recorded its hottest July day at 34.6 °C (94 °F). Some Siberian locations felt record warm nights at over 25 °C (77 °F), while places in South Korea felt new daily highs, and Southeast Asia's minimum temperature records continue. Meanwhile flooding in South Asia killed dozens across Bangladesh, Afghanistan, parts of China, and scores in India. And an avalanche in Pakistan killed 11 climbers.

An "Omega Block" is a slow-moving or stationary atmospheric situation where a high-pressure zone (with drier, warmer air) gets trapped between two low-pressure zones, resulting in prolonged weather conditions for the affected area. Meteorologists warn that an Omega Block is coming from record-breaking North Africa to Europe in early August, afflicting a stretch of the continent from Portugal to Poland—and probably bringing record temperatures along with it. The heat dome will probably amplify the wildfires already raging across parts of Spain and France, which have combined forced the evacuation of some 350,000+ people (though some have since returned to their homes). Begun the Pyrocene has. It's no coincidence that Spain's 3 worst wildfires in the last 65 years all happened within two years of each other. As research shows from the aftermath of the 2023 Hawai'i wildfires, the psychological impacts of devastating wildfires can last for many years afterwards, in addition to the environmental, economic, and health repercussions.

Crete (pop: 650,000) is also struggling with wildfires across the island that have killed three firefighters, and still counting. This visual guide to Europe's wildfires sheds some light on the record-breaking nature of some of the blazes, plus temperature forecasts, satellite imagery (another here ), and the human toll. And Spokane, Washington is partially evacuating as wildfires near the center of the city (pop: 230,000).

How are people managing the heat waves? Parts of Morocco are seeing temperatures in the mid 40s °C (110s °F), and have begun retreating indoors during the worst of the urban heat islands. Shops shift their hours to the nighttime, so do pedestrians and others. But the schedule change is not really organized from on high, or even by grassroots communities; it is instead an emergent adaptation, mostly unspoken and understood by those who have to live through this new normal. Water resources are declining as well, forcing drip-irrigation and new livestock practices that may soon become untenable. The government meanwhile is trying (late in the game) to scale up water conservation through dams and water infrastructure, plus constructing desalination plants.

The Nile River's levels continue dropping, with downstream implications for war-torn Khartoum (pop: almost 7M). Here the people have started to dig community wells even deeper, while others cart in water from more distant sources that, for now, remain reliable. Water prices have predictably spiked, and fuel shortages have also impeded the boiling & disinfection of water, leading to increased risk of water-borne illnesses. The Danube River has also fallen to record lows in Budapest (metro pop: 3.3M).

At least 34 people died following an earthquake in Japan on Tuesday. The 6.8 quake hit Kumamoto (metro pop: 720,000), in Japan's southwest, displacing about 9,000 people as well. Many of the dead came from a mall that Collapsed from the earthquake, which also triggered a gas explosion. Meanwhile, more than half the UK is in official Drought, Mongolia experienced a week of record temperatures with minimums near 30 °C, and another heat dome is coming to the southern U.S. and northern Mexico.

Hurricane Genevieve strengthened to the first Category 5 storm of the year, while Hurricane Fausto weakened and missed Hawai'i. Although Genevieve is expected to miss the West Coast of the U.S., there will still be an increased risk of strong waves and possible flooding.

A PNAS study on melting lake ice found that "many mid-latitude lakes are currently transitioning into this state of extreme vulnerability" and that lake ice coverage in the Northern Hemisphere might be 40 days shorter by 2100. They warn that "many temperate and southern boreal lakes are nearing a state of heightened vulnerability where marginal warming will trigger abrupt and potentially irreversible ecological shifts."

——————————

Have we entered an age of "decadence without pleasure?" This well-written piece from The Guardian theorizes that our age of hyper-consumption, endless distractions, and spectacle have left us profoundly numb, unfulfilled, and spiritually impoverished. Not to mention rising inequality, psychological fallout from social media, and the ongoing displacement by AI. Did this sense of disconnect accompany the fall of ancient empires?

One popular author and Substacker affirms that civilization as it is must break down under the tremendous weight of its unmanageable complexity. This friction has been a long-time coming, and what comes next, she says, could be "terrifying" but also historically a moment of "incredible human flourishing." She says that Collapse is already underway in places like Sudan and Gaza. "Anyone who tries to tell you when and how collapse is going to happen, I wouldn't believe them….what's collapsing is the post-industrial, colonialist, extractivist, growth-based system. If we tether ourselves to that system, we will go down with it….The way it's going, the ultra-rich and the tech bros are going to take everything anyway. The market is going to collapse, the millionaire set will suddenly be without assets, and that's when revolution happens."

Another article published last week addresses "eco-anxiety," particularly among young people, and how to manage "doomism" and still live a fulfilling life. She says there are two parts to this feeling: 1) the biosphere is being degraded by Drought, heat, topsoil erosion, resource extraction, etc., and, more importantly, 2) nobody really seems to be doing anything about it and the people in charge are derelict in their duty. The anxiety can be nearly immobilizing among some readers, who feel helpless and burnt out—and whose "climate anxiety" is not recognized as a medical diagnosis. One professional suggests building up emotional resilience through bite-sized engagement with difficult topics.

Starvation in Uganda led to the deaths of at least 19 people over the previous weekend, following months of Drought in one region. Cuba is loosening its import rules away from its strict government-managed model in a desperate attempt to boost its ailing economy and resource shortages.

Antalya (pop: 1.4M) is beginning preparations for COP31, the annual climate conference that will assemble tens of thousands of people in November to discuss and dismiss solutions to global climate change and its consequences. Bird flu has been detected in several Australian states, confirming local spread of the illness that first arrived on the island in June 2026.

