by Robert Hunziker

Three years ago, 15,000 scientists declared a climate emergency by signing onto a State of the Climate Report. That signing led to annual updates, for example, the most recent version: The 2023 State of the Climate Report: Entering Uncharted Territory, Bioscience, vol. 73, issue 12, December 2023, Oxford Academic (aka: “The Report”).

The initial paragraph of The Report suggests a planetary juggernaut of cascading ecosystems altering life systems: “Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in uncharted territory… a situation no one has ever witnessed firsthand in the history of humanity.” Therefore, it’s fair to say nobody really knows how this uncharted territory will play out.

The Report is a compendium of all-time climate record events depicting big-time trouble, going in the wrong direction versus maintaining a healthy planet. In and of itself, the analysis in The Report, researched and authored by top notch scientists, should be enough for world policymakers to insist upon going back to COP28 in Dubai/2023, redoing the two-week UN climate conference and adopting effective solutions to replace the mealy-mouthed inadequate proposals adopted at COP28. The world deserves better.

Thirty years of UN climate conferences failing to move the needle to help Earth’s ecosystems thrive and survive, and not collapse, has unintentionally cast a dark shadow over scientists’ climate warnings within the context of a commanding capitalistic socio-economic system based upon infinite growth at center stage, humming along like “no worries” economic growth always bails us out, but what’s left behind? 

The Report makes the case that under the surface, and not clearly visible to society, a monstrosity of ecosystem turmoil threatens the entire foundation of capitalistic growth. The Report’s warnings are real, not fictional, not misleading but real warnings of a premature collapsing Earth system that’s the foundation for everything. This challenging situation has progressively gotten worse by the year, but it’s now starting to burst at the seams. The year 2023 exposed an off the charts dangerous climate system broadcasts on nightly news programs reporting massive wildfires, massive flooding, massive droughts, massive atmospheric rivers, massive everything, never witnessed previously. Scientists believe it’ll get worse.

According to the scientists: “We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered. Conditions are going to get very distressing and potentially unmanageable for large regions of the world… We warn of potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems… Massive suffering due to climate change is already here, and we have now exceeded many safe and just Earth system boundaries, imperiling stability and life-support systems.”

The Report states that 20 of 35 vital planetary signs are now at record extremes. This means that nearly 60% of the planet is huffing and puffing to stay on track of life-sourcing support. For example, the chart of Ocean Heat Content shows a nearly vertical upward thrust. This is viewed by scientists as especially troubling because of the knockoff impacts, including loss of sea life, coral reef bleaching, and intensified tropical storms. Hidden from view, the world’s oceans are under severe stress, not to mention extremely abusive overfishing, especially China’s inordinately large distant water fishing fleet of thousands of trawlers (“world’s worst abuser of sea laws” – IUU Fishing Index, US Coast Guard).

With 60% of the planet limping and few, if any, serious signs of governmental policy helping the 20 vital signs in various stages of deterioration, The Report addresses the root cause of trouble by identifying cause and effect, i.e., the ecological footprint of economic activity overwhelms any chances to heal the planet. In short, infinite economic growth and a steady state planet are like oil and water that do not mix. 

According to the scientists, “economic growth, as it is conventionally pursued, is unlikely to allow us to achieve our social, climate, and biodiversity goals. The fundamental challenge lies in the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from harmful environmental impacts.”

More to the point, egregious, superfluous, redundant, unneeded wealth creation is at the heart of the problem. As it happens, 60% of planetary ecosystems hobbling along on crutches is the result of 10% of the world population enjoying a great ride at the top of a great economic bubble expanding year by year, as this minority of people lead the best possible lifestyle in classic double or triple or quadruple, or maybe even as much as 100 to 1,000 times overshoot. The 10% global footprint tramples the lowly 90%. 

In a faux complexity of hopefulness, many GDP models assume that growth can be decoupled from emissions and from consumption-oriented environmental impacts and all will be hunky-dory, e.g., carbon capture will bail us out of the global warming imbroglio. However, The Report makes special mention of such assumptions as not realistic: “Negative emissions technologies are in an early stage of development, posing uncertainties regarding their effectiveness, scalability, and environmental and societal impacts. As such, we should not rely on unproven carbon removal techniques.” 

In the final analysis, the hard truth is fossil fuel emissions must be halted at the source as soon as possible or future state of the planet reports will show surrealistic evidence of a sickly planet. At some point in time this image of a sickly planet will become unbearable, and the masses will turn extremely restless, similar to unwelcomed disruptions, as well as threats of disruptions, already becoming evident throughout the globe. Under the circumstances, this type of behavior is not at all surprising. After all, it’s only too obvious that nearly two-thirds of the planet’s vital signs are flashing code red, not code yellow. It’s too late for caution when immediate action is required.

According to the scientific evidence, the underlying message is clear: Do something different. The current trajectory is not working. What could policymakers of the world do differently to put the planet back to a steady state so that it doesn’t flame out near term? Climate change, like a wild roller coaster ride, is full of surprising turns and sudden rapid descent.

The Report contains ideas to hopefully shake off what looks like an inevitability of more and more failing ecosystems: “The fundamental challenge lies in the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from harmful environmental impacts. Although technological advancements and efficiency improvements can contribute to some degree of decoupling, they often fall short in mitigating the overall ecological footprint of economic activities. The impacts vary greatly by wealth; in 2019, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for 48% of global emissions, whereas the bottom 50% were responsible for just 12%. We therefore need to change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs for all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy.” 

Frankly, that sounds like some version of socialism, but in America socialism is equated to Mephistopheles. But what if that’s not really true? What if socialism benefits everybody, except for the one percent? 

Broadly speaking, The Report recommends: “Efforts must be directed toward eliminating emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change and increasing carbon sequestration with nature-based climate solutions.” All of which is doable., but honestly, that’s an often-repeated prescription that never seems to stick, never gains traction.  If otherwise, if it gained traction, over time The State of the Climate Reports would fade into the sunset without anything to write about. 

Nevertheless, the ecological overshoot of human demands on natural resources, or overexploitation, is seemingly an insurmountable issue that points a finger at endless growth and its sidekick overconsumption by rich countries and wealthy individuals. And since socialism is out of the running to fix ecological overshoot, one way forward is a circular economy. Instead of a throw-away economic system, learn to recirculate across the board, like British economist Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics designed to avoid ecological overshoot.

