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Absurd (Scary) CO2 Emissions

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Chris LeBoutillier is licensed by Unsplash

Absurd (Scary) CO2 Emissions

By Robert Hunziker

In a major blow to the Paris ’15 climate agreement, last year witnessed one more nail in the coffin of the celebrated agreement to slow down CO2 emissions by 2030, as CO2, for the first time in modern history, enters the scientifically established danger zone. This agreement was/is meant to curtail global warming and hopefully save major ecosystems from collapse. But now, with too much noncompliance by countries and rapidly ascending CO2 emissions, Paris ‘15 is at rest in a coffin awaiting an un-ceremonial burial. Nobody wants to attend.

CO2 emissions went bonkers in 2024, up 3.75 ppm, a new all-time-record, smashing all prior years and looking very ominous with trouble likely ahead as global warming kicks into higher gear, raising the question of whether property/casualty insurance companies will survive the onslaught: (1) raging wildfires (2) atmospheric river cloudbursts (3) widespread flooding (4) skies blackened by tornados (5) scorching droughts (6) category 5+ hurricanes, all of which follow in the footsteps of excessive greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

It should be noted that the property/casualty insurance industry was already on the ropes with CO2 emissions lower. They’ve publicly admitted it! The following is a must-read article written by a key player in the worldwide insurance industry; frankly, a must-read for anybody concerned about the future:  Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism d/d March 25, 2025.

Within only a couple weeks of that standalone earth-shattering article that lays out the climate change-global warming disaster scenario from a senior member of the property/casualty insurance industry, Arctic News published a startling notice d/d April 14, 2025, Record High Increase in Carbon Dioxide, CO2, the primary target of the now-infamous Paris 2015 climate agreement. Oops! All Paris ’15 bets are off, as CO2 increased by a thundering record-shattering 3.75 ppm, a rocket ship blastoff by historic standards, and the future likely higher yet:

1960 +0.96 ppm

1970 +1.13 ppm

2000 +1.24 ppm

2024 +3.75 ppm

And that’s before the Trump administration turned the oil and gas spigot wide open along with a big push for coal as well as an ultra-ultra-massive rollback of environmental regulations, meaning the fossil fuel and chemical industries are deeply indebted to the administration for removing costly regulations that forced them to adhere to a clean environment!

Additionally, according to a recent article in Science : Trump Administration Fires Staff for Flagship U.S. Climate Assessment (subtitle: Move Could Open Door to Using High-Profile Report to Attack Science) d/d April 9, 2025. This is obviously devious to an extreme, possibly altering climate reports. But unfortunately the truth remains, as the insurance industry continues to raise rates and/or drop coverage because the reality of harmful climate change takes precedence over doctored reports.

The 430 ppm CO2 Danger Zone

Reality is inescapable: Of all the greenhouse gases, CO2 alone is responsible for 2/3rds of the warming effect by greenhouse gases. This is 100% a proven fact that was discovered by Exxon’s scientists years ago (Exxon Scientists Predicted Global Warming with ‘Shocking Skill’, Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2023).

Effective January 2025, CO2 registered 426.03 ppm versus 422.25 ppm in 2024. By way of comparison, in 1960 CO2 in the atmosphere was 316.00 ppm. And until advent of the industrial revolution mid 18th century, CO2 levels were below 300 ppm for ages.

According to an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report: “In 2016, a worldwide body of climate scientists said that a CO2 level of 430 ppm would push the world past its target for avoiding dangerous climate change.” (MIT Climate Portal)

Acceleration of CO2 is getting to be downright spooky +200%-t0-300% since the start of the new century. It’s never increased at such a rapid pace throughout recorded history. According to current readings by Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, CO2 exceeded 430 ppm for six days in a row in April 2025 and hit 430.51 on April 21st. And the new year is still young. Clearly, CO2 emissions are out of control running roughshod over any pretense of climate change mitigation efforts by parties to the Paris ‘15 climate agreement (RIP?).

Moreover, the U.S., one of the world’s major influencers of economic behavior and climate change, is pushing in the wrong direction, encouraging more CO2 emissions via increased production of oil and gas and coal while falsely claiming “climate change is a hoax.” This is an extreme position, bold-faced lie, not supported by facts, making Emperor Nero look like a lightweight. It’s the whole planet, stupid, not just Rome!

Meanwhile, a casual Google search of four words: “climate change and insurance” reveals the startling truth, bringing up page after page after page filled with titles such as: “Climate Change is Driving an Insurance Crisis.” Business gets it: Property Values to Crater up to 60% Due to Climate Change, Business Insider, August 9, 2024. Yes, the word “crisis” fills the pages. It’s a crisis! Crises end badly, but we’ve only just begun.

According to the Arctic News’ article, it’s about to get much, much worse. But what’s worse than a crisis? A worsening crisis seems to be on the docket. As clearly stated, “Not only are concentrations of CO2 very high, but additionally, there has been an increase in total solar irradiance.” This is therefore the old one-two punch to the gut as increased solar irradiance means more solar energy reaches the surface absorbed, ipso facto, increasing global temperatures as excessive levels of CO2 blanket and trap heat. This is a fatal formula for life on Earth, just ask sister planet Venus, 95% CO2 atmosphere, surface temperature 870°F, which melts lead.

It should be noted that Arctic News has a reputation for taking the more extreme view of where climate change is headed, but it should also be noted that it” footnotes a lot of peer-reviewed climate science,” albeit taken to an extreme conclusion, which happens to be the prospect of an oncoming “extinction event” with climate change a wild stallion that can’t be tamed.

It’s difficult to ignore heightened concern of the property/casualty insurance industry alongside Arctic News both publicly exposing a rapidly descending climate system that’s literally changing the landscape of property ownership, starting with coastal properties and working inland, as homeowners find insurance premiums, if available where they reside, squeezing throats, stated as such in the following quote from the insurance industry article included herein: “The insurance industry has historically managed these risks. But we are fast approaching temperature levels 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks. The math breaks down: the premiums required exceed what people or companies can pay. This is already happening. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable. (See: State Farm and Allstate exiting California’s home insurance market due to wildfire risk, 2023).”

Already, the climate crisis that started on the West Coast is spreading fast: The Home Insurance Crisis Hits the US Heartland, Business Insider, April 6, 2025.

It was only a couple of months ago when James Hansen (Columbia – Earth Institute) said 2C is dead: Climate Change Target of 2C is ‘Dead’ says Renowned Climate Scientist, The Guardian, Feb. 4, 2025. If medals are ever awarded for correct calls, James Hansen, Ph.D. gets the gold medal for the following: Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate, The New York Times, June 24, 1988. He nailed it!

The insurance article insinuation of “entire regions becoming uninsurable,” standing alone, should be enough motivation to turn the screws of climate change mitigation efforts to whatever level necessary at whatever costs! Who cares how much a Worldwide Marshall Plan to ‘hopefully’ control radical climate change costs? The alternative is unspeakable, and there’s little time to waste.

Now that the insurance industry is feeling the wrath of numerous climate change warnings issued by Arctic News over many years, it may be a good idea to at least consider what the extreme publication has to say.

Here’s the Arctic News’ summation of climate change:

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.

Climate Emergency in bold red letters is how Arctic News sees the current situation.

As for the property/casualty insurance industry: “There is only one path forward: Prevent any further increase in atmospheric energy levels. That means keeping emissions out of the atmosphere.” So far, this solution is not even close to working as CO2 emissions are currently cranking up faster than ever before, knocking on the door of the 430 ppm danger zone, which is starting to look like a cake walk.

You’re underinsured!

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This article was originally published on May 2, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Climate Change Kills Capitalism

Photo by Jon Tyson is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Jon Tyson is licensed by Unsplash

Climate Change Kills Capitalism

By Robert Hunziker

Capitalism, like Antarctica and like the Amazon rainforest, is under threat of destruction by excessive levels of CO2 emissions which cause radical climate change. Risk of some level of extinction of capitalism goes to the heart of a recent article written by Gunther Thallinger, Member of the Board of Management of Allianz Group (est. 1889, Munich) the world’s largest insurance company: Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism d/d March 25, 2025.