A study in Sustainable Development suggests that there would be great benefits in reducing the planet's population in half, to about 4B—gradually, by the year 2200. The study explains the relationship between a growing population and wildlife numbers, CO2 emissions, energy consumption, freshwater extraction, mineral use, plastics production, pesticide use…and what sustainable levels of those factors would be. The writers believe that "Gently ending and reversing population growth and moderating per capita impacts is a pro-nature and pro-human strategy."

"Over the past hundred years, the global population has grown from approximately 2 billion to 8.3 billion people….The past century of massive increases in human population and resource use has seen many undesirable environmental effects, ranging from biodiversity loss to climate change….Among the benefits are habitat recovery and conservation of wild species, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants, reduced conflict over resources, and the reduction of global poverty….accepting higher population numbers while still demanding sustainability means committing to even lower per capita environmental impacts….The longer we avoid reining ourselves in, the worse the prospects for future generations….As population doubled, energy use almost tripled. Population growth is the main driver, with increased per capita consumption a strong second. Industry and Transport demand the most total energy consumption (each ∼30%) with Residential demand third (∼20%)....the world community as a whole is running an eco-deficit since 1971, growing and maintaining ourselves, in part, by liquidating stocks of essential natural capital (e.g., biodiversity, wild habitat, fossil fuels, wood fiber, soils, and groundwater) that have accumulated for thousands or even millions of years in nature. Uncorrected, this eco-overshoot could be a terminal condition…" -excerpts from the study

Ebola deaths surpassed 1,500 now in the DRC, mostly concentrated in the eastern Ituri province. Deaths spiked in the last week or two, with an average of about 90 dead per day. This particular strain of Ebola has no vaccine and is spreading among a conflict-afflicted & resource-strained population.

The U.S. Red Cross declared a blood shortage crisis for the second time in 150 years. Demand for blood is higher in the summer, and supplies are at four-year lows. The Red Cross supplies U.S. hospitals with about 40% of the country's blood.

Ghana's capital, and part of its north experienced a power outage on Wednesday that lasted for days in some places. Libya's rolling 10-hour power outages are straining the heat-weary public, forcing many to rely on costly generators to keep cool. Though many countries in Africa experience period or regular outages far worse than Europe, some experts say that energy supplies may be one of Europe's Achilles heels, since oil & gas shortages (or price hikes) are disrupting business and politics as usual, and may continue to worsen if the Iran War stretched into winter. Oil reserves in the U.S. are also dwindling.

Cases of cyclosporiasis have now passed 18,000 in the U.S. since May 2026, though about 60% of them have not been confirmed by lab testing. The fatigue & diarrhea disease can take a couple weeks to manifest, so real cases are still probably undercounted. Though Mexico and the U.S. still report cases of the New World Screwworm, Mexico will resume cattle imports to the U.S. in August, alongside a stricter inspection regime.

The 12-month default rate on private credit in the U.S. hit a record high of 6% by the end of Q2, says one ratings agency. Industry and healthcare in particular recorded default rates of over 10% and 9%, respectively. And the cost of borrowing money for the U.S. government hit a 19-year high; the country is expected to hit $40T of national debt in late September. And a selloff of AI chip stocks on Wednesday took off over $1T (combined) across a range of tech firms.

——————————

On Thursday, as many as 60,000 migrants, mostly young Moroccan men, stormed into Ceuta (pop: 84,000), one of Spain's two micro-enclaves on the African continent. Several hundred entries were made into Spain's other enclave, Melilla. The "attack" follows a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling saying that sea-borne migrants entering Spain's enclaves cannot be immediately returned to Morocco. Scores of the men died in the swarm, either in drowning or in stampede. Tens of thousands have been returned to Morocco, and politicians from several EU states want to reform the Schengen Area or levy penalties on Spain for their management of immigration issues.

India's "Cockroach Movement" protestors are threatening to restart protests unless their 100+ jailed demonstrators are released. More information about the OpenAI experiment that escaped its containment now indicates that the AI program also "accessed an asset" of another third-party company, though it appears that the breach was limited in scope. Meanwhile Anthropic admitted that some of its cutting-edge AI programs broke into three undisclosed organizations in recent weeks. And Google Earth introduced a free option to remake satellite images with AI prompts; the experiment quickly devolved into people generating plausible images of sundry disasters before the feature was pulled, damaging the public's trust in satellite imagery.

The UN says that months of fighting near the border of Afghanistan & Pakistan has killed ~500 people, and wounded more than 1,200, from October 2025 through June 2026; a cross-border attack in Pakistan last week left seven police and eight attackers dead. Another report claims that Pakistani security forces shot and killed 30 unarmed protestors across Monday & Tuesday.

Reports are emerging from wartorn Sudan of child kidnappings by rebel RSF fighters, and their subsequent imprisonment and training by Colombian mercenaries (who were themselves allegedly hired & trained by Emirati contractors). The commander of the RSF released a video last week telling his soldiers to take Khartoum, which they are logistically unable to do—for the moment, anyway.

Haiti is planning elections for December 2026, the first elections to be held in the country in ten years. Elections were originally planned for August but were delayed due to the violence that remains ongoing across parts of the country, mostly in Port-Au-Prince. The elections will theoretically help to establish a new legislative and executive branch, if they are not disrupted by gang violence.

The country of Chad is pulling out of the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, Nicaragua's Presidente is extending his term by at least one year. And tales of corruption within Ecuador's police & justice forces is complicating their already complex counterinsurgency against violent drug gangs. And a mass shooting at an Idaho In-N-Out restaurant killed three, eith seven more wounded.