In the final analysis, The Report is more relevant now than ever before simply because nearly 2/3rds of the planet’s vital signs are screaming for help, but none is forthcoming.  Therefore, and unfortunately, The Report is destined to grow and grow as ecosystems fail one by one, until one day Eureka! The State of the Climate Report will become sought after and studied and discussed by policymakers standing knee-deep in water.

Realistically, the issues described within this article about the state of the climate system do not get as much attention as warranted by policymakers or by the public. Assuming this article is read, the gist 0f it, alas, may be tossed aside as easily and quickly as our disposable-oriented society tosses aside paper wrappers, plastic containers, and pretty much everything, including nuclear waste, but where to? 

Meanwhile, of special interest, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR) Roger Hallam has decided to accept the inevitability of collapsing ecosystems. He is turning his focus away from climate demonstrations and disruptions of society, gluing people to buildings, roadways, and airplanes to the discovery of a new type of civilization. He’ll be conducting a worldwide zoom session January 14 at 8:00 AM Pacific Coast time. It’ll be a rare opportunity to learn about and/or join a new world order that’s not sinister. To register for the zoom meeting: Here’s the link.

Robert Hunziker 
Los Angeles
 

by Robert Hunziker

Global warming can add one more notch to its gun belt. The rapid onset of global warming is turning Alaska’s wilderness rivers orange. Global warming impacts Arctic temperatures 2-4 times warmer than the global average, and permafrost that’s been around since before humans sat round crackling cave fires is rapidly melting. Eons of frozen stuff is making its first appearance in tens of thousands of years, clobbering wilderness rivers with deadly toxicity. 

Researchers believe the cause(s) is/are (1) acid from minerals leaching iron out of bedrock exposed to water for the first time in millennia and/or (2) bacteria mobilizing iron from the permafrost soil in thawing wetlands prompted by global warming.

A group of scientists at Alaska’s Kobuk Valley National Park reported numerous sightings of orange river water 60 miles from the nearest villages and 250 miles from road systems. Patrick Sullivan, an ecologist/University of Alaska, Anchorage, analyzed a screen of a sensor he had dipped into the water: “This is bad stuff.” (Source: Why Are Alaska‘s Rivers Turning Orange? Scientific American, January 1, 2024) 

Dissolved oxygen in the orangish water was very low, the pH factor was 6.4 or 100 times more acidic than normal, and the electrical conductivity of the orange water was similar to industrial wastewater. Sullivan, stating the obvious: “Don’t drink this water,” Ibid. Honestly, think about the level of ridiculousness; it’s pristine (normally) drinkable water in the vast wilderness.

The scientists started their investigation of the water near the entry point of one of many streams to Salmon River that runs south from the peaks of Brooks Range, Alaska, known as “the last frontier,” which is a 650-mile line of slopes that separates northern Alaska from the rumbling Arctic coastline. A federal government act designated the Salmon River as a wild and scenic river with “water of exceptional clarity with deep luminescent blue-green pools and large runs of chum and pink salmon.” Sullivan: “It was a famous, pristine river ecosystem, and it feels like it’s completely collapsing now,” Ibid. 

Ultimately, the Brooks Range rivers flow into the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

Similar fate is discoloring rivers and streams throughout the Brooks Range. The researchers believe Russia and Canada are likely experiencing the same. Timothy Lyons, geochemist, University of California-Riverside said: “Almost certainly it is happening in other parts of the Arctic,” Ibid. 

The scientists who studied the Range agree the major cause is climate change. For example, Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4°C since 2006, and it’s believed the excessive heat has already begun thawing up to 40% of the permafrost. This is a good example of why global climate meetings, like COP28 recently held in Dubai, must come to grips with putting a stop to fossil fuel emissions, the number one agent on behalf of excessively harmful global warming.

The Brooks Range group of scientists conducted the first ever comprehensive sampling of an entire watershed on a six-day mission down the Salmon River. They believe a combination of (1) acid from minerals leaching iron out of bedrock exposed to water for the first time in millennia and/or (2) bacteria mobilizing iron from the permafrost soil in thawing wetlands is/are behind the dirty deeds, which means rusting will gradually “smother streams almost anywhere there’s permafrost,” inclusive of one-fourth of the entire Northern Hemisphere. This is a prime example of how far-reaching excessive global warming destroys the most pristine ecosystems on the planet and speaks to the necessity of halting fossil fuel emissions, yesterday. After all, this is what happens at 2°C above pre-industrial — ecosystems collapse. Only recently, Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University shocked science by saying 2°C will arrive during the 2030s, way-way earlier than IPCC projections.   

Traversing the river, they found murky water over orange rocks where only a couple of years ago it was clear and full of fish. At some spots the water ran half orange and half green and at others further downstream the river had the color and opacity of pea soup. Forrest McCarthy, a former US Antarctic Program coordinator, claimed: “Most climate change is subtle. This is like, bam!” Scientists claim they could not find any fish or insects in some areas of the Range, stating: “Biodiversity just crashed,” Ibid.

Meanwhile, 50 miles west of Salmon, the Agashashok River also turned orange-brown. Sullivan and company expressed shock by how fast streams started transforming, e.g., Clear Creek water was so acidic that it curdled the powered milk used for nightly tea, as the scientists traversed the Range.

On a trip to Timber Creek, 20 miles west of Salmon River, one of the members of the team who had fly-fished in the creek a few years ago, discovered: “More iron than fish… I looked at the creek, and I said, ‘this creek is dead. It’s just blanketed with metals,” Ibid. It’s what’s found in a national park, in the wilderness.

Additionally, the team discovered several blackened ground patches the color of fresh asphalt scattered throughout the Range. They took a sample of the trickling water flowing out of one dark patch. It had a pH factor of 2.95, like vinegar. The ground burn was caused by acid, and according to the team: “If it’s got that low of a pH… it’s actively burning. There’s at least a dozen burns in this valley,” Ibid. 

Brooks Range, Alaska is a preeminent example of how global warming enhanced by, driven by, fossil fuel emissions from cars, trains, and planes and industry impacts the most precious ecosystems of the planet where nobody lives but where life is supposed to thrive. It isn’t thriving any longer. Only an international forum like the UN climate change conferences held yearly, called COP, can come close to fixing this open sore on the planet, maybe?