Mr. Thallinger’s provocative article starts by spelling out the relationship between CO2 emissions and “the amount of energy” trapped in the atmosphere, which is one way of saying “global warming trapped in the atmosphere,” as he draws a direct link between the two.

Mr. Thallinger spells out the risks: “These extreme weather phenomena drive direct physical risks to all categories of human-owned assets—land, houses, roads, power lines, railways, ports, and factories. Heat and water destroy capital. Flooded homes lose value. Overheated cities become uninhabitable. Entire asset classes are degrading in real time, which translates to loss of value, business interruption, and market devaluation on a systemic level.”

If this is how a board member of the world’s largest insurance company views risks to capitalism’s asset structure, then the world’s capitalist’s chieftains should seriously consider altering the destructive nature of climate change asap by omitting CO2 emissions.

Thallinger explains the risks to capitalism’s markets: “The insurance industry has historically managed these risks. But we are fast approaching temperature levels 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks. The math breaks down: the premiums required exceed what people or companies can pay. This is already happening. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable.”

Risks of Climate-induced Credit Crunch

Accordingly, “This is not a one-off market adjustment. This is a systemic risk that threatens the very foundation of the financial sector. If insurance is no longer available, other financial services become unavailable too. A house that cannot be insured cannot be mortgaged. No bank will issue loans for uninsurable property. Credit markets freeze.”

Thallinger goes on to explain how excessive climate change damages capitalism to “climate-driven market failure.” Nothing could be a weirder coincidence than capitalism self-destroying via the genesis of industrialization powered by oil.

Solutions to climate change are difficult beyond halting fossil fuel emissions, full stop. For instance, state support where insurance fails to cover damage is not a realistic option as multiple climate-related disasters strain public budgets beyond acceptance by taxpayers. Consequently, multiple climate disasters ultimately lead to either governmental austerity or collapse. There is no in-between and neither option is satisfactory for a vibrant capitalistic economy.

As for adaptation to climate change, Thallinger does not see any easy ways out, claiming “the false comfort of adaptation” as one more downside to the global warming complexity. “There is no way to ‘adapt’ to temperatures beyond human tolerance.” And adaptation, by definition, is limited with mega fires and cities built on flood plains. There are no easy answers.

By implication, Thallinger assumes 3°C of warming is on deck as he states the situation is “locked in once 3°C is reached,” admitting there is no turning back due to carbon cycle inertia and absence of scalable industrial carbon removal technologies. “At that point, risk cannot be transferred (no insurance), risk cannot be absorbed (no public capacity), and risk cannot be adapted to (physical limits exceeded). That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.”

In conclusion, Thallinger says we must burn less carbon and/or capture it at the point of combustion. Meanwhile, the technology to switch out of fossil fuels is extant, solar, wind, battery storage, green hydrogen are scalable solutions. What’s missing is “speed and operating scale.” Although, some scientists believe ‘time is fast running out,” maybe too fast.

However, Thallinger does not mention the biggest impediment to solving the climate change imbroglio, politics. The U.S., normally the world leader for global scale issues, has bowed out of the fixit climate change race. The U.S. is promoting more CO2 emissions via increased oil & gas drilling and additional coal production in addition to dramatically downsizing the EPA and NOAA, which are key agencies to solving the climate change imbroglio all of which is the opposite of what Thallinger recommends to save capitalism.

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This article was originally published on April 21, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Synchronized Global Climate Breakdown

Photo by Melissa Bradley is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Melissa Bradley is licensed by Unsplash

Synchronized Global Climate Breakdown

By Robert Hunziker

The world has entered a new climate era that threatens the fabric of civilization because it’s the reverse of the climate system that society was built upon. As it happens, the biosphere is starting to unravel as the world’s long-standing normal climate system shows clear signs of breaking down while planetary heat throws scientists a curve ball. The normal climate system behavior over the decades is gone.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (which Trump cannot cripple like NOAA) on a global basis the past year was the hottest in the 175-year observational record with record-setting ocean heat and record-setting sea-level rise. Ninety percent (90%) of global warming is hidden from society absorbed by the oceans. Remarkably, the world’s oceans broke temperature records every single day for 12-months-running. (BBC). Now it’s gotten so excessive that scientists are worried about “payback.”

Everything is on the line, major ecosystems like Antarctica and the Amazon rainforest are regurgitating years of abuse; only recently, West Antarctica was rushed to Red Alert status by freaked-out polar scientists, and large swaths of the Amazon rainforest emit CO2 in competition with cars, trains and planes for the first time in human history, as rainfall at Summit Station (10500’ elevation) has been a strange eerie twist for Greenland. This is climate breakdown in full living color.

A recent article in Science/Alert d/d April 9, 2025 is filled with examples warning of climate breakdown: ‘Exceptional’ – Ongoing Global Heat Defies Climate Predictions.

Weird stuff that never happened thoroughout human history is happening to the climate system. For example, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service, since July 2023, the world has sustained a near-unbroken streak of record-breaking temperatures by the month every month, e.g. March 2025 was the hottest March ever recorded for the European Continent. And every month for the past 21 months has exceeded the dreaded 1.5C upper limit, to wit: “March was 1.6C above pre-industrial times, extending an anomaly so unusual that scientists are still trying to fully explain it. That we’re still at 1.6 °C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,’ said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.” (Science/Alert)

It wasn’t so long ago when climate scientists thought exceeding global 1.5C above pre-industrial, labeled as the “danger zone” by the IPCC, would take decades. Guess what? It’s early!

Repercussions of Climate Breakdown – Worldwide

Anomalous/abnormal climate behavior is now the new normal. Extraordinary climate events from all corners of the world recently happened within a tight window of only 30 days of each other, events classified as either the worst ever or all-time record or unprecedented or once in 100 years, etc. Today, the planet is like a movie script entitled Climate Breakdown with climate disasters all happening all at the same time regardless of location or season. It’s a whacky script with people on the run, searching for a safe place.

In real life, evidence of this gonzo climate system is everywhere to be found, e.g., in March 2025 different parts of the European Continent experienced “the driest March on record” as other parts of the Continent experienced “the wettest March on record.” At the same time as Europeans didn’t know which end was up, climate change hit India, enduring record-setting scorching heat as Australia was swamped by all-time-record-smashing floods whilst Asia and South America hit new all-time records of devasting heat. This weird global climate system is off its rocker in synchronized fashion. Why is this happening? Human-generated burning of fossil fuels is at the heart of far too many concurrent global climate disasters to ignore any longer the necessity of sharp reductions in burning fossil fuels or suffer an explosive planet. Nothing is normal any longer. Get over it!

The following headlines are evidence of simultaneous, happening within 30 days of each other, record-breaking climate events across the globe (of note: not including Antarctica, which is clearly, and frighteningly, starting to breakdown in an “emergency mode” as is the world-famous Amazon rainforest and Arctic permafrost and Greenland:

Bigger Than Texas: The True Size of Australian’s Devasting Floods, The Guardian, April 4, 2025 “The extent of flood waters that have engulfed Queensland over the past fortnight is so widespread it has covered an area more than four times the size of the United Kingdom. The inundation is larger than France and Germany combined – and is even bigger than Texas.”

Dry Topsoil Across Germany Could Impact Crop Yields Following March Dry Spell, Clean Energy Wire, April 11, 2025.

Floods Batter Italy after Florence Sees a Month’s Rainfall in One Day, The Watchers, March 16, 2025. “Red alerts were in effect across Italy, including Florence and Pisa, following an extreme flooding event that triggered multiple landslides and caused widespread damage.”

Heavy Rains Hit Spain for Third Consecutive Week, Reuters, March 18, 2025. “Spaniards are still on edge after torrential rains four months ago in the eastern Valencia region led to the country’s deadliest natural disaster in decades.”

Record-breaking March Heat Reminds Us That Adaptation Cannot Wait, The Indian Express, March 20, 2025.