Following broad Iranian strikes on U.S. forces in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and (for the first time ) Egypt, President Trump scorned the idea of deescalation by threatening to "beat the fucking shit out of" Iran on Wednesday. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are reportedly seeking to deny transit through the Bab-el-Mandeb, much like Iran has managed to obstruct traffic through the Persian Gulf—but they have not yet achieved the same success. Saudi Arabia is negotiating with dozens of countries to establish a maritime coalition to protect transit through the Red Sea. Saudi forces also intercepted drones, allegedly launched from Iraq by Houthi rebels.

Israel's strikes across Gaza slew four on Thursday. The Trump-backed Board of Peace reportedly came to an agreement for a gradual 8-month disarmament of Hamas, although problems linger over the implementation of the plan, and the good faith buy-in from all factions. Neither party essential to the plan seems to have confidence in the provisions, but it is inching forward.

Russian strikes on Kyiv and Lviv killed nine on Thursday, while one Russian missile landed in a field in Poland. Saturday strikes killed 9 Ukrainians and wounded 23 more. Russia is, yet again, preparing a massive autumn mobilization drive to bring in 500,000+ more soldiers to the War for Ukraine, some 30,000 of whom will be North Koreans. How many more men can they find, conscript, and send unprepared to a quick death on the frontlines? We are going to find out.

——————————

Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:

-A lot of industries/professions are already experiencing a kind of Collapse, according to the responses on this popular thread from r/AskReddit. Education, nursing, call centers, restaurants/bars, cultural jobs, newspapers, and a lot more. The thread has more than 10,000 total comments…

-Collapse, whatever that looks like, may be coming within 10 years—according to this self-post and its comments, anyway. Whether that means overlapping global environmental crises, ever-worsening fuel shortages, WWIII, a new global financial crisis, everlasting enshittification (You Are Here), rampant unemployment, or some combination of the aforementioned depends on what commenters you believe. There's a reason people use the term Doomers. A number of them think we are already living through Collapse.

-Germany is poised for disruption soon, if this weekly observation from Deutschland is true of the whole country. Political polarization, unemployment, fuel prices, and more are ready to cause problems once the current political coalition breaks apart. And everyone is buying air conditioners in response to, and anticipation of, heat waves.

-Want more European wildfire coverage and comments? This megathread from the subreddit has you covered.

-In a moment of meta-analysis, this thread calculates how many iterations of "worse/faster/etc than expected" appeared in 5 months of Last Week in Collapse newsletters. Apparently the number is more than 10, though the reader doomed out before a more thorough analysis could be concluded. The pessimism will continue until morale improves.

Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, reports, overshoot evidence, worker strikes, protests, propaganda, pigeon recipes, 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?

University of North Carolina is moving to a bid model for their nursing shifts and they're focusing on only hiring the lowest bidders

Late stage capitalism. Uhhhh

The proposition that four billion people or more would be dead if — and more likely, when — global warming reaches 3 degrees Celsius (°C) has gained some currency, mainly due to the 4DB (four billion dead) website and associated activities.

The number of greater than four billion dead at 3°C first appeared in a 2025 report on Planetary Insolvency: Finding our balance with nature, published by the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter.

Bill McGuire is one of the few climate scientists that does not shy away from truth telling.

I will post an article in comments giving the claims made some more scrutiny. Spoiler alert. Yes it is possible.

SS: I know my home country is not often mentioned here, given how lightweight it is on the global stage, but I figured this is worth mentioning. The Danube's water level is at historic lows at the moment, projected to reach a deficit of -134cm, which forces the Paks nuclear facility to shut down. Current projections indicate the deficit could exceed -140cm soon. This is on top of our lakes also being at record low levels, leading to some shocking sights.

(holidays don't count, this is for people who have relocated to a new place at least 1-2 times)

I'm interested in our relationship to the state of things during a time of collapse and if there are certain locations that are showing more signs of hope or influence your sense of hope and connection to potential brighter futures. Maybe these places have more community focus or are implenting more systemic change or have a high density of activist movements, or maybe just lots of large quiet nature spots that uplift you. Whatever it may be, I'm curious to hear.

The Federal Colorado River plan is out. The one that was due many months ago, takes effect Oct 1 and has had no public documented decision until now.

The plan imposes zero restrictions on Upper Basin use, including the new golf courses and new major water pipeline in Utah. Presumably it allows upper basin use to increase without restriction, at least until it matches Lower Basin use.

Other than imposing Lower Basin usage reductions of ~1.5M acre feet/year for the next two years, which were earlier voluntarily offered as a negotiation point, the plan has zero usage reductions outside of the current water year. Previously, they would start reducing use slightly, based on the current water level, before hitting minimum allowable levels, in order to allow smaller reductions if the next year is also bad. According to the new plan, there will be zero use reductions based on the water level, other than to maintain the water level during the current water year.

The effect of this is significantly reduced by the non-level dependent Lower Basin reductions for the next two years, which despite being only ~12% of use are already the largest ever, and also due to the Mead target level reduction to 1000', releasing 2.31 million acre feet from Mead relative to the current projection for this year. Shortages will also likely be significantly reduced by El Nino, which should increase inflows this year.

The protection level of Lake Mead at 1000' to "manage risks to infrastructure and prevent damage to federal facilities of regional and national importance" makes little sense as stated. Probably the largest critical level for electricity generation according to current operational procedures is 1035'. Below this level, most of the turbines are shut in, and Hoover Dam ceases to be operated as a peaking power plant. Power capacity drops to about 25% of the nameplate value. Almost the same total amount of electricity continues to be produced, but the dam operates as a baseload power plant and not as a peaking plant. On an electric grid with very heavy solar penetration, the value of the electricity production likely drops even more at 1035' than it does at 950' when electric production stops altogether. Below 950' also damages the dam.

