Beyond the Nation State #2: Climate Change and all that

Global warming is here, real, now and it’s getting faster.[1] God knows how many times you’ve been beaten over the head with that , and we loathe to insult your intelligence. But we live in a world of rising temperatures, melting glaciers, collapsing ocean currents, dwindling food supplies and the massive shifts in human migrations which all of these entail. And this set against the possibility of a world which could be cleaner, healthier and politically stable-consequences which a safe climate would bring.[2] So-why bring it all up again, right in the middle of a massive, near-world, war? Because we think it is the ne plus ultra example of this series’ main purpose. The existential threat of global warming is beyond the capacity of a world organised into nation states.

We take today’s reasons from History and Information Theory: is that eclectic or what? The first shows that every time nation states are faced with the issue, they duck it. As we noted before (LSS 30 8 23) the 1970s oil shocks didn’t trigger a transition; they triggered a doubling‑down on fossil dependence in the name of “energy security”. Kyoto collapsed[3] the moment the United States decided it didn’t suit its short‑term interests, and Canada followed like a polite echo. And Information theory explains why: because the nation‑state is, at heart, an information‑processing machine optimised for short‑term competitive advantage. It filters every signal — scientific, moral, existential — through the question: does this keep us ahead of our rivals in the next decade? Long‑term planetary risk is systematically down‑weighted, not because leaders are cowards, but because sovereignty itself is a bandwidth problem. No single state can act at the scale or speed required, and pretending otherwise is a comforting fantasy.

Once again we stress: we do not advocate the abolition of sovereign nation states, as to abolish them would invite utter anarchy. But, just as national governments sit above local governments there must now be some sort of global authority to deal with the dangerous, the pressing, the existential risk of utter ecological and economic collapse. And just to cheer you up, we’ve got several more like this, so keep reading.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00745-z?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=366c08b912-nature-briefing-daily-20260309&utm_medium

[2]https://theconversation.com/four-ways-to-tackle-health-and-climate-together-and-lift-millions-of-people-out-of-poverty-276696?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=L [3] Kyoto Protocol – Wikipedia

#climate change #global warming #geopolitics #nation #state #sovereignty #meteorology

Did Christopher Columbus start an Ice Age?

Photo by Balu00e1zs Gu00e1bor on Pexels.com

We know that rising levels of carbon dioxide are driving climate change. We know the mechanism, we know the statistics, and people all across the world are feeling the consequences in floods, fires, crop failures and migrations. But has CO₂ changed the climate before? More pertinently has human meddling with this potent greenhouse gas already unleashed a disaster or so? To our astonishment, some people think it has Stand by for an amazing idea we got from the BBC podcast In Our Time [1] of which more below.

When Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492 it was not to an empty, underpopulated hemisphere. Both American continents contained thriving populations of agriculturalists. Now, 1492 was indeed the start of huge exchanges of many things-foods, cultures, languages-between Old World and New. But among the earliest and most significant were European diseases like smallpox and measles to which the American populations had no resistance whatsoever. The result was a catastrophic mortality which carried off between 80 and 90% of them.[2] The abandoned farms and croplands quickly reverted to nature. Meaning a sudden massive capture of carbon dioxide which began to cool the planet quickly, leading to the famous Little Ice Age which reached its coldest in the early Seventeenth Century.

And the evidence ? The Little Ice Age is an incontrovertible fact. [3] Ice core samples and climate records indicate the early 17^th century as suffering some of the coldest decades in recorded history. But correlation is not cause, as we always say at this blog. Overall, it looks as if the trend towards the dip had started centuries before, and the recovery was still going on centuries afterwards. The cooling may well have been regional rather than global and there is strong evidence to suggest that other factors such as volcanoes and solar cycles may have played their part. However, that CO₂ is indeed such a potent greenhouse gas makes its role as a contributor to the Little Ice Age all too plausible. And that is what worries us about levels of the stuff shooting up so dramatically in our own times. Although not proven to the levels of certainty like tigers bite and smoking gives you cancer, we think there is enough here for further research, both by scientists and by you, gentle reader. And now on to our thanks.