Robert Hunziker
Los Angeles

by Henry Robertson

“Faith is the conviction of things not seen.” 
Fate is the coming of things seen too late.

They told the farmers to plow up the dry land.
“Rain will follow the plow,” said the railroads,
the government, the agricultural experts.
In the 1930s Dust Bowl the shadow fell
on the farmers as they looked up in awe
at churning clouds of soil that filled the sky.

This new dust bowl is invisible.
The rising global heat slides a manmade layer  
under the spikes and valleys of daily variation.
The invisible dust bowl has deniability.
What is it, really? Nothing new, just worse.
Like Covid-19 it has many symptoms:
droughts, floods and storms, heat waves and polar vortexes.

The whole climate changing is too much!
The changes it warns us to make are too big.
We can’t change it back, we can’t change what we are.
It’s the most natural thing in the world to drive
three tons of steel, glass, plastic and rubber
propelled by burning fossil plants.

If drought kills the crops, we’ll import food
until there are too many droughts at once.
Then we’ll look back down the highway and the railroad,
trace in our minds the sea lanes and air freight routes,
and realize that we’re in chains — supply chains
made possible by those same fossilized plants.
Investors with invisible capital organize it all for us.
They gather, transport, assemble, store and deliver
just about everything with their invisible corporations.
If you want to make something yourself they’ll sell you the parts.
Long supply chains are their monopolies against self-reliance.
But if the supply chain breaks, if there’s nothing to deliver,
if fossil fuels have to be discarded for the sake of our survival,
then we’d better collectively redirect our energy.

We should’ve declared war by now
on coal and oil and methane gas, 
but we’re still enchanted and enchained 
by fossil-fueled ease, mobility and entertainment.
Gratitude must become grievance.
The fossil fuel companies are the enemy.
Whatever they have done for us, 
they are devoted now to our destruction.
The Supreme Court says they are persons,
but they’re bigger than we are, 
potentially immortal,
many-headed yet single-minded, bent on profit.
They will not stop themselves.
Their power must be brought down by boycotts, bankruptcy,
resistance, revocations, new laws, injunctions, dissolution.
Nationalize and phase out fossil fuels;
they can no longer be consumers’ choice.
Make war on hardware with trespass, obstruction, sabotage.

Lay down the old Prometheus.
Transfuse his dwindling fuels into a new one
with power to stand alone, forging with their dregs 
the tools to draw our energy straight from the sun,
a power spread evenly among the peoples,
a power diminished in destructive force,
energy of the present, not the past, 
and energy, not ash, for the future.
 

by Steve Taylor

On December 8^th, the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) announced it was withdrawing support “for several pending regulatory petitions that would authorize distribution of transgenic Darling 58 trees outside permitted research plots”. The announcement was shocking, one that should have huge implications for the idea of releasing GMOs into the wild.  The TACF press release explained that “a significant identity error in the propagation materials supplied to TACF” had occurred, and that “independent confirmation now shows all pollen and trees used for this research was derived not from Darling 58.” Throughout the regulatory process, no one noticed that they were working with the wrong tree.

by Robert Hunziker

Northern Greenland is under attack by global warming at the same time as delegates to COP28 heap praise on a purported landmark deal to transition out of fossil fuels — but beware of the true meaning behind the language. Its disingenuousness is a stamp of approval for much more climate upheaval imprinted onto one more UN Conference of the Parties, COP flop.

According to Dr. Friederike Otto of Imperial College London: “The lukewarm agreement reached at COP28 will cost every country, no matter how rich, no matter how poor. Everyone loses. It’s hailed as a compromise, but we need to be very clear what has been compromised. The short-term financial interests of a few have again won over the health, lives and livelihoods of most people living on this planet.” (COP28: Landmark Deal to Transition Away from Fossil Fuels Agreed — As It Happened, The Guardian, Dec. 13, 2023)

“Down to Earth’s” publication d/d Dec. 14, 2023 hit the nail on the head re COP28: “Despite the hottest summer in 120,000 years, the oil, gas, coal, and farming companies that are heating the planet can continue to expand production for the foreseeable future.”

Meanwhile, new research has identified extremely disturbing deep trouble brewing in Greenland: Three of eight major ice shelves in the northern region have collapsed or retreated, leaving five ice shelves as gigantic corks holding back major glaciers from rapidly flowing into the sea, in turn raising sea levels beyond comfort levels. The three biggest are Petermann, Ryder, and Nioghalvfierbrae. This threesome alone equals 3.6 feet of sea level rise. (Source: Alarming Collapse of Greenland Ice Shelves Sparks Warning of Sea Level Rise, LiveScience, November 2023)

A separate study by Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences/University of Texas found Greenland’s glaciers melting 100 times faster than previously thought. (Source: K Schulz, et al, An Improved and Observationally Constrained Melt Rate Parameterization for Vertical Ice Fronts of Marine Terminating Glaciers, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 49, Issue 18, Sept. 20, 2022)

Moreover, according to the Oden study: “The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is a major predictor of sea level rise. This frozen stretch of glaciers is the second largest on Earth and covers about 80% of the Nordic nation. If it melts entirely, as it did at the height of the Eemian interglacial period about 125,000 years ago, global sea levels could rise by 20 feet—or approximately 6.1 meters.”

An entire meltdown would take centuries, but we’re only concerned with the first several feet which will likely happen this 21^st century, enough to flood coastal cities, for example, wiping out Miami Beach, unless Florida encircles the entire state with a gigantic seawall creating a medieval city-state moat.

For as long as anybody can remember, the eight ice shelves in the northern region of Greenland were always stable. However, stability has suddenly disintegrated, according to the report: “We show that since 1978, ice shelves in North Greenland have lost more than 35% of their total volume, three of them collapsing completely. For the floating ice shelves that remain we observe a widespread increase in ice shelf mass losses.” (Source: R. Millan, et al, Rapid Disintegration and Weakening of Ice Shelves in North Greenland, Nature Communications, November 2023)

There’s no emphasis required to know that COP28’s greenwashing compromise and the global warming threat to Greenland are not only interrelated but really bad news. And, once again, it exposes the hollowness of annual UN Conferences of the Parties that should address the compelling issue of excessive CO2 emissions creating a blanket trapping global heat. Ipso facto, Greenland’s glaciers, 100 times faster, start filling up the oceans. This, in turn, creates the mystery of all mysteries as nobody knows how high, or when, sea level rise overwhelms coastal metropolises.  But based upon the feebleness of 30+years of COP meetings that are attended by world leaders (154 heads of state at COP28), it looks dismal.