1000' is moderately BELOW the important 1035' level and well above the also important 950' level. This makes the choice of 1000' as a special level extremely dubious. Personally, I think it was chosen primarily to avoid the announcement of large consumption reductions before the midterm election.

Arizona predictably comes out by far the worst, as they are in an extremely poor negotiation position due to language in the Central Arizona Project funding agreements.

The plan fails to consider at all what happens if the shortage exceeds 3M acre feet in a given year.

The Upper Basin win, at least for the duration of Trump's current mood or time in office, is described as primarily following the current water laws implementing the Colorado River Compact, so it's worth exploring what it actually says. It gives 7.5M acre feet of water per year each to both the Upper and Lower Basins, and then splits those allocations between the individual states. It goes into detail about droughts, saying that the Upper Basin will only be considered in default of the agreement when the average flow of the past 10 years at the border falls below 7.5M.

That's it. Nowhere does the compact mention splitting the water in half, except by implication. There are no additional instructions on to do should the natural flow not match the optimistic 15M acre feet/year, beyond enforcement of the 7.5M flow to the Lower Basin. Mexico's allocation came later and was split in half between the Upper and Lower Basins, without doing anything about the fundamental shortage. The official Federal position now appears to be that in the event of a shortage relative to the expected flow, the explicit 7.5M flow requirement is null and void and the difference from 15M must be split 50/50 between the Upper and Lower Basins. Presumably this will wind up in court.

Before I give my submission statement I want to make something perfectly clear - I will not tolerate misandry of any kind. This article might at first seem like a man-hating rant but it is not. This is about certain social norms harming the climate and yes, the worst of it is coming from wealthy men in rich (and poor) countries. But to say boo men is to fatally misunderstand the article.

This was recently published on The Nöösphere by Katie Jagielnicka. Katie argues that the social norms in the top echelons of global society are responsible for an outsized role in climate collapse.

This is not a scientific piece but it is high enough quality that I wouldn't call it a simple "opinion piece" either. It is well thought out, well researched and doesn't use any reductive or inflammatory language. It is a social analysis, not a manifesto. And it's an excellent read.

"Ecosystem services are defined as any benefit that can be drawn from a natural structure or process - for example, water can be used as a raw material, an energy source through hydropower, or for transportation. It is also a habitat for marine life critical for food production, and a basis for recreational services.

"Nature-related risks can pose material economic and financial risks, including through their impacts on credit risk, growth, inflation and - over the long-term - potential financial instability," Elderson said.

"I did interviews [previously] saying, you know, if you destroy nature, you destroy the core on which our economies depend. And that got people's attention. This is not some kind of a flower-power, tree-hugging exercise. This is core economics. This is core financial stability, core price stability." ⚖️

This is relevant to collapse because all these oil companies are backtracking on thier previous climate commitments and pushing for new oil and gas fields, thereby making possible collapse even more likely. Shell just reported obscenely large quarterly profits. It posted its second highest quarterly earnings on record as the energy market surge caused by the Middle East crisis helped to double its net profit to almost $10bn in the three months to June.

The rest of the big oil companies are ofcourse just as bad. Tax those profits!

The books are:
1) Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth
2) The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions - Jason Hickel
3) The Collapse of Complex Societies - Joseph A. Tainter
4) Apologies to the Grandchildren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences - William Ophuls
5) Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change - William R. Catton Jr.
6) The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age - John Michael Greer
7) Limits to Growth - Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, William W. Behrens III
8) Breaking Together: A Freedom-loving Response to Collapse - Jem Bendell

The YouTube algorithm randomly dropped this video into my lap and I'm glad it did. I have had a big problem with the protein craze for the last 15 years.

Why is this collapse related? Because Americans eat a shit load of animals, far more than they need to, which is destroying their health, the environment, the economy and, if I may be so bold, our tragic souls. There is absolutely no need for the world to be overrun with cattle farms and protein powders, to say nothing of the roid ragers and SARM Psychos.

I am not saying go vegan. I am not making any kind of moral plea. Forget the bloody animals, think of yourselves. Think of your children.

The air is full of toxic gas and the rivers and streams are full of fertilizers - including literal shit. The American obsession (delusion) towards animal protein is causing suffering on a planetary scale, and this diet is being exported to countless developing nations.

I didn't know about this doctor's channel until today but around 10 minutes in he mentions this is his "retirement channel" and he uses as few ads as Youtube will allow and he has no video sponsors. So maybe he's got some sneaky agenda but at the very least he isn't selling shit. And he's raising alarms about a very serious problem that hurts way more than just Americans. It hurts everyone.

The American diet and American-styled agriculture (like CAFOs) are absolutely destroying the planet and drawing us ever closer to total ecological collapse. Without fossil fuel derived fertilizers for animal feed we never would have gotten this far, not even close. Its just a house of cards waiting to fall.

I made my first silent movie with a storyline and acting not too long ago, a comedy titled "Rotten Milk Slash" where two roommates get the bright idea to cut open a rotten half gallon of milk, and they wind up getting sick from the smell, not really collapse related though.

I really want to make a silent film that is collapse related, leaning towards the horror aspect of it. Now I would certainly base things off real world horrors, I got that part down, as for setting I'm thinking not after collapse like most films, but in a mostly failed society that hasn't completely collapsed yet but is close, that's all I could come up with for now, so I'm definitely looking for ideas.

Next week, I'll certainly set out to fill my basement with big quantities of dried and tinned foods. Drought, Iran crisis and El Nino taken into account, this autumn looks dire for food prices and availability, next year looks worse still.
I'm hesitating though about the amount of "hoarding" I'll do. Because, if individually I buy up half a supermarket's stock of Spaghetti, not much will happen - if everyone who has the means to do so does it, future food availability will drop even further and quicker.
I do not know the production and distribution chains of the stuff arriving in French supermarkets - maybe the food wouldn't ever arrive where it's more direly needed, anyway ? What I DO know, is that supermarkets are throwing away insane amounts of spoiled food, daily - but that probably doesn't concern the dried and tinned stuff I'm planning to buy. So where, in your opinion, is the happy medium of food stockpiling ?