Record Heatwaves Hits South America: Urgent Call for Climate Action, Green.org, March 5, 2025. “This year has witnessed South America endure its hottest recorded temperatures, with some regions experiencing heat levels never seen before. Countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay are reporting temperatures soaring above 40°C (104°F). This isn’t just uncomfortable—it poses serious health risks and disrupts daily life.”

Extraordinary March Heatwave in Central Asia up to 10° C Hotter in Warming Climate, World Weather Attribution, April 4, 2025. “In March 2025, Central Asia experienced an unusually intense heatwave, with temperatures reaching record highs across the region.”

In the U.S, tornadoes in March were more than double the monthly average and three separate outbreaks produced more than 200 tornadoes. (National Centers for Environmental Information, March 2025) More to the point, from March 13th to 16th, 2025 the tornado outbreak was the largest on record for the month of March. Meanwhile, wildfires spread across southern Appalachia, exacerbated by additional fuel available from downed trees following Hurricane Helene (est. costs up to $250 billion). It’s a fact: Warmer ocean waters, a direct result of climate change, fuel stronger hurricanes with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more destructive storm surges. Hmm.

As stated in Science/Alert by Bill McGuire, climate scientist, University College London, the contrasting extremes “shows clearly how a destabilized climate means more and bigger weather extremes… As climate breakdown progresses, more broken records are only to be expected.” (Science/Alert)

Therefore, it’s fair to pose a nagging proposition of what happens when more all-time records continue to pile up one after another to what end? What is that end? And what can be done to stop the relentless pounding of harmful climate extremes? Maybe world leaders need to confront this reality by summoning climate scientists. But will Trump summon climate scientists for advice on how the US can help slow down the biggest, fiercest freight train in all human history barreling down the mountainside?

And what’s to stop this madness?
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This article was originally published on April 18, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Will the U.S. Build Seawalls?

Photo by Parker Hilton is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Parker Hilton is licensed by Unsplash

Will the U.S. Build Seawalls?

By Robert Hunziker

Antarctica is coming apart, crumbling into the sea, much, much faster than anybody ever thought possible. After all, it was only a couple of months ago when polar scientists called an extraordinary emergency meeting to discuss shocking developments: “Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea level rise is possible within our lifetimes.” (Source: Our Science, Your Future: Next Generation of Antarctic Scientists Call for Collaborative Action, Australian Antarctic Research Conference, November 22, 2024).

Another more recent new study using data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program is now overshadowing those panicky voices of polar scientists in November 2024. The new study should rattle the cages of every political leader in the world: “This simultaneous decline across both poles reinforces fears that Earth’s polar regions may be undergoing synchronized climate destabilization.” (Antarctica’s 2025 Sea Ice Collapse Shocks Scientists and Raises Fears of a New Climate Normal, Daily Galaxy, April 3, 2025)

“While Antarctica’s summer ice was hitting rock bottom, the Arctic was also seeing near-record-low winter ice… with multiple low-ice years piling up, the question of whether this represents a tipping point is gaining traction in the scientific community.” Ibid.

Irreversibility of Cascading Ice Sheets

The tools that once revealed subtle changes in Antarctica are now capturing dramatic losses, lending weight to concerns that Antarctica’s sea ice system is approaching irreversibility. The polar scientists’ emergency meeting in November 2024 sent a chilling message to the world; “The experts’ conclusion, published as a press statement, is a somber one: if we don’t act, and quickly, the melting of Antarctica ice could cause catastrophic sea levels rise around the globe.” (Source: Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss, Earth.com, Nov. 24, 2024)

“Truth be known, before very long we’ll see cities inundated and catastrophic flooding events, especially in low-lying coastal cities. All of these changes, we can plot them and if we look exponentially, we see really catastrophic effects in the next few years, certainly in the next decade or two the world will be completely different than it is now.” (Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus, Ocean Physics, Cambridge University, author of A Farewell to Ice; A Report from the Arctic )

Extensive research into how to stop this cascading freight train barreling down the mountainside concludes that the only salvation that’ll work soon enough is to stop burning fossil fuels, for example, gasoline-powered cars.

Building Sea Walls?

“Last year, when the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a vast network of seawalls and gates to shield NY and New Jersey Harbor, it argued that the fifty-three-billion dollar ($53B) project was a very good deal, although it ‘will not totally eliminate flood risks’ in the area, it would cost much less than repairing the city after every storm, Hurricane Sandy caused an estimated nineteen billion dollars in damage to NYC alone.” (Source: Can Sea Walls Save Us? The New Yorker, Nov. 5, 2023) Alas, $53B “will not totally eliminate flood risks.”

Across the globe, there is no organized worldwide mitigation plan underway to prevent both poles from crashing much faster and faster yet, which requires an immediate stop to burning fossil fuels. Good luck with that! Therefore, massive flooding is almost guaranteed to hit the world’s coastal megacities, like Miami, New York, and London. But nobody knows how soon, which, in and of itself, dictates taking immediate action to fund, engineer, start building seawalls, tall seawalls.

According to the above-referenced polar scientists’ emergency meeting: “The services of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica — oceanic carbon sink and planetary air-conditioner — have been taken for granted. Global warming-induced shifts observed in the region are immense. Recent research has shown record-low sea ice, extreme heatwaves exceeding 40°C (72°F) above average temperatures, and increased instability around key ice shelves. Shifting ecosystems on land and at sea underscore this sensitive region’s rapid and unprecedented transformations. Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea-level rise is possible within our lifetimes. Whether such irreversible tipping points have already passed is unknown.”

That paragraph contains the formula for rising sea levels beyond anybody’s imagination!

According to Earth.org, coastal megacities are at serious risk, e.g., Bangkok, Amsterdam, Ho Chi Minh City, Cardiff (UK), New Orleans, Manila, London, Shenzhen, Hamburg, and Dubai as well as megacities Miami and New York City. Many Florida and East Coast cities are high risk, e.g., Ft. Lauderdale, Norfolk, Hampton, Charleston, Cambridge, Jersey City, Chesapeake, Boston, Tampa, Palm Beach. It’s a long list.

What’s the likelihood of the Trump administration building seawalls to protect coastal cities? It can’t happen soon enough.

In the year 2020: Trump Blocked Over Plans to Build Wall Around Irish Golf Resort, CNN World, March 12, 2020: “Donald Trump’s hopes to protect his coastal Irish golf resort from erosion with a protective wall have been dashed by planning authorities.”

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This article was originally published on April 7, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Senator Whitehouse’s/Climate Crisis/Property Insurance/Re Collapse Scenario

Photo by Breno Assis is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Breno Assis is licensed by Unsplash

Senator Whitehouse’s Climate Crisis/Property Insurance/RE Collapse Scenario

By Robert Hunziker

Real estate has become climate change’s biggest victim. Climate change is attacking America’s most valuable, biggest asset class. For the first time in history there are regions of the country where major property insurers have dropped coverage altogether as elsewhere rates are on the climb, pricing some buyers out of the market.

America’s politicians punted on tackling climate change decades ago, except for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has masterfully delivered more than 290 “Time to Wake Up” climate speeches to the Senate, calling out deniers and demanding bold action. If Congress had been composed of “Whitehouse intellect,” the world climate system would be in much better shape today. And not threatening the American Dream of Homeownership.

At a Senate confirmation hearing for Trump appointee Michael Faulkender as Deputy Treasury Secretary, Senator Whitehouse opened up all firing cylinders, blasting away like there’s no tomorrow, which may be where we’re headed after listening to the senator’s scolding rendition of how Congress has failed climate change impacting the financial system and US economy. In short, climate change is raising hell with the financial system as US property insurance goes up in flames.

In his opening remarks, the senator referenced “very dark economic storm clouds on the horizon,” because of climate change which the administration cannot seriously address because massive political funding has made it “an article of faith to deny climate change,” in fact, claiming “it’s a hoax.” This perverse attitude is now holding America’s homeowner’s hostage.