Amongst the referenced ice shelves, the Peterman ice shelf is a focal point. It lies at the seaward end of a deep sub-ice canyon that could open-up ocean penetration into the center of the entire Greenland ice sheet. The initial step to such a horrifying prospect would be loss of Peterman’s ice shelf.

“Ice shelves are the parts of an ice sheet that float on the water, preventing glaciers on the land from slipping into and melting in the ocean, which would increase sea levels. If the glaciers the North Greenland ice shelves support were to collapse, sea levels could rise by nearly 7 feet (2.1 meters).” (LiveScience report)

Therefore, the Millan scientific analysis should raise eyebrows of policymakers to the necessity of immediate powerful mitigation measures, not mealymouthed halfway-commitments that are broadcast as “landmarks,” oh, please! Yet brokenheartedly, the recently concluded Dubai 28th annual UN climate conference did not address the issue of excessive CO2 emissions forcing increased warming, other than to stress “transitioning” out of fossil fuels pretty much on a ho-hum basis. This approach has not worked for more than 30 years of COP meetings; frustration reigns supreme. According to COP28 president Al-Jaber, COP28 is a “true victory,” but “his comments clash with reactions by scientists who have praised parts of the UAE consensus but criticized its vague, weak and caveated language on fossil fuels, which are the main cause of climate change.” (The Guardian, Dec. 13)

As a result of decades of weak COPs, there’s a price to be paid: “We are heading toward an ice-shelf-free Northern Hemisphere.” (Millan) The implications are horrendous and impossible to describe. Based upon the results of COP28, a major question going forward is whether adaptation measures, such as tall seawalls, can be erected ahead of rising sea levels?

The results of too much ocean heat (oceans absorb 80-90% of planetary heat) entering underneath the ice shelves has been studied in detail by scientists based at institutions in France, the US, and Denmark, using satellite data, ocean observations, and climate modeling to measure changes in the ice shelves’ spatial area and thickness. Grounding lines where the ice shelves come aground were evaluated. The areas where the floating shelves end, and the grounded glacier begins are retreating inland across nearly all the shelves, a key sign of weakening. This is a prime example of the nemesis of global warming fueled by rising CO2 emissions at work. COP28 was supposed to deal with issues like this. It did not.

Robert Hunziker

Los Angeles

New studies show the Arctic heating up at 4 times the overall rate of global warming. This startling rate in one of the most sensitive environments in the world could trigger toxic disasters in up to 20,000 industrial contamination sites.

“Industrial contaminants accumulated in Arctic permafrost regions have been largely neglected in existing climate impact analyses. Here we identify about 4500 industrial sites where potentially hazardous substances are actively handled or stored in the permafrost-dominated regions of the Arctic. Furthermore, we estimate that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are related to these industrial sites.” (Source: Moritz Langer, et al, Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination, Nature Communications, March 28, 2023)

This percolating threat is starting to become reality as Arctic climate conditions shift into overdrive, heating up like never before. As stated in the Langer study: “The latest data analyses suggest up to four-fold faster warming, substantially changing the ground stability.”

“Substantially changing the ground stability” is the last thing anybody wants to hear.

Previously, it was thought that the Arctic was warming roughly 2+times faster than the rest of the planet, but this new data suggests 4-fold, which is roughly twice the rate of past warming. It is a shocker with potential to kick-start release of massive amounts of extremely dangerous toxic materials, including radioactive waste, in permafrost throughout the Far North.

“For decades, industrial and economic development of the Arctic assumed that permafrost would serve as a permanent and stable platform: Past industrial practices also assumed that perennially frozen ground would function as long-term containment for solid and liquid industrial waste due to its properties as a hydrological barrier… A number of experiments were conducted in Alaska, Canada, and Russia in which toxic liquids and solids, including radioactive waste, were deliberately placed in permafrost for containment,” Ibid.

“Between 1955 and 1990, the Soviet Union conducted 130 nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and near surface ocean of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago off the coast of north-west Russia. The tests used 224 separate explosive devices, releasing around 265 megatons of nuclear energy. More than 100 decommissioned nuclear submarines were scuttled in the nearby Kara and Barents seas. While the Russian government has since launched a strategic clean-up plan, the review notes that the area has tested highly for the radioactive substances’ caesium and plutonium, between undersea sediment, vegetation, and ice sheets…The United States’ Camp Century nuclear-powered under-ice research facility in Greenland also produced considerable nuclear and diesel waste. When it was decommissioned in 1967, waste was left in the accumulating ice, which faces a longer-term threat from changes to the Greenland Ice Sheet.” (Source: Rapidly Warming Arctic Could Cause Spread of Nuclear Waste, Undiscovered Viruses and Dangerous Chemicals, New Report Finds, Aberystwyth University, September 30, 2021)

In 2021 the Russian newswire Tass claimed the country was at “the finish line,” removing thousands of tons of radioactive material from the Arctic. However: “Since the 1990s, the Bellona Foundation has been involved in discovering and documenting nuclear hazards and radiation threats in Arctic Russia and based on that experience, the organization asserts that Likhachev’s announcement is untrue — Russia is nowhere near the “finish line” in these efforts.” (Source:  Rosatom Says Nuclear Cleanup in Arctic Done — Far from the Case, Says Bellona, Bellona, June 7, 2023)

The problem may be magnified beyond what’s already known simply because, to date: “There has been no assessment of the environmental impact of these activities on the Arctic as a whole,” Ibid. In other words, nobody really knows what’s happened or what’s happening. This is a new under-researched arena of study that has horns protruding like glistening daggers in the night.