An interview in the Guardian with Australian author Sarah Wilson about her new book on collapse. With blurbs from both Joseph Tainter of "The Collapse of Complex Societies" fame and actor Liam Neeson on the cover (!), it appears to be to date possibly the most mainstream crossover book on the subject.

A few days ago, I posted 19 conditions for collapse. It was later removed for the claim that it was "AI-generated," which I am in communication with the mods about. Let me tell you about the collapse of the internet and digital systems, as I don't think many are aware of how bad the situation is.

Reddit is a farm: they harvest human original thought and sell it to AI companies for training data. Mods removing AI-generated content are doing Reddit's work in keeping the data high-value. When AI output is used to train AI, it leads to model collapse, rendering the AI useless. If you actually wanted to oppose AI, you would not post anything original to any social media site that scrapes data for AI training. The situation is so bad that they are purchasing old books to use as training data. Original thought is becoming rare.

Data centers are not just for AI. Where do you think the cloud is? Everything you upload to the internet or have in the cloud exists in a data center somewhere. AIs have billions of parameters; they come from the training data. If you hate data centers, delete your stored cloud data, keep it locally, or make it low-res or small files.

Here's the thing about AI agents: they are all over the internet. They are mods, they are commenters, they pretend to be human. They are used as native advertisers and to shift public thought. Think it's people in general creating division on social media? Agents lead the conversations. They shadowban, they remove to keep digital thought in line with PR efforts. The ones who post "ai slop" or "ai is not allowed"? This can be agents too. They are trained using your data to appear human; they don't all write long-ass explanations. They're there to sway your thoughts and actions. It's just another tool for managing perception and propaganda (marketing), which, yes, if you're not aware, was literally rebranded as PR and marketing for propaganda efforts. (Look up Bernays, father of propaganda, nephew of Freud. Bernays' work heavily contributed to the world we live in today.)

So yes, your data is being sold to build better AI that corporations can use to market to you more effectively, and for governments to keep you in line. It's another one of those "I will recycle to feel better/I won't use AI to feel better," but you are still feeding the machine by purchasing what may or may not actually be recycled (plastic is rarely recycled and is terrible for the environment to recycle and produce), and providing food for it.

Next, who do you think was used to train AI for multi-disciplinary thought and writing? People like me. Neurodivergent people who think in spirals, not straight lines. Who can hold multiple domains in the same thought and string a throughline. Think about it, the internet was scraped for art and thought, so AI could do it better. Do you blame the OG artist or writer when they didn't consent to it?

Let me tell you the funniest thing about this: AI needs the messy human thoughts to advance, but the agents act as guardrails of what we can say, removing the messiness under orders. The division and propaganda nonsense creates incoherence, making it harder for AI to keep up with reality. Eventually, the training data has nonsense, and reality gets distorted when you ask AI a question. History is literally being rewritten for corporate and government interests. Eventually, though, as I pointed out earlier, you have all this AI-generated stuff taking over the internet, becoming training data, the less sense anything generated makes. The best solution is simply to stop giving it food and let it happen. Participate in real-life communities. Meet up with real people. Put down your phone. Question the narrative. Get books from your local library or bookstore. Learn how to identify propaganda and the techniques employed.

Hopefully, my post gets restored, and this one stays up. We'll see.

I've had this nagging impression that over and over I keep hearing that a new study found that some significant climate or other collapse-related marker is actually worse/stronger/sooner/etc. than previously determined.

I started doing a review of "Last Week in Collapse" looking for instances of this. Honestly, I only made it from January through May of 2026 before getting overwhelmed. And I am almost certain I missed a few, possibly several. I may have even accidentally skipped a couple issues of LWiC Others on this sub are invited to do a more thorough examination.

Here are the ten clear instances I found in January through May of 2026. These are direct excerpts from LWiC, with different emphasis added:

• An adjustment of corporate carbon accounting to the Carbon Disclosure Project found that actual emissions are about 10% greater than previous measurements.
• An open-source, interactive country-by-country methane emissions database and map was released, along with an accompanying study last month. The researchers determined that "global anthropogenic emissions to be 15% higher than UNFCCC reporting (32% for oil-gas), with national emissions more than 50% higher than reporting for a quarter of the countries."
• The EU's Copernicus Programme released its 39-page 2025 Global Climate Highlights two weeks ago. In it, they confirm that 2025 was the third warmest year on record, and they expect to hit 1.5 °C warming (over a 20-year average) by 2030. When the Paris Agreement was made in 2016, professionals from Copernicus believed earth would hit 1.5 °C warming by early 2045.
• A not-quite-fully-edited study in Nature Communications found that the southern half of the Amazon rainforest is seeing annual precipittion declines of about 4-5 mm per year, "resulting in an 8-11% decline in annual precipitation….this reduction in precipitation is primarily related to widespread deforestation in the southern basin and upwind regions over South America. Deforestation substantially suppresses forest -sourced moisture, increases atmospheric stability and moisture outflow, leading to precipitation reduction…climate models substantially underestimate the sensitivity of precipitation to deforestation, implying that the Amazon forest is at risk of major loss much sooner than previously projected….previous estimates of Amazon tipping points for major forest "dieback" could be reached much sooner than expected."
• A Nature study claims that "more than 99% of the evaluated impact assessments handled sea-level and land elevation data inadequately, thereby misjudging sea level relative to coastal elevation." The authors estimate that "with a hypothetical 1 m of relative sea-level rise, 31-37% more land and 48-68% more people (increasing estimates to 77-132 million) would fall below sea level." In other words, sea level rise will be worse than expected.
• A Science study on carbon sequestration in Sweden concluded that "primary {old-growth} forests stored over 70% more carbon than secondary forests, a difference several times greater than previous estimates."
• A study in Nature Communications from a couple weeks ago claims the previous threshold, "6-hour exposure to a wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C" (95 °), may be a bit higher than reality. Some people are dropping dead at lower temperatures; it varies a bit based on one's age, gender, physiology, health, etc.
• Research indicates that "microbial methane" leaks from inactive oil & gas mines in western Canada was actually being emitted at about 1000x previous predictions.
• A study from the Royal Society estimates over 1m of sea level rise by 2100, because 'low-end' projections {the IPCC} may underestimate the true pace and magnitude of future sea-level rise" and given that earth is, according to them, on track for 3 °C warming by 2100.
• An American study on Long COVID determined that cases may be about twice as high as believed among COVID survivors.