Interestingly, over past decades, scientists have gotten it right, even the Exxon scientists got it right, meaning, fossil fuel emissions (CO2) cause climate change. Nevertheless, Congress has failed to act because of pressure by fossil fuel interests, including the “largest campaign of disinformation that America has ever seen,” as dark money spills out all over the place. As a result, all serious bipartisan efforts on The Hill on climate change have been squelched. Poof!

Disinformation, disinformation, disinformation has been the guiding light of climate denialism. It’s a hoax; it’s a hoax; it’s a hoax; it’s fake news; it’s fake news, repetition creates fact.

As the senator and the Trump appointee discussed in a meeting beforehand in the senator’s office, the consequences of climate change are severe based upon professional risk judgement where fiduciary responsibly is considered. For example, the chief economist of Freddie Mac told committee hearings we are headed for a “property insurance collapse” that will cascade into a crash in coastal property values that will be so significant that it will cascade into the entire economy, same as 2008. That’s the warning on coastal properties. Additionally, wildfires have now added new property insurance risks that are far removed from coastal property. Climate change knows no boundaries as congressional ineptness and timidity to challenge it clobbers American homeownership.

Senator Whitehouse offered one example after another of how climate change is undermining the financial system of America. In a recent Senate banking committee hearing, the Fed Chairman said there will be “areas of the country where you can’t get a mortgage any longer” because of climate change; a very stern warning that something has to change.

Also, as related by the senator, the Financial Stability Board, the entity that warns the international banking system of impending issues gives the same warning that “property insurance has become a major risk to the survival of the economic system.”

And even closer to home base, meaning Congress itself, a recent bipartisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) report identified fires, floods and climate change in toto, threatening to undermine our financial system. Yet, Congress ignores its own warnings.

And The Economist magazine cover story in April 2024 depicted climate damage undermining insurance markets and threatening the biggest asset class in the world, RE. predicting a 25 trillion dollar hit to RE because of climate change.

Senator Whitehouse: “The lie that climate change is a hoax is no longer just an act of political malfeasance. It is now an act of economic malfeasance.” Climate change is hitting America’s pocketbooks throughout the country like an early summer thunderstorm crackling in the sky.

The financial/Wall Street/economic impending upside down collapse due to radical climate change should be item number one on Congress’s docket to do whatever is necessary, but it’s not even given a glancing look. Yet, the insurance industry is feeling the heat; homeowners are feeling the heat. Mortgage companies are feeling the heat. And Wall Street is starting to feel the heat. Can the Trump climate hoax syndrome, “ignore it, it’s not real… it’s fake news” hold up in the face of extremely severe financial strain impacting the world’s largest asset class, real estate?

“President Trump issued an executive order aimed at dismantling many of the key actions that have been undertaken at the federal level to address climate change. The order, ‘Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.” (Trump Issues Executive Order on Climate Change, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School)

Nobody’s Insurance Rates Are Safe From Climate Change, Yale Climate Connections, January 14, 2025.

Property Values to Crater Up to 60% Due to Climate Change, Business Insider, Aug. 9, 2024.

U.S. Department of the Treasury Report: Homeowners Insurance Costs Rising, Availability Declining as Climate-Related Events Take Their Toll, U.S. Department of the Treasury, January 16, 2025.

Next to Fall: The Climate-driven Insurance Crisis is Here – And Getting Worse, Senate Budget Committee, Dec. 18, 2024.

Climate Risk Will Take Trillion-dollar Bite Out of America’s Real Estate, Report Finds, USA Today, Feb. 7, 2025.

Homeowners Insurance Sector Slammed by Climate Impacts, Insurance Business America, May 14, 2024.

Climate Change Is Coming for U.S. Property Prices, Heatmap News, Feb. 3, 2025.

Insurers Are Deserting Homeowners as Climate Shocks Worsen, The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2024.

Climate Resiliency Flips the Housing Market Upside Down, Forbes, Feb. 20, 2025.

Climate Change Set to Lower Home Prices, Business Insider, Feb. 4, 2025.

How Climate Change Could Upend the American Dream, Propublica, Feb. 3, 2025.

Climate Change to Wipe Away $1.5 Trillion in U.S. Home Values, Study Says, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 3, 2025.

Opinion: That Giant Sucking Sound? It’s Climate Change Devouring Your Home’s Value, The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2025.

How and Where Climate Change Will Lower U.S, Home Values, Context News, Feb. 10, 2025.

Climate Change Is Driving an Insurance Crisis, The Equation – Union of Concerned Scientists, June 19, 2024.

Risky Real Estate: How Climate Risk is Changing Prices, Medium, March 3, 2025.

At Least 20% of U.S. Homes Will be De-Valued Due to Climate Change, Says DeltaTerra CEO Dave Burt, CNBC, Feb. 19, 2025.

Climate Change is Fueling the US Insurance Problem, BBC, March 18, 2024.

US Housing Market May Face Losses Due to Climate Change, Realty, Feb. 21, 2025.

Nearly Half of U.S. Homes Face Severe Threat from Climate Change, Study Finds, CBS News, March 13, 2024.

The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System, The New York Times, May 15, 2024.

The Climate Crisis Will End Home Ownership as We Know It and Eventually Crash the Economy, Splinter, Jan. 8, 2025.

Fake news?

The big question going forward is whether climate change’s real estate devaluation, which impacts every American household, will take MAGA down to its knees, drowning its lameness in a sea of turbulent financial chaos followed by a massive irrepressible political tsunami payback event that cleanses the nation of lies?
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This article was originally published on March 24, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Discovery of Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica

Photo by Unseen Histories is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Unseen Histories is licensed Unsplash

Discovery of Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica

By Robert Hunziker

A new discovery of methane leaks in Antarctica could be a game-changer and potential near-term threat that’s difficult to characterize without sounding overly negative. Of course, situations like this that appear threatening to civilization, or life as we know it, are difficult to believe and accept as something that will really happen, which is understandable because nothing in human history compares to the risk attendant to the dreaded runaway greenhouse effect. So, there’s nothing in human history to compare it to.

Nevertheless, there are scientists who believe we are living on borrowed time because of massive changes happening at the top and at the bottom of the planet where only scientists and Indigenous people hang out. Now, this new discovery serves to emphasize their concerns of a climate monster capable of altering everything, lurking in the background.

The threat is explained in a YouTube video: Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica: A Hidden Climate Theat Unveiled by Phantom Ecology, which is headed by Milton Muldrow, Ph.D. asst. professor at Wilmington University and Chair/College of Arts & Sciences.

As a prelude to this new information, it’s important to note that Russian scientists have been monitoring the risks of methane breakouts in the High Arctic for a couple of decades and have voiced concern about the risks of a sudden burst as undersea methane clathrates increasingly melt, bubbling to surface in ever-larger diameters, which they have measured. As it happens, methane (CH4) is many times more potent than CO2 at trapping excessive global heat.

Additionally, the risk of a methane breakout is mentioned by Peter Wadhams, emeritus professor, Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge, in his celebrated, brilliant interview: The Future of Sea Level Rise: “Russian scientists working the region believe a huge pulse of methane could erupt.” This could crank up global temperatures to ultra-dangerous levels in as little as 2-3 years. The consequences would be unspeakable. And with Antarctica joining, the game changes.

As a science researcher/writer of over 400 articles, this new development is extraordinarily spooky and difficult to accept because the consequences feel way too close for comfort. Stated at the opening of the Phantom Ecology video: “Deep beneath the icy plains of Antarctica, a slumbering giant is beginning to stir. Scientists have made a startling discovery. Vast reservoirs of methane hydrates locked away for millennia are showing signs of instability.”

The finding sent ripples of concern throughout the world of science. The consequences for the planet could be quite dangerous, maybe sooner rather than later. Rising plumes of methane (CH4) near the Antarctic Peninsula raises a major concern that trapped methane will be released into the atmosphere, exacerbating an already dire situation of accelerating global temperatures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Maginot line of 1.5C above pre-industrial not to be exceeded as framed at the Paris 2015 climate conference by nearly all the nations of the world is kaput. To date, global temperatures have been exceeding that level for nearly two years running.