The following research of danger lurking in the Arctic should spook the daylights out of anybody: “Over 110 of Russia’s decommissioned nuclear submarines still have operating nuclear reactors, which, according to Russian designs, means two reactors per vessel or more than 220 individual reactors. There is nowhere to put the liquid waste or to store the spent fuel, so the reactors have to keep operating with only skeleton crews. While, in the past, one country’s failure to safely dispose of its military hardware might rightly have been viewed as its own problem, the case of nuclear submarines cannot be seen in the same light. The proliferation threats these vessels pose is global, due to the large amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium—the key ingredients of nuclear weapons—contained in their fresh and spent fuel. This enormous stockpile of fissile material, which is currently not well protected from theft or diversion, presents an attractive target for a potential proliferator, whether a rogue state or sub-state actor.” (Source: Dismantling Russia’s Nuclear Subs, Arms Control Association, May 19, 2021)

Throughout the Arctic, the issue of what to do for remediation or cleanup is compounded due to the loss of ground stability which limits access to impacted sites and use of heavy equipment. As such, permafrost melt creates a barrier to cleanup. The Langer study found that many former industrial-use facilities are now abandoned and difficult to access.

In the face of clear warnings, the scope of danger is increasing in real time because of new industrial development. There are no international environmental regulations for the Arctic as formulated for the Antarctic in the Madrid Protocol that requires transparent documentation of contamination and potential sources of hazardous substances. However, governance for the Arctic falls under an umbrella organization called PAME (1991) that established an Arctic Council. PAME does delineate environmental issues and shipping issues with a softball approach that does not appear to have teeth for enforcement.

At the same time as scientists uncover more and more risks of toxic materials, the situation is made all the worse because of increased economic interest and commercial development in a less forbidding melting Arctic. But that is merely a ruse as it’s more forbidding than ever before; a melting Arctic is filled with unexpected dangers lurking right around the corner. There is risk of multiple contaminated sites leaking at the same time whilst new industrial development runs amok. Alas, this is starting to look like an exercise in madness at a level of human stupidity seldom witnessed in the history of civilized society. Such situations likely never end well.

Oceana Warns That Irresponsible Industrialization of the Arctic Could Lead to Catastrophic Consequences Worldwide, Oceana – “Protecting the World’s Oceans”: “This sea ice loss has also opened the Arctic to the immediate threat of rapid industrialization. As Arctic sea ice melts, Arctic waters have become susceptible to new threats of increased industrial fishing, shipping, and oil and gas exploration and development. Increasing human activities could significantly accelerate the threats facing the Arctic, which would have cascading effects all over the world.”

The Norilsk Diesel Tank Incident

The disaster scenario is already playing-out for all to witness: The Norilsk Diesel Tank Incident d/d June 2020: A regional emergency was declared in the city of Norilsk when the supporting posts in the basement of a storage tank of diesel fuel suddenly sank because of cascading permafrost causing 21,000 tonnes of diesel to pour into rivers and lakes in Russia’s Arctic North. President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency. Just wondering: How many diesel tanks are located in the Arctic permafrost?

The scope of the Arctic permafrost problem is beyond belief with (1) pesticides like DDT packed in barrels and buried in the permafrost (2) increasing oil leaks by pipelines that stretch throughout the landscape (3) radioactive materials buried around former and current military bases, and (4) deposit reservoirs containing numerous industrial toxicants. Making matters even worse yet, only recently Canada’s massive fires are bringing into focus a whole new dynamic. Wildfires could be sending up plumes of toxicant-laden smoke that spreads across the land and to adjoining countries, like the USA.

Throughout the Arctic, airport runways are sinking, roads are cascading, and buildings are tilting, as some of the most toxic materials known to humankind sit in waiting to be released into the environment because of man-made global warming; once again proving the ancient proverb: “You reap what you sow.” According to Darcy Peter, a permafrost researcher at Woods Hole Research Center: “I’ve heard of dozens of houses falling in, and a few churches. There are multiple graveyards that are falling in, and there’s nothing that anybody can do.” (Eos, June 24, 2020)

Analysts that research and study Arctic permafrost say: “It’s a ticking time bomb.”

As the Arctic fall season of 2023 turns into an icy Arctic winter, which is a shadow of its former self, COP28 is scheduled to be held in Dubai where oil sheiks have taken over control of the science-based UN meeting aka: Conference of the Parties for the UN Climate Change Conference starting in a few weeks, late November, when nations of the world and at least 100+ prime ministers and presidents show up for photo ops with Bono to allegedly challenge climate change with 80,000 attendees roaming the decorated halls, similar in many respects to extravagant US auto shows, that presupposes “all will be well, just hang in there, we’ll find solutions.” That would be historic!

Will climate scientists attend?

Robert Hunziker

Los Angeles

by Robert Hunziker

The past couple of years in Antarctica have been a rough and tumble affair of erratic climate change with record-high temperatures and totally unexpected ice shelf collapse. The continent is starting to reflect the impact of a warming planet that’s just too hot for icy comfort. So, what surprises will this year’s summer season bring?

At the tail end of Antarctica’s 2022 summer, during the start of autumn in March ’22, temperatures along the eastern coast spiked 70°F (39°C) above normal. Scientists called it “unthinkable.” According to Edward Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington: “We found that temperature anomaly, the 39-degree temperature anomaly, that’s the largest anywhere ever measured anywhere in the world.” (Source: Scientists Found the Most Intense Heat Wave Ever Recorded – in Antarctica, The Washington Post, September 24, 2023)

Within weeks, the unthinkable happened in East Antarctica. Conger Ice Shelf suddenly collapsed. According to NASA: “It is relatively common for ice shelves in Antarctica to spawn icebergs, it is less common for an ice shelf to completely disintegrate. The collapse has reshaped a part of the Antarctic landscape where coastal glacial ice was once thought to be stable. The change happened fast… All of the previous collapses have taken place in West Antarctica, not East Antarctica, which until recently has been thought of as relatively stable. This is something like a dress rehearsal for what we could expect from other, more massive ice shelves if they continue to melt and destabilize. Then we’ll really be past the turnaround point in terms of slowing sea level rise.” (Source: Ice Shelf Collapse in East Antarctica, Earth Observatory, NASA, March 29, 2022)

Antarctica’s upcoming summer of 2023 with sunshine 24/7 from October–February will bring a new season that is especially notable considering the fact that global warming strutted its stuff during Antarctica’s dark winter months of March–October 2023, setting new high temperature records along with abnormally high ocean temperatures, which serve to undercut and weaken ice shelves: “The Southern Ocean has warmed substantially.” (Source: Southern Ocean Warming and its Climatic Impacts, Science Bulletin, Vol. 68, Issue 9, May 15, 2023) thus creating higher risks for 90% of the world’s surface water that’s impermanently locked in ice. 