Because In Our Time,now presented by the urbane Misha Glenny, is one of the greatest cornucopias of intellectual treasure you will find. gentle readers. By spending an hour in its company once a week you will discover the most eclectic range of fine subjects -Science, History, Art, literature, what have you, all presented by leading experts at Tertiary education level or above(see LSS 9 6 22) In an age where so much media chases sensation over substance, its very existence is a reminder that rationality and intelligence still have a place. And we know we have that on the Highest Authority: read this if you don’t believe us:

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver. And the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her

Proverbs 3 12-15

[1] BBC Radio 4 – In Our Time, The Columbian Exchange

[2] Columbian exchange – Wikipedia

[3] Reconciling ice core CO2 and land-use change following New World-Old World contact

#global warming #pandemic #columbus #in out Time #little ice age

Air Pollution and Alzheimer’s: grim news

We’ve written a lot about air pollution over the years (LSS passim) Mainly to say that air pollution, particularly in the form of PM_2.5 particles can do all sorts of harm to your lungs and circulatory systems. A fact well-attested by some of the sharpest medical minds on the planet as this WHO report shows[1] But now there is increasing evidence that these pesky particles may play a big part in the massive wave of dementia and neurodegenerative disease that is sweeping across the world. The latest evidence is summarised by Professor Eef Hogervorst for The Conversation.[2] And it’s pretty grim.

Air pollution and the deadly particles it chucks out are associated with all kinds of activities beloved of certain US politicians and their followers. Fossil fuels; road transport; old style heavy industries; good ol’ boys roun’ the barbecue fire, and that sort of thing. But how do you measure it, and separate out other plausible causes? A rather nifty US study started by mapping Medicare claims for dementia by postcode and PM _2.5 particle density. Other factors such as smoking, bad diets and poverty were also considered. The latter was admirably controlled by factoring in Medicaid eligibility, a sure indicator of low wealthin the US. We often use the phrase Killer Quote here: this time it’s more than a rhetorical flourish

…….pollution levels in the areas studied were, on average, about twice as high as the limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO). ………..The researchers found that the increased Alzheimer’s risk in polluted areas remained even after taking high blood pressure, stroke and depression into account

Eef goes on to explain how and why PMs are pulverising your grey matter: but click on! For she does it much better than we ever could.

And our thoughts, gentle readers? Firstly, the work confirms other reports we’ve noticed [3] Secondly the impressive size of the sample. Above all the careful attempts to control other factors such as diet and poverty; we know you prefer thoughtful scholarship over blind jumping to conclusions. Nothing is yet conclusive: but the hypothesis that air pollution causes other forms of dementia fits the available data so very much more closely than anything else does seems to us to be as close to one as you can get.

[1] WHO global air quality guidelines: particulate matter (‎PM2.5 and PM10)‎, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide

[2] https://theconversation.com/air-pollution-may-directly-contribute-to-alzheimers-disease-new-study-275873?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%2%5B2%5D

[3] The effect of ambient air pollution (PM2.5) on dementia risk | Nature Aging

#air pollution #fossil fuels #smoke #alzheimers #dementia #WHO #health #medicine

Recovering Rivers: Yangtse shows the way

Photo by Lucia Barreiros Silva on Pexels.com

The greatest problem in conservation and pollution control is that as soon as someone introduces a new measure, however reasonable, someone else pushes back. Try to control traffic pollution(demonstrably toxic) and all the van drivers get up in arms. Try to restrict smoking, and there’s a huge uproar crying freedom, autonomy and the right to die in peace. Yes, progressive ideas may be rational and based on scientific evidence and of long term benefit. But all too often, they can give people something to lose here, now, in the short term. Everyone really, truly need conservation and pollution projects to succeed quickly, here, now as well. The answer suggests Jonathan Watts of the Guardian, is lying on the banks of the Yangtse river in China and its called Evolutionary Game Theory [1]

The Yangtse had got into a pretty sorry state over the 70 or so years up to 2020. Too much fishing, too many dams. too much pollution. An iconic species called the Baiji dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) was even driven to extinction, a heart-breaking tragedy if ever there was one. Something had to be done. And instead of just imposing bans and top down heavy handedness, the authorities boxed clever Check this out form Jonathan:

[the policy}t was designed according to the principles of evolutionary game theory, to assess how the three main bodies affected – communities, local governments and central government – would behave depending on different applications of punishments and rewards……The government spent about $3bn on compensating and finding alternative employment for about 200,000 fishers, scrapping many of the 100,000 boats involved.