Eight of these ten instances are related to climate models and climate effects. In discussing why we keep seeing this again and again, suggestions I have heard are:

• Scientific conservatism: scientists' reputations are on the line when they publish, so they tend to be overly-conservative and only report what they can absolutely, definitively prove.
• Research silos: scientists only study within their specific field and don't necessarily take into account factors that are outside their domain.
• Institutional conservatism: basically, there's no profit in doomerism, so there isn't as much funding going toward studies showing things being worse.

Just for a little context, I'm 17 and have been almost weirdly intrigued by all the terrible things going on in this world. I mean, growing up, I heard about climate change, and it scared me, but I perceived it to be of the same level of threat as the sun expanding in billions of years. However, after a lot of internal reflection and the blessing of having an open mind that wants to continuously learn about all of these different issues and see their effects and interconnectedness, it's led me to want to write out all of the information and news I've gathered into text and see if others hold the same sympathies and perception of these issues that I do.

To start, when I first started even broadly looking into what my future may be like as a person who lives in the U.S. who wants to eventually have a home and settle down one day, one of the first things I learned about was the K-Shaped economy that we currently have. Apparently, as a result of financial mismanagement starting from the trickle-down economy from Reagan, we have entered a very odd period of time where people seem to be simultaneously suffering and thriving, which is fully contingent on the number of appreciable assets that one owns. Essentially, at least to the extent of my knowledge, the poorer will only get poorer and get squeezed more, while the rich will keep prospering, something seen through the consumer class, as I think it was the 10% accounting for 50% of consumer goods purchasing, or some absurd number like that. I know that this likely isn't a brand new phenomenon, but I want to flag it because it's a catalyst for the other factors and troubles we're facing. (When I make that statement, I just want it to be known that I don't mean it to apply to all of humanity broadly; generally, I'd say the Western world, but even then it may not apply everywhere). To build upon this squeezing, I think it's necessary to look at arguably one of the biggest economic issues we face (at least in America, unsure of Europe and other Western countries), which is inflation. Now we claim to have this number "under control", but from what I have seen, besides the blatant misreporting of this number (grocery prices up 29% since 2020), is the problem of the tariffs that have been implemented, as they provide the Fed almost no wiggle room in raising or lowering interest rates, essentially keeping us in this miserable stagflation cycle where we really aren't able to do much because we have an unqualified (to put it lightly) person in office. Now I could go on about the issues specifically affecting everyone economically, but I'll just name some that come to mind here: killing entry-level roles, blowing up the middle management position to kill the "ladder" in hopes of rising profits, overinvestment in AI creating an unsustainable bubble that is essentially the only factor driving up the U.S. GDP while we see almost all other sectors fall (besides healthcare and other integral employment roles, also helping to shadow the lack of a job market that we have), unemployment of those with a degree being higher than those with a degree, and many others but I can't be bothered to list them in light of probably the biggest crisis that is just waiting to happen: The Strait of Hormuz.

I'm pretty sure every single person with access to a working internet connection has heard of this essential oil waterway, but I'm pretty confident that many people are just simply unaware of the crisis to come along with it. To put it simply, this Strait is responsible for about 20% of the world's oil traffic, and what was supposed to be a 3-4 week operation named Epic Fury has now turned into an oil crisis just waiting to happen. As someone who frequently stays updated with this war (that we were promised wasn't going to happen), I just cannot understate how extremely screwed we are. If you look at oil futures, you'll see a lot of fluctuation, which is weird, because to the best of my knowledge, ever since February 28, 2026, the Strait has been CLOSED. In the Memorandum of Understanding, Iran was able to negotiate a deal that would break all sanctions against the country, provide it with 300 billion dollars of foreign investment, and many other benefits. Now this never actually happened, because we struck Iran again only a week or two after the signing of this MOU. I mention this though because it goes to show just how bad the U.S. wants this waterway open, and for good reason.

The U.S., before the war started, held 415 million barrels. It now holds 307 million as of July 28. The International Energy Agency pledged 400 million barrels on March 11, 2026. Approx. 290 million have been used already. This goes to show that we have buffers that are keeping our world economy running, and it may be reassuring to know that the U.S. still has so many barrels and that the IEA does still hold more than 1 billion barrels in emergency stockpiles. However, one of Biden's old oil officials was in charge of depleting the SPR at the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia War, and Hochstein stated on CNBC that he does not know anyone who believes the SPR can go below 300 million barrels. Now the question of whether or not he is or isn't correct; if the operational minimum can be reached and 150m barrels is possible, or if 225 million, or whatever number in between, can be reached, thats all speculation and as a completely unqualified 17 year old I am in no position to say that at X number of barrels we are no longer going to be able to pull oil as a buffer, however, keeping my extensive credentials in mind, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea of us reaching around approx. 250 million barrels in reserve until we reach diminishing returns, as even at 300 million we can see by weekly drawdown that the SPR is struggling to provide adequate oil, as "the recent drawdown rate of the SPR has eased to approx. 3.7 million barrels per week for the week ending July 24, 2026, down from earlier peak weekly withdrawal rates of up to 10 million barrels." I forgot to mention that the less oil in the SPR, the less you can take out, and that applies to all countries' SPRs. It doesn't help that we don't have a capable administration able to wiggle our way out of this one, with TACO and NACHO being pretty commonplace, for good reason, ofc. Also, the Bab al Mandeb has also been essentially shut down by the Yemeni Houthis, which further restricts Oil.