Already, strange things may be happening. For example, according to a non-authoritative source, the crucial Pinning Point 5 is gone at Thwaites/Pine Island glaciers. That source claims this risks an acceleration of glacial flow and termed the occurrence ‘”an emergency,” but that has not been verified by other sources. It should be noted that the source has a reasonable track record of following Antarctic events that later make news. (Source: Pinning Point Five Collapsed, the Sea Ice Barrier Buttressing Thwaites and Pine Island Glacier, Daily Kos, Sept. 29, 2023)

Along the way, the erratic behavior of the climate system over the past 18–24 months is of major concern, as global heat has enveloped the planet, setting records from the peaks of the tallest mountains in the Alps to the deepest interior of Antarctica, almost as if the climate system is programmed to keep turning up the thermostat, regardless of location, regardless of time, whatever season. Of course, this is as threatening to survival of Antarctica’s icy stature as it is fatal to the world’s coastal cities. 

Polar Amplification in Antarctica

Times are changing fast as Antarctica, like its cousin up north, heats up much faster than the rest of the planet. According to Dr. Mathieu Casado, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment/France, there is direct evidence that Antarctica is undergoing “polar amplification.” (Source: Ice Cores Reveal Antarctica is Warming Twice as Fast as Global Average, CarbonBrief, September 13, 2023)

In plain English, it’s heating up much faster than the overall planet, which is horribly threatening news. In fact, the study found the continent is heating up per decade as much as 50% over climate models. This is a shocker to climate scientists and should be of serious concern to any sane/grounded person. It speaks to the necessity of taking immediate action by nation states to convert energy systems to renewables.

According to the Casado study, Antarctica’s warming “is almost twice as strong as global warming estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) … also 20–50% larger than the estimates from the climate models used to produce the IPCC reports — even in East Antarctica, which was believed to be largely unaffected by climate change so far.” Accordingly, the study anticipates “dire consequences for the low-lying lands… further warning of the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, even in one of the most remote parts of the world.”

Therefore, sea level rise as currently anticipated by consensus opinion is very likely too low in terms of potential and resultant coastal impacts, including calculations used by the IPCC, underestimating global warming’s impact on Antarctica by a wide margin.
 
It is instructive to look at the latest IPCC report, which is a synthesis d/d March 2023 that integrates the findings from its Sixth Assessment Report Cycle, stating: “Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying… There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all. Choices made this current decade will impact us now and for thousands of years.”  (Source: IPCC Climate Change Reports: Why They Matter to Everyone on the Planet, National Resources Defense Council, April 14, 2023) Thus, the IPCC puts the decade of the 2020s on a pedestal of achievement that must be achieved, or it’ll crash.  

According to the IPCC’s Best-Case analysis: “If the world bands together to slash emissions immediately, the world can avoid the most catastrophic version of the climate crisis, but it will continue to warm until at least mid-century, due to the impact of past emissions.” For example, some changes that are already set in motion, like sea level rise, are irreversible over many decades. Adaptation is necessary. 

In point of fact, the Casado study adds a haunting new perspective to the 6th Assessment Report, i.e., Antarctica’s warming is almost twice as strong as stated by the IPCC. In the final analysis, the study means the IPCC vastly understates the impact of global warming on Antarctica, which can only mean that low-lying coastal cities should build massive sea walls. 

After all, according to the Miami Herald regarding southern Florida, within the next couple of years (Some Keys Roads Will Flood by 2025 Due to Sea Rise, Fixing Them Could Cost $750 Million, Miami Herald, Oct. 21, 2021).

And this: “Several parts of coastal North Carolina could fall victim to extreme flooding in the very near future… several portions of North Carolina can be seen below the annual flood level by the year 2030,” Breaking News, Fox8/North Carolina, July 21, 2023. 

And this: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Gulf Coast region saw more than a 1,000% increase in the number of high tide flooding days in 2020 over the past two decades. (Source: Gulf Coast Sea Level Rising at ‘Unprecedented’ Rate, Recent Studies Find, Houston Public Media, April 12, 2023)

In turn, all the above brings to surface questions about motives of people who denigrate, attack, and belittle the climate change issue, human-caused global warming, and renewables thereby serving to block or interfere with nationwide efforts to do something constructive. Their line of thinking is extraordinarily dangerous to the country in the face of actual flooding events along America’s coasts that are locked, loaded and ready for more action very soon. 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sea level rise over the next 30 years will equal the past 100 years. “In the United States, the most vulnerable populations live on the East and Gulf Coasts… The acceleration of sea level rise along these coasts is ‘unprecedented in at least 120 years.’” (Source: Acceleration of U.S. Southeast and Gulf Coast Sea-Level Rise Amplified by Internal Climate Variability, Nature Communications, April 2023)

The Antarctic summer of 2023 is on shaky footing as global heat is on the march worldwide like never before, and it knows no boundaries from south to north; every ecosystem everywhere is fair game. Of course, a major concern is rapid acceleration of ice shelf disintegration, especially fragile West Antarctica where Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier are already the fastest changing and most unstable glaciers in the world. Incidentally, Thwaites has a nickname: The Doomsday Glacier.

Robert Hunziker
Los Angeles

by Robert Hunziker

Earth’s climate system is in a state of emergency. Emergencies are defined by four specific elements; they are (1) serious (2) unexpected (3) dangerous, and (4) require immediate action. Based upon a new YouTube broadcast by the inveterate commentator Dr. Peter Carter, all those elements are in-play in a very big way.

Dr. Carter, expert reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and director of the Climate Emergency Institute, posted a 26:33 minute YouTube update on the status of our climate system: Climate Emergency Update Sept. 2023. In his broadcast, the elements of an emergency are clearly related to the planet’s climate system.

Dr. Carter’s broadcasts are closely followed by people looking for answers to what’s really happening. It is rare, in fact almost impossible, to find a source that truly lays it out without pulling any punches. His presentations are excellent, filled with factually backed statements that are brought to life with emphasis. Indeed, Dr. Carter is a rare personality, a breath of fresh air in today’s world of cynicism, disinformation, and the tendency to ignore difficult choices, especially the challenging status of the planet’s climate system. It is the one thing that we must “get right.”