Meanwhile, world famous climate scientist James Hansen (Earth Institute, Columbia University) says 2C is on the horizon. “The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead” (Climate Change Target of 2C is ‘Dead’ Says Renonwed Climate Scientist, The Guardian, Feb. 4, 2025). It’s a huge understatement to say this would be horrendous for Antarctic methane leaks, Arctic methane leaks, including Siberian methane leaks and Alaskan methane leaks, as well as Glacial methane leaks (see below “Methane Double Trouble” for another disturbing new discovery).

The volume of methane locked away in Antarctic ice is estimated to be more carbon than all other fuel deposits combined for the planet. A small fraction of this escaping into the atmosphere could have catastrophic consequences for the climate system “in the not-too-distant future.” (Muldrow)

A Climate Time Bomb

Methane hydrates consist of methane molecules trapped within a crystalline lattice of water molecules. This forms an ice substance that can ignite if brought to surface and lit with a match. According to the video: “Release of methane from these hydrates is a frightening prospect. Such a release could trigger a runaway greenhouse effect leading to rapid and catastrophic climate change.” Rapid onset of methane would bring sea levels rising at unprecedented rates, extreme weather events more frequently, and widespread disruptions/destruction to global ecosystems.

Muldrow’s analysis of the first time that large-scale CH4 emissions have been detected in Antarctica is confirmed by Polar Journal d/d March 2025: Large Methane Leaks Discovered in Antarctica: “A research team led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) and the Spanish Geological and Mining Institute (IGME-CSIC) undertook an expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula as part of the ICEFLAME project. The researchers returned on February 17 and have now reported the discovery of large methane leaks on the sea floor in an ICM publication. For the first time, they were able to observe that large quantities of methane are released from the seabed in a gaseous state where methane hydrates occur.”

Additionally, according to an article in Rapusia.org d/d March 14, 2025, Massive Methane Leaks Detected in Antarctica, Posing Serious Climate Risks: “A team aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa research vessel observed large columns of gas escaping from the ocean floor, with some extending up to 700 meters (2,300 feet) long and 70 meters (230 feet) wide.”

Methane Double Trouble

In addition to massive CH4 leaks discovered in Antarctica, up north in the Arctic scientists recently discovered Arctic glaciers leaking “significant amounts of methane,” revealed for the first time. As explained: “Glacial melt rivers and groundwater springs are transporting large volumes of methane from beneath the ice to the atmosphere. This previously unrecognized process could contribute to Arctic climate feedback, accelerating global warming.” (‘Glacial Fracking’: A Hidden Source of Arctic Greenhouse Gas Emissions, ScienceDaily, Feb. 19, 2025)

As a result, scientists now need to reassess methane budgets, incorporating glacial emissions alongside permafrost thaw and wetland methane fluxes. The complexities of multiple dangers of global warming continue to expand and merge in time. It now appears that both ends of the planet have turned dicey, risky, subject to sudden change all too soon for comfort and all together at the same time.  This could get very ugly; an article in Space.com deals with the issue of runaway global warming: How The Runaway Greenhouse Gas Effect Can Destroy a Planet’s Habitability — Including Earth’s, Space.com, December 19, 2023. Here’s the storyline: “Using advanced computer simulations, scientists have shown how easily a runaway greenhouse effect can rapidly transform a habitable planet into a hellish world inhospitable to life.”

Alas, as explained many times in prior articles, corporations, oil and gas operations, countries are all failing to honor commitments to mitigate climate change even before the U.S. reversed course on combating climate change under the Trump administration. This becomes infectious as Germany recently announced an intention to lessen its commitments. The timing could not be worse. The WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update once again issued a Red Alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. 2015-2024 will be the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world. (World Meteorological Organization)

Making matters more unnerving yet, according to Copernicus Global Climate Highlights 2024: “Each month from January to June 2024 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year. August 2024 equaled the record warmth of August 2023 and the remaining months from July to December were each the second warmest for the time of year, after the corresponding months in 2023.”

With a strong dose of humility, it’s suggested that the world’s leadership undertake all available efforts to confront this real, already started, threat to life on the planet via a super-duper Marshall Plan for the world. Alas, it’s almost assured that this suggestion will go unheeded, especially with consideration of the following headline in the prestigious science publication Nature d/d Feb. 25, 2025: Trump 2.0: An Assault on Science Anywhere is an Assault on Science Everywhere.

The climate system is not going to ring a bell before all hell breaks loose. It’ll happen out of the blue, temperatures relentlessly climbing month by month by month to intolerable levels, possibly already started, observed by Copernicus as stated above. Nobody has ever theorized, or even suggested, that it’s impossible for humanity to exterminate itself.
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This article was originally published on March 21, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Amazon Rainforest Cleared for Climate Conference

Photo by Ivars Utināns on Unsplash
Photo by Ivars Utināns on Unsplash

Amazon Rainforest Cleared for Climate Conference

By Robert Hunziker

This year’s annual UN climate conference COP30 with 50,000 expected attendees held in Belém, Brazil is one-upping the past two COPs (UN Conference of the Parties) that were held by, and dictated by, Middle Eastern fossil fuel countries, eye-openers that many eco-minded people, still to this day, cannot stomach. Now, Brazil is set to upstage the oil sheiks by bulldozing tens of thousands of acres of “protected rainforest” to build a 4-lane highway to “help reduce traffic” during the two-week conference. This is not made-up. It is true.

The new highway smack-dab down the middle of thick rainforest is known as Avenida Liberdade (English translation: Avenue of Liberty, oh please!) According to the Brazilian government it has “sustainability in mind” with solar lights, bike lanes, and animal crossings so, hopefully, attendees will catch a glimpse of a roaming jaguar, a top predator in the Amazon moseying along glancing at and growling at passing automobiles. If only attendees get lucky enough to take a photo of the jaguar growling, showing teeth, to show friends back home how they faced danger in the rainforest. Venturesomeness and courageousness will be celebrated.

In a statement reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four term “newspeak,” meaning propagandistic language characterized by euphemism and circumlocution, as reported by BBC News: “The focus of COP30, according to the host country, Brazil, will be ‘Uniting for our Forests.’ It is their hope that this year’s conference will be a first step to advance and unite climate and biodiversity agendas.” Really?

In lighthearted fashion, BBC commented: “The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.” (Amazon Forest Felled to Build Road for Climate Summit, BBC News, March 11, 2025) Oh really, no kidding!

And the Brazilian government, cranking up newspeak to a higher pitch yet, claims: “The Brazilian president and environment minister say this will be a historic summit because it is ‘a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon,’ The president says the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world, and present what the federal government has done to protect it,” Ibid.

The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest – spanning 6.9 million square kilometres (2.72 million square miles) across nine countries and covering around 40% of the South American continent. Making up half of the planet’s remaining tropical forests, the forest is also one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems, home to about three million species of plants and animals and 1.6 million indigenous people. The forest is also an important regulator of weather cycles, owing to its cooling effect and its contribution to rainfall and moisture supply in the region, and it is one of the world’s largest natural carbon sinks, absorbing and storing an amount of carbon equivalent to 15 to 20 years of global CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. (Source: Up to 47% of Amazon Rainforest at Risk of Collapse by Mid-Century Due to ‘Unprecedented Stress’ From Global Warming and Deforestation, Earth.org, Feb. 15, 2024)

Here’s what COP30 should handout to the 50,000 attendees: The Amazon Rainforest is at risk of exceeding tipping points leading to a death spiral for up to 47% of the forest within the next several decades because of a combination of climate change related drivers of severe stress. According to research in Nature: “The region is increasingly exposed to unprecedented stress from warming temperatures, extreme droughts, deforestation and fires, even in central and remote parts of the system,” the study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, read, adding that crossing potential critical thresholds – or tipping points – might trigger “local, regional, or even biome-wide forest collapse” and knock-on effects for regional climate change. Once we cross this tipping point, we will lose control of how the system will behave,” said ecologist Bernardo Flores of the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, lead author of the report. “The forest will die by itself.” (Nature)

Moreover, a 2021 study found that the Amazonian region had turned into a carbon emitter, in competition with cars, trains, airplanes, and industry. According to the 2021 study, the forest emits about one billion tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to the annual emissions released in Japan, the world’s fifth-biggest polluter.