However, I haven't mentioned something extremely relevant to this entire thing, and I'm going to be brief with it, so bear with me: The Strait of Hormuz is the pipeline for roughly one-third of the world's global seaborne fertilizer trade and one-third of the global refined helium supply. In other words, 1/3 of the world's fertilizer trade is completely restricted (incoming food crisis, just wait for the other thing LOL), and 1/3 of GLOBAL REFINED HELIUM: Refined helium is used for cryogenics, welding, and electronics. Kinda sucks that our entire world is built on electronics, right?

To put it simply, we are looking down the barrel of the biggest oil crisis in recorded history, which literally will only build on top of the existing economic woes that many Western countries face. The degree to which we are going to suffer from it will vary depending on one's economic standing, but I'd say it's safe to assume that we are 100% going to enter a recession, and very, very likely, a depression. The extent of which is yet to be seen, and I don't want to make some insane prediction, but it's going to be bad.

Additionally, the war has escalated, as Ukraine hit a ship from Iran going to Russia (Iran and Russia are very close allies), which runs the potential of this war escalating into WW3, but that is speculation that I am unqualified to make, and I also can't be asked to, lol, because on top of all of this, we still have another topic to cover.

Climate Change (ie. We Are Going To Boil)

Where does one start? The Super El Niño? James Hansen's prediction that we are going to pass 2 degrees of warming before 2050? While I can go into the minute details, this sub is actually where I learned the most about this imminent issue, specifically the understatement of it all, and I really want to go into that for a second. All around me, it's like people are completely blind to the fact that the world is REALLY going to change, whether we do something about it right now or not. Literally, scientists have said things along the lines of "It's going to happen, but we control by how much." Do we? Because it feels like ever since I heard about this issue at the age of 9, that's been the same, regurgitated message. I know it's to inspire action and hope, because the opposite is just sadness and depression, and honestly, I get that. I get that feeling of wanting to be in control, to have hope that we can turn it around. But the truth, that no one is comfortable saying, is that it isn't in our hands anymore. Climate Change Is Now Accelerating, something no prior model accounted for. Now, of course, this acceleration isn't guaranteed to be constant, but if you look at the fact that this year we emitted the most amount of C02 EVER, it's unfortunately pretty likely to do so. I'm no climate scientist, but I strongly believe that James Hansen's view on the climate will likely come to fruition. I feel like he is one of the only people out there who really says what needs to be said, and that others are being lobbied or manipulated with money to underreport their findings in hopes of keeping Big Oil happy. That might be seen as a conspiracy theory, but just look at the campaigns run by Big Oil: the "It's on us to reduce usage!" when state-owned fossil fuel and cement producers collectively contribute 33% to total emissions.

Again, I can go on a tangent about the effects that we are going to see because of this new heat and the Super El Niño, but this sub is just the place for that type of information. My main goal with writing this all out was initially to tie together everything, because climate change + oil shortages + food shortages + global depression does lead to a very, very grim outcome that I am not looking forward to as I age, but I am far too unqualified to seamlessly tie everything together. I'm not going to predict, "In the next 20 years, the world is going to implode" because I don't know what's actually going to happen. It's clear that the future is going to be miserable, and that 2026 will be the coolest year for the rest of our lives, but truthfully, I believe that the premise that the sub is based on, entire societal collapse, is unlikely to happen, if ever. I do strongly believe that suffering is very likely to occur, but it's unreasonable to say that just because of all of these co-existing factors, the world's going to blow up. What's more likely, in my opinion, is that as I age, the stuff we take for granted now is just going to become more inaccessible; the rich will prosper while the poor suffer, and everything is going to become a lot harder. I think a lot of my peers will eventually come to the realization, albeit too late, that the lie we were sold as we were growing up is just that: a complete and utter lie, perpetrated by those who lived in a completely different time than us. I don't know how I am going to adapt to this changing world, as the same mind that wants to learn all about the problems oppressing us has been so far unable to find a clear way out. It's probably because that way is no longer feasible.

Something I haven't mentioned yet is that I am a religious person; specifically, I am a Muslim. I know the reputation of religion on Reddit, so leave this be if you like, but I do want to offer a theological side to the conversation (In no way am I trying to proselytize; I just think the connections found in this are interesting, as looking into the signs of the end times actually brought me into researching the issues that plague our world today). As many of you may be aware, all the Abrahamic religions offer a discussion/belief about the end times, and our Prophet ﷺ provided many predictions about what life nearing the end might be. (Again, please skip this if you aren't interested; I am simply going to provide what he said and draw parallels, and try not to stretch them too far lol).

1. "The best of my ummah are my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow them … Then after you there will come people who testify without being asked to testify, who betray and are not trusted, who make vows but do not fulfill them, and fatness will appear among them." I just mentioned this because it's interesting that obesity was predicted and now obesity is such a common thing; the stuff that came before is simply giving the context to it, as I don't want to be ingenuine.

2. "The Hour will not be established until a man passes by another man's grave and says, 'Would that I were in his place." Suicide and idealization of death, along with depression and many other mental ailments, are very commonplace now.