The following synopsis, including editorial comment, highlights the issues as seen by Dr. Peter Carter:

In his opening statement he starts by reporting the state of the climate today as “much worse than ever before.” He suggests: “If it seems to you that the climate situation is getting worse, yes, it is. There’s no question about that, and it’s been getting worse for a long time. That’s what the science has told us, for example, in scientifically based assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC].”

For years, his motto has been: “Everything is getting worse faster.”

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) identifies the climate’s status as “a major climate disruption that’s driven by atmospheric CO2.”  In that regard, the risks to the planet’s climate system have increased substantially, as atmospheric CO2 and methane are higher than they’ve ever been whilst increasing faster than ever before. Carter: “It’s a recipe for an overwhelmingly destructive global warming scenario.” And, frankly, that’s what’s been starting to appear on TV.

Ocean surface temperature has been off the charts, rapidly increasing like never before. According to Carter: Fossil fuel impact is adding heat to the oceans at the rate of 10 Hiroshima bombs per second. Moreover, he claims it’s at least that amount and some sources claim it’s even higher than 10 Hiroshima bombs per second. Of course, one problem with comparisons like 10 Hiroshima bombs/second is the impossibility of imagining that scope, which unfortunately causes people to fail to get it.

Meanwhile, the hard truth is that it was thirty years ago, 1992 in Rio de Janeiro at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that 166 countries initially agreed that global warming needed to be counteracted. Over the subsequent 30 years nothing has happened. Meantime, the science has been hard at work, essentially confirming: “We are headed for the collapse of the biosphere… we are on a rapid trend of biosphere collapse” (YouTube, 4:52 min).

This fatal destiny of biosphere collapse is the result of a world economy agenda that’s designed “to burn all of the fossil fuels.” However, as if by the sleight of hand, it’s claimed by pro-growth and pro-fossil fuel interests, we’ll be able to geo-engineer our way out of the quagmire of excessive atmospheric, not to worry. But, according to Dr. Carter: “That is absolute nonsense.” More on the carbon capture ruse later.

The Methane Threat

Methane is coming into focus as an extremely troublesome threat with scientists on edge like never before. Over the past couple of years, since 2019–20, methane emissions have been explosive, which is precisely how scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) refer to today’s methane emissions: “Explosive!”

Even worse, Carter highlights what he refers to as “the newest terrible news”: “We have methane feedback,” meaning the explosive increase in methane emissions is hands free on auto pilot; it’s the wetlands! This is really bad news because the feedback is literally running wild. Carter: “This is what we have been dreading for decades.”

Even more troubling yet, most scientific models have claimed we did not have to worry about this specific event, i.e., self-reinforcing methane emissions, until the end of the century. Carter: “Well, it’s here now; it’s here bigtime.”  The problem is not a small one as wetlands hold double the amount of carbon as forests. According to David Archer in one of his carbon climate publications, the climate has never had as much carbon aboard as it has now, and it’s mostly in wetlands.

Euan Nesbit, Emeritus Professor, Earth Sciences, University of London, Honorary Fellow, Darwin College, the world’s leading scientist on methane, has sounded the alarm about wetland methane feedback. He put out a paper “that’s nothing short of terrifying.” The paper: Atmospheric Methane: Comparison Between Methane’s Record in 2006–2022 and During Glacial Terminations, American Geophysical Union, July 14, 2023.

Moreover, the ultra-dangerous East Siberian Arctic Shelf, which is loaded with methane hydrates, is possibly being compromised, see: Seafloor Methane Tipping Point Reached! Titanic Lifeboat Academy, September 18, 2023.

Methane explosiveness is likely one of the factors behind “July was the hottest month ever on record.” According to NASA, the Northern Hemisphere was almost 1.7°C hotter. Of course, one month does not make a year, but throughout the planet, for example, all of Europe, temperatures above the dreaded 1.5°C and/or 2.0°C continue to pop up, almost like a permanent trend. It’s unnerving and signaling a very early arrival of inhospitable ecosystems, like what’s already happening in northern Canada and all across the northern reaches of the Northern Hemisphere.

As a result, crazy things happen at both poles. For example, suddenly, Antarctica’s sea ice has become something to worry about after decades of “no worries.” It reached record lows in February 2023, and even worse, when it refreezes, it does so at a slower and slower pace. Carter: “This is a very, very bad, complex, disturbing, disrupting thing that’s happening in Antarctica.” (FYI, there are some well-known Antarctic experts who’ve flat-out said they are scared.)

All the while, as the biosphere is experiencing massive intense disturbing disrupting threats to ecosystems that literally support life, governments are pushing for more and more fossil fuels. According to The Economist, there will be no slowdown in extraction and burning of fossil fuels. According to the IPCC 6^th Assessment, because of fossil fuel emissions increasing: “We are looking at temperature increases that are way far-out, totally unprecedented.” (YouTube, 12:40) A scientific paper that came out earlier this year made the point that the rate of temperature increase over the past decade was unprecedented.

Honestly, you only had to turn on the TV news over the past summer to know about unprecedented temperatures and the relationship to human-caused global warming. As such, global warming is slowly going mainstream, causing people to cock their heads to one side as if to question, “what’s going on and is this real news or is it fake news?” Poorly educated people claim it’s fake or totally exaggerated. But is it?

Another disturbing issue is drought conditions throughout the world – NASA’s Grace satellites are the most reliable measurements of drought. And nowhere is drought more responsible for climate chaos than Canada. Canada’s massive fires are driven by global warming; a recent study of Grace data shows the entire north of Canada in severe drought fed by global surface warming. It’s a massive climate catastrophe that simply will not stop and likely one of the worst most disheartening and threatening scenarios of the decade.  

Moreover, another major concern detected by Grace satellites: “All of Europe is subject to ground water depletion drought.” In fact, the EU officially made mention of this at the beginning of the year in a public statement. What could possibly be worse? Already, consequences were on display in France and Italy when over 100 towns and villages ran out of ground water during the summer of 2022. Governments scrambled to temporarily truck in bottled water.