Prior to human-generated CO2 from fossil fuels, which traps heat, the Amazon rainforest was a net carbon sink for millennia. Now, it’s joining the global warming/extreme drought onslaught. Drought Leaves Amazon Basin Rivers at All-time Low, BBC News, Sept. 18,2024. Additionally, and of consequence for the world at large, the Amazon is not alone, Europe’s rivers ran almost completely dry in 2022. In places, the Loire could be crossed on foot; France’s longest river never flowed so slowly. The Rhine was nearly impassable to barge traffic. In Italy, the Po was 2 metres lower than normal, crippling crops. As Serbia dredged the Danube.

COP30 attendees hopefully take notice and focus on the blatant fact that these recurring bouts of severe drought throughout the world are happening more frequently and with much more gusto or destructiveness. For example: China Drought Causes Yangtze to Dry Up, Sparking Shortage of Hydropower, The Guardian, Aug. 22, 2022. The only solution to recurring bouts of increasingly more severe droughts caused by overheating the planet is to stop burning fossil fuels. Science is nearly 100% on this.

Aa for the Amazon rainforest: According to researchers, the only way to avoid biome-wide collapse is to limit deforestation to 10% of the forest’s total cover, restore at least 5% of the biome, and limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement target. In other words, since the world is far removed from those data points, and headed in the opposite direction with increasing speed, Avenida Liberdade is a posterchild for the collapse of the Amazon rainforest.
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This article was originally published on March 14, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Deniers and Insurance Premiums Both Surge

Photo by Joel200716 is licensed by CC BY 4.0
Photo by Joel200716 is licensed by CC BY 4.0

Deniers & Insurance Premiums Both Surge

By Robert Hunziker

Climate change deniers are experiencing a renaissance, especially on social media.

In concert with this upswing in denialism, home insurance premiums are skyrocketing, or coverage is dropped altogether, a problem in coastal states.

Indeed, it’s noteworthy that American real estate is the largest asset class in the world valued at $43.5 trillion that’s challenged for the first time by a bonkers climate system that’s unwelcome and delivering its worst of worst, e.g., firestorms for the ages. The question of the year: Do home insurance companies suddenly have rubber legs. Yes, they likely do because of radically destructive climate change, too much CO2 belching from burnt fossil fuel ultimately causes these kinds of horrible events, LA Fires.

And the climate change issue is much more than simply an argument over whether CO2 is really caused by how society operates and blankets the Earth, heating things up, manmade, but it’s not, because as the deniers claim: “climate always changes.” That’s roughly the simplistic angle the deniers take, it’s not us humans! But climate change, the bad kind, is so obvious that failure to address it is only possible in a society so shallow with such a meaningless value system that it cannot see beyond its nose. And worshipping materialism doesn’t heal the shallowness of anti-cultural anti-humanistic behavior.

On a deeper level yet, the shadow of neoliberalism’s utter destruction of class structure, the whole enchilada of free market dictates of socio/economic materialism at its ugliest, leads to a shallow value system that can’t see beyond its next purchase. In sharp contrast Classical Greek civilization treasured advancements in philosophy, art, architecture, literature, debate, and theater, not the newest millionaire of the day. They’d laugh.

Cultural voids in society are filled by materialistic self-interests that typically have no vision, no long-term outlook beyond what can be consumed today. A threatening climate is too slow to come into vision for such makeup.

Climate change denial and homeownership insurance are interrelated as forces of the same threat that gets worse by the year, every year. It’s a monster in its own right. A new study has uncovered the sources that poison social media with falsehoods. (The study: Networks of Climate Obstruction: Discourses of Denial and Delay in US Fossil Energy, Plastic, and Agrichemical Industries, PLOS, January 15, 2025.)

This is happening within the context of a disruptive climate system that regularly appears on nightly news programs via images of flash floods overturning cars or all-powerful “atmospheric river” instantaneous flooding, as globally 2024 had the most floods in human history and the onset of ginormous wildfires destroying entire communities while wiping out forests, e.g., Canada’s 29 mega fires of 2023. None of these climate events are normal.

Society can handle “normal” but it risks going over cliff’s edge along with busting apart America’s all-important home insurance industry with today’s brand of climate change; it’s brutal! At the same time, denialism is more pronounced than ever before. In the face of a turbulent climate system that needs clearheaded mitigation policies, social media has become a climate denial echo chamber.

How/why this happens in the face of a global climate system that’s gone off the rails is now exposed. But, in truth, shouldn’t rational humans be finding ways to mitigate threats to life-supporting ecosystems? And shouldn’t the people behind low-life groveling in the dirt be publicly humiliated and whipped?

Meanwhile, according to an outstanding research effort by DeSmog, the international journalism organization that focuses on climate change, a major new study has identified the poisoning of social media. (New Study Shows How Fossil Fuel Sectors Created a Climate Denial Echo Chamber on Social Media, DeSmog, Jan. 15, 2025)

“Research finds signs of ‘coordinated climate obstruction efforts’ among oil, plastics, and agrichemical industries in social media messaging,” Ibid.

What could be worse, lowlier, than major corporate lobbyists/representatives, interconnected to fossil fuel use and loaded with stacks of money to spend controlling the narrative of whether climate change is the real thing or not! Wow! And they denigrate it! This gangster-type corporate ganging up altogether to deep-six the climate change narrative is about as low as it gets. What are they running away from? What is scaring them so much? Not that denialism is a new thing, certainly, it’s not, but now they’ve put it on a scorched-earth trajectory.

The dangers of climate change have never been more severe or more obvious, and in the face of this extraordinary danger, the mainstays of production and foodstuff have conspired to work against the best interests of society. What has the world come to?

With science under attack like never before, in fact, since the Middle Ages, according to NASA: “The vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world. A list of these organizations is provided here.” (Do Scientists Agree on Climate Change? NASA Science)

The new study “found that all of the organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), were mentioned by at least four of the other groups – helping to essentially create an echo chamber for similar messages. The groups also frequently tagged regulators and the media in their posts, with researchers finding the Environmental Protection Agency was tagged 795 times and the Wall Street Journal, the most mentioned media organization, tagged 517 times out of more than 125,000 X posts.”

“Our study suggests that climate obstruction in different industries is more coordinated than is generally recognized,’ said co-author Jennie Stephens, professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at Northeastern University and of Climate Justice at the National University of Ireland Maynooth,” Ibid.

“This paper is interesting because it shows that the fossil fuel industry, plastics industry, and agricultural chemicals industry all promote forms of climate denial on social media, and their messages are largely aligned with each other,’ said Ben Franta, associate professor of climate litigation at the University of Oxford. ‘Is that alignment intentional? Are these industries engaging in a joint enterprise to deceive consumers and the public about petrochemical products and climate change?” Ibid.

The study included 15 years of tweets starting in 2008 before the past year’s election and the return to the presidency of Donald Trump, a longtime climate denier. According to Jennie Stephens of the Study group: “Obviously, we know that climate denial is not over. It’s come back as a strong force.”

According to Bloomberg news, as of January 17th, the Federal Reserve withdrew from the global climate coalition: “The Federal Reserve has withdrawn from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System, a global coalition of central banks engaged in the study of climate risk that was launched in 2017.”

Meanwhile, corporations have been dropping like flies from climate mitigation agreements (truth be known, it was greenwashing from the start) over the past two years as Middle Eastern oil producers hijack UN COPs (Conference of the Parties) initially designed to reign-in greenhouse gases like CO2. Moreover, fossil fuel interests have boldly expressed their intention to crank up oil and gas production over the same timeframe that the Paris ’15 climate agreement of 195 nations agreed to cut CO2 by 43% by 2030, which target, according to the UN, is off the mark by a country mile. According to UN Climate Action: Based upon national action plans in effect, the decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 will be 2.6%.  The word “outrageous” seems appropriate.

Now that the Federal Reserve Board has officially jumped off the green crusade, global warming has been officially turned lose to “go for it, full blast ahead.”