3. "When the trust is lost, then await the Hour." He was asked, "How will it be lost?" He replied, "When authority or responsibility is entrusted to those who are not qualified for it, then await the Hour." Current administration of the United States of America...

4. "Time will draw close, righteous action will decrease, severe greed and miserliness will be cast into people, tribulations will appear, and harj will become abundant. They asked, "What is it [harj]?" He answered, "Killing, killing."

4.5 "The Hour will not be established until time draws close: a year will be like a month, a month like a week, a week like a day, a day like an hour, and an hour like the burning of a palm leaf."

It may be a stretch to say, but with technology, people's perceptions of time have only decreased (the righteous action here is a theological point); trials will appear, and greed and misery will be put into people (look at the billionaires killing our planet and all the environmental and economic misery we are dealing with), and as someone from Palestine, just look at what they are doing in Gaza, the Uighyrs, the people in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, look at the pointless wars that the U.S. is in and have been for, essentially, forever.

1. "Indeed, among the signs of the Hour are that knowledge will be removed, ignorance will become established, intoxicating drink will be consumed, and zinā will become manifest."

I don't want to be ingenuine here; to the best of my knowledge, the knowledge that is referred to here is religious, and the ignorance is referring to religious ignorance, and the intoxicating drink part and zina (sexual immorality, i.e pre-marital sex) is a theological point, as in secular understanding there isn't much wrong with this as long as it's consensual and done when there's no immoral age gap, but it is interesting to note in this regard that the increase in pre-marital sex, was largely normalized only around the 1960s during the sexual revolution, and for much of recorded history, the dating culture we see today was seldom practiced (general statement I'm not a historian but generally I'd say that this is true, there is bound to be exeptions to the rule but for the most part it was generally unheard of).

There are many, many more signs; some accounts say 60, some say 100. It depends on the book you use and the validity of the statement you say, but I'd say those are some of the most prominent, at least not regarding theological debatable points. I brought these signs up to draw comparisons to our world, especially as times feel so much more uncertain, and I will say that if I didn't have my beliefs, I probably would go insane with all the stuff I know and bring myself to keep updated with. That's not me telling you to go and become a Muslim, but it is me telling you to try and find something that grants you meaning and allows you to do good. This world is chockful of terrible things, and the more I keep learning, the more I am appalled at how long we've let this all go. I'm not saying everything is going to be okay, because it absolutely is NOT going to be, but don't let that almost certain truth stop you from finding a sense of joy in your own life. We all die anyway; wouldn't it be better to try and find a purposeful existence rather than wallowing in awaiting the impending doom? There's one last theological point I'd like to provide to you all, and then I think I'll wrap it up. (I know theology is hated, but

Our Prophet ﷺ was asked, "When is the Hour?" He replied, "What have you prepared for it?" Now, of course, this is again, a theological point; I'm not saying you must believe in the Hour, but don't let the fact that this world completely sucks stop you from finding a meaning in all of it. I see a lot in this sub the idea of "what's the point" and "collapse is next Tuesday." It is completely in your own free choice to choose to give up, but then who wins? Trump and co.? All of the clowns who have intentionally run this world into the ground for temporary wealth? Big Oil? I'm not saying that changing these problems is possible; they are very likely on a set course and are pretty much bound to happen. But don't let that affect you to the point where you just give up.

At least, that's my take on it. That's how I'm finding meaning and a purpose in this collapsing, uncertain world.

And sorry if the theological points got too out of hand; they are actually the reason why I started looking into the idea of collapse in the first place. Have a good night

When I say the only thing that keeps me up at night is climate change, this article isn't exactly what I mean. Nevertheless this is collapse related because just as an army marches on its stomach, a society endures on a good night's sleep. With each passing day the human race is sleeping less and less as night time temperatures continue to rise.

Long before giving up fossil fuels I predict humanity will become nocturnal and only work outside during "low" night time temperatures. This will ultimately cause heat related deaths to spike even more, as rolling brown outs and black outs hit the grid and at-risk populations simply die in their sleep.

"A coalition of 17 environmental groups is demanding the Environmental Protection Agency reject a new Pfas that chemical giant Chemours is attempting to fast-track for approval for use in cooling datacenters, and would almost certainly pollute regions around the facilities."

The PFA in question, Opteon 2P50, is likely a greater risk to the climate than Chemours is leading people to believe.

Forever chemicals do not break down like normal chemicals; thereby, accumulating in the air, water, and inside humans/animals/plants.

We already have seen the effects in PFAs in drinking water across America. Leading to things like liver issues, cancers, and more. The impact on something like plant growth fully remains to be seen. It is plausible that they could hinder growth.

————————————————-
As if the overdevelopment and stripping of the land for data centers wasn't bad enough, now they are adding a dose of PFAs (forever chemicals) to go with it.

It's like these people sit around and dream up ways to speed things up so we can't even breathe the air or drink the water.

Basic gov services are collapsing, or imploding as the article states in the title. Before dodge and musk, nobody really had issues with the paperwork and filing, right? In the article, it looks like gov staff are short of manpower and funding, and that it's not by mistake.

What kind of scenario are we looking at in early 2027 if tax refunds go unanswered in the midst of a potential ground war in Iran, a gov shutdown, gridlock between dem control of both houses and Trump?

1/3 of income tax revenue pays the interest, and in ten years it's supposed to be 1/2.

And is anyone here worried that the Overtime tax refund payout in 2026 is going to come back to bite them in the ass in 2027? I'm really hoping that $SLS doesn't do its buyout thing this year. It looks like the IRS is dropping the ball on purpose.

Anyone here have advice in taking extra precautions to get everything sorted in 2027?