In other words ordinary people were not treated as reckless ignoramuses, but just strugglers like the rest of. They were both brought in and bought in. a lesson many governments and well meaning reformers could do well to learn from. Now the great river, one of the undoubted wonders of the world, is starting to recover. Albeit a little groggily in places. Combine that with China’s CO₂ emissions starting to flatten out, and their huge lurch towards renewable power, and you may get a glimmer of hope indeed.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/12/china-yangtze-river-recovery-after-fishing-ban

#evolutionary game theory #conservation #ecology #pollution #communities #fishing #angtse

Renewables: Romanian success is a big warning for Uncle Sam

One of the enduring narratives promoted by the fossil‑fuel industry is that economic growth is only possible if we continue relying on their products. It’s a story that has shaped public debate for decades — and stands in the way of a safer, cleaner future. Do we have to take them at their word? Not according to the remarkable developments in Romania, uncovered for us today by Ajit Naranjan of the Guardian.[1]

For what Ajit has found is a country successfully decoupling economic growth from fossil fuels and tying it instead to renewables. It’s all the more interesting because the Romanian oil fields were the very birthplace of Big Oil back in 1857: and the old communist regime seemed to spend its time promoting every dirty fossil fuel technology it could find. But today there is a truly stupendous investment in things like solar panels, offshore wind and nuclear power. Emissions have dropped by 75% since 1990 while GDP has doubled. Some of the achievement is down to policies- such as EU membership, cleaning up agriculture-as well as technologies. And there is a darker side, as gas and oil are far from entirely banished. But we’ll leave all this to Ajit, who does such an informative job. And although Romania so heroically leads the way:

Dozens of countries have completely decoupled their economies from emissions, even accounting for the pollution in imported goods, and many more have managed to grow richer while emissions climb at a slower rate

All of which may be bad news for the USA, which currently seems to be trying to move back towards fossil fuels. Because in a global economy shifting toward clean energy, returning to fossil fuels may prove a strategic dead end. If renewables become the backbone of 21st‑century growth — as many economists expect — then choosing the old path risks leaving a country stranded while competitors build the industries of the future.

‘The trend is irreversible’: has Romania shattered the link between economic growth and high emissions? | Romania | The Guardian

#romania #USA #fossil fuels #economic growth #global warming #climate change #rewables

Forget the Middle East:Here’s the real crisis to watch out for

With the current tensions in the Middle East flooding the channels, you could be forgiven for thinking that benighted region is the only part of the planet that counts. It isn’t. It soon won’t count for much at all. And once again we are indebted to that most erudite of writers, George Monbiot of the Guardian[1] for telling us why. George has got hold of a report called the UK National Security Assessment, written by some of the sharpest minds in the country- MI5, GCHQ, that lot. And when we say they’re bright, trust us -they are. We won’t deprive you of the pleasure of reading all of George’s article. But the essence is simple: rapidly accelerating climate change is completely upending the normal relationships between nations, and taking us all to a dark and dangerous place

Let’s take one example. The glaciers of the mighty Himalaya-Karakoram system supply the water to some of the largest and most economically important rivers in the world. Among them are the Yangtse, the Mekong, the Brahmaputra and Ganges. All in all, they are the lifeblood of about 2 billion people in some of the world’s most progressive economic areas. And now those glaciers are melting-fast.[2] Leading to both short term floods and long term water shortages. At the moment this region is divided among three major powers_ Pakistan, India and China. All are nuclear-armed. All, being nations will attempt to defend their own local interest and local potentials, for that is what nations do. Each will reach for the water it must have to survive. And sooner or later these interests will clash. Mightily.

Now there will be a temptation among some of our readers, particularly those who hang out in the Dog and Duck, to say “let them get on with it- we can just sit it out” (That is a very polite way of conveying what they will say). But you can’t, gentle readers. As you may have noticed from your History, world wars are like beach parties, they tend to draw everyone in. Powers like Russia the USA and the EU will be forced to choose sides if only to protect their supply chains. Add to that the effects on migration numbers from all those refugees, world prices, supply chains and collapsing currencies and you have a mess to make the financial crash of 2008 look like, like-well one of those beach parties we alluded to above, really. Here then at last will come the consequences of doing nothing serious or substantail about global warming. And it will be well deserved by us all.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/27/uk-government-report-ecosystem-collapse-foi-national-security?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[2]https://iccinet.org/landmark-report-himalayan-glaciers-disappearing-two-thirds-faster-than-before/

#global warming #himalaya #glacier #ganges #flood #yangtse #drought #China #India #Pakistan #world war three

Debra MacKenzie on microplastics-and a master class in balanced reporting

So-are all our bodies full of microplastics, ready to reach out their oily hands and strike us all down with heart disease, tumours and goodness knows what else, or not? It’s a story we’ve covered before (LSS 9 4 24) and to be fair we even approached it with a certain moderation (LSS 12 3 25)