Although, by the time ugly repercussions of policy makers going deeper rogue than ever before hits home with the public, it’ll be too late to point fingers or the failures to act. By then, home insurance premiums will be one of the largest yearly expenses for homeowners. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: “Average homeowners insurance premiums have increased by 39 percent over the past seven years, and 15 percent in 2023 alone.”

It’s impossible to ignore the irony of the Fed dropping participation in the global climate coalition as a major branch of its 12-bank network reports on the drama of home ownership insurance premiums cranking up, exceeding the ongoing rate of inflation by a country mile because of the ravages of climate change.

It’s only too obvious that the prevailing issue going forward will be the point in time when climate change becomes too expensive for individual homeowners and not nearly rich enough for homeownership insurers. It’s almost there now and already there for many.

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This article was originally published on January 24, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Risks of Ecosystem Crash-Landings

Photo by Maksim Shutov is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Maksim Shutov is licensed by Unsplash

Risks of Ecosystem Crash-Landings

By Robert Hunziker

Biomes as well as individual ecosystems throughout the globe are experiencing considerable stress. As a researcher/writer since 2010 of more than 400 scientific-based articles, I am aware of what science says about the status of the planet’s ecosystems. Since reading hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, it’s not a pretty picture. Yet this is not obvious to the general public inasmuch as damaged ecosystems in large part due to excessive levels of greenhouse gases like CO2 initially show up where almost nobody lives, for example: (1) Antarctica (2) tropical rainforest (3) the oceans (4) Arctic permafrost, covering 25% of Northern Hemisphere landmass. Who lives there?

People who live in NYC or LA or Des Moines don’t see the genesis of a chaotic climate system. But they do see the aftereffects, such as (1) Unprecedented flooding –2024 global record for most floods ever (2) Unprecedented drought, especially the Amazon, which is partially dying (3) Unprecedented heat – exceeded the IPCC line-in-the-sand at +1.5C pre-industrial worldwide, much, much earlier than expected (4) Unprecedented wildfires – twice the loss of the forest tree cover of 20 years ago (5) Unprecedented storms/fires – home insurance rates skyrocket or dropped altogether on both coasts (6) Unprecedented sea level rise -doubled since satellite recordings started.

Nothing is normal any longer. There are no more one-in-100-year events, which statistically means a 1% chance of happening in any given year. Nowadays, it’s all current, no more 1% chances.

Interestingly, emails from readers of my articles address these unprecedented climate events and occasionally somebody with an advanced degree in science or engineering who works for a high-profile institution. One such email recently crossed my desk in response to the article Net Zero/2050, Fantasy or Reality d/d Jan. 10, 2025. That email, in particular, struck a chord because it comes from a senior person at one of the world’s most prestigious, and widely recognized, institutions, and as a bonus, it’s a superb summation of where things stand and where civilization is headed.

It is published herein in its entirety, no edits, no changes, the original email, as follows:

Your latest article (from the weekend edition of CP) – as always – is excellent!   I did notice an assumed subtext and one that permeates all discussions of ‘net-carbon-zero,’– which of course you know and have discussed before, but a fact that often stops people in their tracks during discussions of climate change and ‘mitigating actions’, the 1000 Giga-ton elephant in the room:

Even if we were to achieve net-zero, that would be barely the beginning of our mitigation efforts, as the entire 200-year past atmospheric over-loading is still present, and will remain present for generations, wreaking havoc.  And we are no-where near approaching a path toward ‘net-zero.’

Removing already released atmospheric carbon is 1000’s times more difficult than removing it at the source (or eliminating the source), as you have extensively and excellently discussed, despite what the Fossil Fuel cartels would have us believe – as you have also discussed.

When is it time to say ‘game-over?’ and admit that neo-liberal political systems that have metastatically over-taken most governments of the planet have no impetus to, nor intention of, stopping the ‘growth-forever’ economic model that has doomed us?  I believe the time is now to admit the obvious, that we have destroyed the climate in which we as a species (and most other species) have evolved, and have sent the atmosphere hurtling someplace else – most likely something resembling the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, of 55 million years ago, where no terrestrial creature bigger than a poodle survived, and the only habitable continent was Antarctica.  And that was with the ease of transition of several million years – a luxury current Earth biosystems won’t have.   Apparently, our rate of CO2 contamination outstrips the lead-up to the PETM by several orders of magnitude.  Humanity’s efforts seem to be effectively tripping all the Greenhouse Earth tipping points simultaneously and with breath-taking speed.

It has been said (and I don’t have the attribution) that the greatest intellectual failing of mankind is to not be able to comprehend the mathematical implications of the exponential function.  It is my own corollary aphorism that the second scariest place to live is to the left of an exponential knee.  The scariest place to be situated is to the right of the exponential knee.  And here we are at the former, staring blankly at our soon-to-be living-place in the latter.

There probably was a point in the 80’s, soon after Jim Hansen made his famous plea to Congress when – with dramatic action – we could have turned the ocean liner around.  No action (aside from grossly exacerbating action) has been taken.  From any rational engineering perspective, it’s ‘game over,’ the current CO2 loading is sending us to a bad place, there is nothing even remotely on the political/economic horizon that will mitigate the trends, and there is really nothing within our power to stop it in any case, we can’t pull the CO2 and methane back, the Earth herself is refusing to extract any more for us (or absorb any more heat either, for that matter) and is beginning to vomit it all back to us – with considerable interest on the principal to boot.  It’s game over.

I see a couple of benefits to making this admission.  First, it’s probably true.  Second, there’s a certain fairness to encouraging people to ponder the (likely) future.  There is a famous airliner disaster (true) story, of United Airlines Flight 232, in 1989, which crashed on emergency landing in Sioux City Iowa, killing roughly a third of the 300 passengers aboard (it being nearly miraculous that anyone survived).  Flight 232 works as a parable on a number of levels, from the standpoint of an undetected (at least admittedly) manufacturing defect in the blades of the GE fanjet engine to the absolute bone-head engineering mistake in the design of the DC-10’s air-surface control-line routings.  But mostly it is a parable in how Captain Al Haynes let the passengers know what they were about to experience.  In short, the fan-blade in the tail engine failed, sending shrapnel throughout the tail section, and in particular, one shard traced through the primary, secondary and even tertiary back-up hydraulic lines (which were bundled adjacent to one another).  All control-surface hydraulic fluid promptly drained from all lines, leaving Cpt. Haynes with no control of his wing or tail air-surface controls.  Through some of the most magnificent flying art in the history of aviation, Cpt. Haynes, using only throttle controls on the two remaining engines managed to maintain a tiny measure of control of the aircraft, and bring it to within fighting-distance of a landing at Sioux City.  As he approached the runway, at just below cruising speed (about 500 mph, because it was only at this speed that he could keep the nose up) he announced to the passengers that they were going to attempt something that had never been attempted before – a landing at nearly cruising speed.  With about a minute to go before the event, he told them that “this is not going to be a landing, this is going to be a crash.  This is going to be the very worst thing you have ever experienced.  I want you to prepare yourself.”

It’s ‘game over:’ this is going to be a crash.  This is going to be the very worst thing that mankind has ever experienced, and we need to prepare ourselves. Many, perhaps most will not survive, quite possibly there will be no human survivors. Our high-level technical civilization, with all of its delicately intertwined technical, economic, material, sociological channels and meta-stable intricacies will almost certainly not survive.  And we’re going to take much of the biosphere with us – it’s already happening, the sixth great extinction is underway and happening before our eyes.  People need to be able to make critical life decisions with clear-eyed focus on what is likely to happen within many of our lifetimes, about bringing more humans into the world, about selecting careers that serve their own interest vs. that of the destroying powers-that-be, or that builds upon the human intellectual edifice  that seems doomed to be a moot (and mute) monument to an extinct species and/or civilization in a very few years.   It is in the interests of the powers that be, who will continue and accelerate their raping and pillaging of the rest of us and the biosphere for their own narrow self-interest, to demand perpetual and accelerating ‘growth’, perpetual war, more human flesh for cannon fodder and slave-wage-minions, and most of all perpetual obscene profits.  It is in their interest to make us believe that they have the power to save us all, but they do not, they only have the power to make things much, much worse, as you well know and have well discussed.  They will continue to bask in obese luxury until the very end, unless the rest of us rise up to stop them and try desperately to create conditions for some sort of survival (which will be impossible with them continuing to be in charge).  But in order to know that such uprising is necessary, it has to become part of the public consciousness that humanity is about to crash in a hard and grisly fashion.  Technology and its mavens won’t save us, technology and its mavens have likely mortally wounded humanity, and people must become aware, and morally (and mortally) outraged about that fact.
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This article was originally published on January 17, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Net Zero/2050 Fantasy or Reality?