But who are we to advise you, when we can point you at once to the works of science journalist Debra Mackenzie, writing in the Guardian? [1] Not only is the science interesting. She also gets to the heart of why scientific controversies arise. In the case of microplastics, because one lot of researchers (medical folk) are approaching the problem one way. And another lot (analytical chemists) come from somewhere different, with other methodologies And this is ominous: as we have seen time and again, with CFCs, with tobacco and with fossil fuels, there could be interested parties who will be waiting to pounce on those disputes , to use them to allege that the science is not certain, that no action is needed. To quote one of the more chilling passages of Debra’s article

The plastics industry is more powerful than the CFC-makers were, and it has friends who know how to manufacture doubt. (Researchers I spoke to said that their papers have been denounced to journal editors by chemical industry figures who were not analytical experts.)

Now we at LSS are not medical experts. gentle readers. We do not know where the truth lies, although we may suspect. And, as in many scientific debates, there may be actors with differing levels of enthusiasm about where the evidence ultimately points. In any case, you should read Mackenzie’s article. You will learn a great deal more than just about plastics..

[1]https://onlinescientias.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=13505&action=edit

#health #pollution #microplastics #science

Hot years and wild fires: Is this the start of a true doom loop?

Two stories today give us serious pause for thought. Both concern our old bête noire of climate change. It’s not the bad news per se: we’re kind of inured by now. It’s the way they open the door to thoughts with actual evolutionary consequences: but more of that later.

The first story, from Ajit Niranjam of the Guardian, is a grim reprise of current trends. [1] 2025 is the third hottest year on record. For us their killer fact is context: El Niño, which had boosted heating trends in 2023 and 2024, was waning by 2025, so even that fig leaf has been stripped away. And talking of stripping away, what about the forests, which might have soaked up a little more of all that lethal CO₂ affording us a few more years of life? Well as this truly impressive piece of visual journalism by Ashley Kirk and Pablo Gutiérrez shows, they are being devasted by the very wildfires which global warming has brought about. This is what information theorists call a self re-inforcing feedback loop which would be intellectually interesting to study if anyone is left alive to do so.

And the evolutionary reason we are so worried? Our species carries ancient cognitive machinery that buckles under modern complexity. Human cognition defaults to fast, intuitive, pattern‑matching heuristics — brilliant for spotting predators in the savannah, disastrous for interpreting climate models This “cognitive autopilot” leaps to conclusions, prefers simple stories, and treats feelings as evidence. A species that cannot update beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence, that treats data as optional, that cannot overcome its own cognitive biases is evolutionarily brittle. It will eventually be outcompeted by one that can. Can anyone think of a name for it?

[1] Human activity helped make 2025 third-hottest year on record, experts say | Climate crisis | The Guardian

[2] Mapped: how the world is losing its forests to wildfires | Wildfires | The Guardian

#climate change #global warming #evolution #atmosphere #weather #extinction

My Home is damaged: time to sue Big Oil?

It’s a question a lot of people are asking as the world is increasingly lashed by the storms, floods and wild fires unleashed by global warming. And when you realise that the world’s fossil‑fuel giants collectively command over six trillion dollars a year — more economic power than most nations on Earth-it’s a tempting pot of money to aim at. What would you do with even one of those trillions? So we asked our Legal People: Can an individual sue a fossil fuel company to pay for flood/fire/storm damage, or the rising insurance premiums, that go with all those things?

The chances of getting anywhere on your own are slim. Firstly, you must show that any damage has been made worse by global warming (there will always be a background level of storms and things). Secondly, that a specific company’s emissions and /or “misinformation” caused that extra damage. And above all that the company chosen has a “duty of care” anyway. Quite a big ask when you think how much legal brainpower that $6 trillion is going to buy against you.

However, joining in with group actions increases your chances of getting something back. [1] . In the USA there are now 86 lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, including the very biggest. This class alleges that these companies “knew about the dangers of global warming and did nothing”. Even worse, it is alleged, they “actively misled” about those dangers. These suits will be fiercely contested; and the Jury will decide, as they say.[2] But there is a juicy second front opening. Home owners in Washington State are suing oil companies for climate‑driven increases in insurance costs. which they allege “are driven by global warming.”[3] As such costs may well be set to rise astronomically for all of us, their battle is indeed a noble one.

In the meantime there at least two things you can do. Work with climate litigation NGOs Groups like ClientEarth, Global Legal Action Network,[4] and the Climate Litigation Network are actively exploring new legal strategies. Document your damages If future cases open the door to compensation, having detailed records of storm impacts and repair costs will matter. Courts are increasingly willing to treat climate damage as a foreseeable, preventable harm caused in part by corporate deception. That shift is what makes future individual claims more plausible. There’s little doubt at fossil fuel companies represent a big barrel of money. Could some of it one day belong to you?

[1] https://theconversation.com/more-than-two-dozen-cities-and-states-are-suing-big-oil-over-climate-change-they-just-got-a-boost-from-the-us-supreme-court-2050

[2] Big Oil in Court – The latest trends in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies – Zero Carbon Analytics

[3]Homeowners Sue Oil Companies as Climate Damage Drives up Insurance Rates – Environmental Magazine

[4] GLAN – Global Legal Action Network

#global warming #climate change #fossil fuels #legal action #money #insurance

We offer a massive and unconditional apology for Nitrogen

We think we owe you a truly massive overwhelming apology, gentle reader. And this is why.

“Will the world end with a bang or a whimper?” is a question we’ve covered before here. We’ve even mentioned a few possibilities such as magnetic flips ,exploding volcanoes and more insidious effects like pollution and pandemics. (LSS passim)Yet it was while researching another topic entirely that we came across a wholly unexpected and entirely man-made problem that we thought you should know about: Nitrogen, [1] [2]and its derivative compounds which has been unleashed on an unprepared world in uncontrolled quantities for over a century. The reason it’s rising so fast is simple: we are manufacturing and releasing unprecedented quantities of reactive nitrogen—fertilisers, manure emissions, industrial by‑products—far beyond anything the planet’s natural nitrogen cycle ever evolved to handle.

Why so much? Because the Haber–Bosch process unlocked a torrent of synthetic nitrogen, and agriculture embraced it as a miracle. Global production of reactive nitrogen has soared to many times its pre‑industrial level. Locally, this can boost yields, but it comes with a hidden price: soils become chemically dependent, losing the microbial communities that once fixed nitrogen naturally. Excess nitrogen washes into rivers, fuelling algal blooms and dead zones; it volatilises into nitrous oxide, damaging the ozone layer; it accumulates in ecosystems, favouring a few aggressive species while starving others. And things are never so bad that they don’t get worse. Nitrous oxide is the quiet heavyweight of greenhouse gases. molecule for molecule, it traps far more heat than carbon dioxide and lingers in the atmosphere for over a century. It’s also the single largest ozone‑depleting emission humanity still produces. And yet most people barely register it. So what looks like abundance at the farm gate is, at planetary scale, a metabolic overload.

And this is the deeper tragedy: millions of farmers, each trying to solve a local problem—how to feed crops, how to secure a harvest—collectively drive a global destabilisation of the nitrogen cycle. We’ve built a civilisation addicted to excess nitrogen, and the system now expects those inputs just to function. The long‑term risk is that we push soils, waterways, and atmospheric chemistry past thresholds that cannot easily be reversed. What began as a triumph of human ingenuity has become a planetary dependence, and the bill for that dependence is only just beginning to arrive. A silent catastrophe of soil degradation, desertification, wetland collapse (LSS 28 5 24),biodiversity loss from nutrient overload, and fisheries collapse.

And now for our apology, gentle readers. For several years now we have been repeatedly warning you of the dangers posed by antibiotic resistant bacteria and climate change. We had not a single idea about this nitrogen crisis building up all around us. None whatsoever, We profoundly and unreservedly apologise to all of you-readers, contributors researchers and hard working staff, even the ones in HR. And we say this-never will such an oversight happen again in this mighty organisation. But do not be alarmed. From now on we will search the world ceaselessly to bring you news of fresh perils, unexpected lethal dangers which may be lurking ready to wipe us all out Or if not that, at least reduce the handful of survivors to subsistence-level barbarism in a lawless, violent post-apocalyptic world. We think we may even have uncovered a few already. Follow us if you want to know more about what they are.

[1] Anthropogenic-driven perturbations on nitrogen cycles and interactions with climate change (2024)Gong, Kou‑Giesbrecht & Zaehle (2024)
Published in Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry. click:Anthropogenic-driven perturbations on nitrogen cycles and interactions with climate changes – ScienceDirect

[2] Alteration in nitrogen cycle and its contribution to climate change: a review (2025)Anand et al. (2025) click:2Alteration in nitrogen cycle and its contribution to climate change: a review | Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy

#nitogen #agriculture #nitrous oxide #pollution #climate change #disaster