Photo is in the public domain.
Photo is in the public domain.

Net Zero/2050 Fantasy or Reality?

By Robert Hunziker

Net Zero/2050 Fantasy or Reality may be the most significant issue of the 21st century.

Net Zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG), such as CO2, that’s produced and the amount that’s removed from the atmosphere. It can be achieved through a combination of emission reduction and emission removal.

The relationship between CO2 and a warmer/hotter climate is basic science: For example, according to Climate.gov: “The relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) and global temperatures is directly proportional: As CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, so do global temperatures, primarily because CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the sun.”

If Net Zero/2050 is fantasy (false hope), the repercussions are unimaginable. The science is clear. Major ecosystems of the planet like Greenland, Antarctica, Arctic permafrost, and the Amazon rainforest are already severely stressed, right now, today. Climate Change is already doing its dirty work where nobody resides. There are hundreds of headlines in science journals, magazines, and research papers describing trouble with the world’s most important ecosystems.

Headline examples:

-Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss (Earth.org)

– Methane Bombs’ Release 30 Years Equivalent of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Risk Triggering Climate Catastrophe (Earth.org)

– Critical Slowing down of the Amazon Forest After Increased Drought Occurrence ( PNAS – National Academy of Sciences)

– Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination (Nature Communications)

–  A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought,’ The New York Times (The New York Times)

– Staggering Temperature Rise Predicted for the Middle East and North Africa: Some Parts of the Region, Which is Already Warming at the Same Rapid Rate as the Arctic, Could See up to 9 Degrees Celsius of Warming (Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmosphere)

To mitigate, or prevent, the ‘unimageable’, there are hundreds of well-intentioned publications about the pathway to Net Zero emissions by 2050. On balance, they talk favorably about reaching Net Zero by 2050, and these prognostications are found in science publications, economic papers, online sites, and pretty much everywhere, with a strong sense of accomplishment in the offing. Plans to achieve Net Zero/2050 seem to satisfy people in general, believing success is on-target, no worries. But reality tells a different story.

According to UN Climate Action: Based upon national action plans in effect, as of November 2024, the decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 will be 2.6%. But according to the Paris ’15 Agreement, a reduction of 43% from 2019 levels is required by 2030 to be on track for Net Zero/2050. That’s pathetically insignificant.

There are plenty of doubters about Net Zero/2050, especially in academia. The MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research published an analysis d/d October 2023. It’s one of many high-level studies: Is Net Zero a Possible Solution to the Climate Problem? A 14-page in-depth analysis: “This commentary explains why achieving global Net-zero is highly unlikely by any certain date and, even if achieved, will not necessarily solve the climate problem. The major obstacles to successful Net-zero are unpredictable, involve significant political issues, and are not easily described in econometric models.”

Meanwhile, as the world waits for Net Zero/2050, climate change clobbers the world over the past two years, 2023-24, setting new records galore, and just to think, Net Zero/2050 is still 25 years away. This despite western democracies such as the UK and Germany and Far Eastern countries like China making solid progress with renewables in 2023-24. Still, the drumbeat of higher CO2 emissions is relentless, higher than ever, and regrettably higher in the face of record-setting renewable installations but in harmony with consistently high oil production.

The amount of CO2 into the atmosphere is straight-forward and easily calculated because human machines like cars and power plants that burn fossil fuels are easily identified. For comparison purposes, 11 billion tons per year was emitted when JFK was president in the early 1960s. Whereas: “Total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are projected to be 41.6 billion tonnes in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tonnes last year. This includes fossil CO2 emissions of 37.4 billion, and the rest from land-use change (deforestation), according to the Global Carbon Budget., Ibid.

Never in human history has so much CO2 been emitted into the atmosphere as today. It’s overwhelming. What if a scientist in 1960, when CO2 emissions were 11 billion metric tons per year, predicted CO2 emissions 65 years hence would be 40 billion metric tons per year? It would’ve been labeled kooky, insane, madness!

As a result of today’s madness, i.e., 40B metric tons, global warming has negatively impacted Nature. The world’s major ecosystems are joining the greenhouse gas parade along with cars, trains, planes, and industry, with little respect for Net Zero targeting by 2050. The insanity of this strange concurrence is only too obvious.

Nature commands large reserves of carbon stored over millennia. For example, the Amazon stores an amount of carbon equivalent to 15–20 years of global CO2 emissions. A study published in the journal Nature found that the eastern Amazon has transitioned into a carbon source. This is global warming hard at work and a danger signal if ever there was one.

With Nature’s major ecosystems switching sides from GHG storehouses to GHG emitters, an x-factor comes into play. This is a serious challenge to Net Zero/2050, as the Amazon rainforest and Northern Hemisphere permafrost join alongside planes, trains, cars, and factories spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. Since time immemorial, these ecosystems have been the biggest absorbers of CO2, keeping the climate system in balance. Oops, suddenly that wonderful balancing act is out of kilter.

For example, Arctic permafrost covers 25% of the land mass of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s rapidly joining forces with human-generated emissions. (Northern Permafrost Region Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Captures, Eos, April 2024)

“Arctic permafrost stores nearly 1,700 billion metric tons of frozen and thawing carbon. Anthropogenic warming threatens to release an unknown quantity of this carbon to the atmosphere, influencing the climate in processes collectively known as the permafrost carbon feedback.” (Permafrost Carbon Emissions in a Changing Arctic, Nature, January 2022)

Theoretically, human machines can be altered to stop CO2 emissions, but how to stop nature’s ecosystems from going rogue?

There’s a fundamental truth to climate change that’s dictated by the physics of chemical compounds like CO2 composed of molecules. According to Global Greenhouse Gas Watch: “The long lifetime of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere locks in temperature increase for generations to come. Until we reach net zero CO2 emissions globally, world temperatures will continue to rise and cause increasingly severe impacts – as witnessed in 2024 and recent years.” (Record Carbon Emissions Highlight Urgency of Global Greenhouse Gas Watch, World Meteorological Organization – WMO- November 2024)

The WMO statement implies another 25 years of rising temperatures before Net Zero takes effect. Can society weather 25 years of increasing temperatures like what’s happened over the past couple of years?

The past two years have witnessed a brand-new spin on climate change based upon a chaotic climate system in 2023-24, proving climate change is dangerously real, and it’s here now: (1) Exceeded the dreaded +1.5°C pre-industrial target for over 12 months-running (a few years ago scientists thought this ‘might occur’ in decades, not in 2024) (2) Powerful storms damaging property as householder insurance rates skyrocket with dropped home coverage by several major insurance companies on both US coasts; climate change has chased 7 out of 12 major insurance companies out of states prone to global warming-enhanced wildfires (LA today- never seen anything like it) as well as coastal regions (3) Massive atmospheric river flooding events – setting new records for the most flood disasters of all-time, globally (4) Killer drought sequences in sensitive environments like the Amazon rainforest, slammed again and again and again since the year 2000, NASA says it no longer recovers (5) Enormous never witnessed before wildfires, especially Canada and Siberia (6) State of alarm over sudden breakup of Antarctic sea ice extent, 450 polar scientists hold emergency session in Australia.

Polar scientists’ solution: “Drastic action is necessary before it’s too late, calling for immediate reduction of emissions, CO2.”

And Net Zero 2050 is supposed to save us?

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This article was originally published on January 10, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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