Last year (2022) was a record year of unprecedented mega disasters. And 2023 is similar. All of this is being driven by fossil fuels. The Economist claims oil production/consumption will be higher in 2030 than it is today, as well as increased use of coal, because increased heat waves in China and India require extraordinary measures for air conditioning, requiring more power plant production. They easily turn to coal.

Dr. Carter issued what he refers to as “the worst news ever” — the IMF recently published an assessment of fossil fuel subsidies worldwide of $7,000,000,000,000 in 2022. Meaning governments are subsidizing the destruction of the planet at the rate of $13M per minute. Ten years ago, it was $5 trillion for one year. He believes this is why young people rightfully protest fossil fuels.

Governments must act immediately to stop fossil fuels because the entire climate system is starting to turn inside out. For example, approximately 50% of emissions are absorbed by the carbon sinks of land and ocean. But boreal forests are on fire, emitting carbon, not absorbing carbon. Boreal forests circumnavigate the planet and are absolutely vital for our survival. They are vital to all life. Canada alone has had 5,936 boreal fires to date this year. The burned area is 58,687 square miles, a figure that boggles the mind.

According to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Services, boreal forests in regions all over the world have experienced the worst wildfires in recorded history. As a result of the world’s major forests burning, emitting carbon instead of absorbing it, the year-over-year increase in Co2 from July 2022 to July 2023 was a record high increase of 3.29 ppm (422.14 ppm versus 418.85), a massive increase.

The big question: What can we do?  Carter: “We must recognize that we have an enemy, which is fossil fuels.”

We must act now because our greatest asset and one of our last lines of defense for life on the planet, the boreal forest, is burning, emitting CO2 instead of absorbing it. Carter: “This is beyond critical!!!” The boreal forest is the largest forest area of the world, covering one-tenth of the world’s land, wrapped around the entire Northern Hemisphere. It feeds our lungs and stores our carbon. Without it, we fail.

“Extreme wildfires are turning the world’s largest forest ecosystem from carbon sink into net-emitter.” (Source: Alaska Beacon, March 2023) How can this not be anything other than a worldwide emergency?

In summation, Dr. Carter’s update emphasizes six major categories (1) ocean surface temperatures off the charts (2) impending biosphere collapse (3) the methane threat,  way too early (4) world government policies that continue to favor fossil fuels, more than ever (5) severe worldwide drought (6) loss of boreal forests, a key lifeline.

COP28/Dubai, the meeting of the nations of the world on climate change, starts in a few weeks. It’s likely that oil & gas interests will claim carbon removal and sequestration will save our asses. That’s extremely doubtful. (Carbon Capture Has a Long History of Failure, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, September 2022)

According to the US EPA’s description of carbon capture: “It’s technologies that are not economically or technically feasible for widespread use.”

And according to a recent Al Gore speech, Orca, in Iceland, the first large-scale carbon dioxide removal plant’s operations are being improved enough so that, in 7 years, each DAC unit will be able to capture 27 seconds worth of annual worldwide emissions. There are only 8 units; do the math!

More to the point, according to Dr. Carter: “It is absolute nonsense.”

Robert Hunziker

Los Angeles

by Robert Hunziker

Japan cannot possibly outlive the atrocity of dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. In fact, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is an example of how nuclear meltdowns negatively impact the entire world, as its toxic wastewater travels across the world in ocean currents. The dumping of stored toxic wastewater from the meltdown in 2011 officially started on August 24, 2023. Meanwhile, the country restarts some of the nuclear plants that were shut down when the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant exploded. Fukushima’s broken reactors are an example of why nuclear energy is a trap that can’t handle global warming or extreme natural disasters. Nuclear is an accident waiting to happen, for several reasons, including as a result of global warming.

According to Dr. Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, former secretary to the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Internal Radiation, and Visiting Fellow, University of Sussex: “It’s important to understand that nuclear is very likely to be a significant climate casualty. For cooling purposes nuclear reactors need to be situated by large bodies of water, etc. …” Essentially, global warming is nuclear energy’s Waterloo; it has already seriously endangered France’s 56 nuclear reactors with partial shutdowns because of extreme global warming. Nuclear reactors cannot survive global warming. See “the nuclear energy trap” link at the end of this article.

TEPCO’s treacherous act of dumping radioactive water into a wide-open ocean is a deliberate violation of human decency, as it clearly violates essential provisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) General Safety Guide No. 8 (GSG-8).

Japan should be forced to stop its diabolical exercise of potentially destroying precious life. Shame on the IAEA and shame on the member countries of the G7 for endorsing this travesty. They’ve christened the ocean an “open sewer.” Hark! Come one, come all, dump your trash, open toxic spigots, bring chemicals, bring fertilizers, bring plastic, bring radioactive waste that’s impossible to dispose of… the oceans are open sewers. It’s free!  Yes, it’s free but only weak-minded people would allow a broken-down crippled nuclear power plant to dump radioactive waste into the world’s ocean. It is a testament to human frailty, weakness, insipience, not courage.

According to Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, TEPCO’s ALPS-treated Radioactive Water Dumping Plan Violates Essential Provisions of IAEA’s General Safety Guide No. 8 (GSG-8) and Corresponding Requirements in Other IAEA Documents, June 28, 2023: “The IAEA is an important United Nations institution. Like the rest of the Expert Panel, the author of this paper has been reluctant to criticize the IAEA. Yet, its outright refusal to apply its own guidance documents in full measure is stark. Its constricted view of the dumping plan has allowed it to evade its responsibilities to many countries. Its eagerness to assure the public that harm will be ‘negligible’ has been carried to the point of grossly overstating well-known facts about tritium. The serious lapses of the IAEA in the Fukushima radioactive water matter have made criticism unavoidable.”

“Greenpeace rejects Japan’s claim that all nuclear isotopes except tritium have been removed from the wastewater. It claims that at least one other radioactive isotope, Carbon-14, remains, and that many more, including Strontium 90 and Cesium 137, remain as yet untreated in most of the storage tanks.” (Source: Richard Broinowski, More Fallout from Fukushima, Pearls and Irritations, July 8, 2023)

Japan is signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): “Japan’s policy to release wastewater into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a violation of Japan’s obligations under UNCLOS Article 192, which requires state parties to ‘protect and preserve the marine environment.’ Additionally, Japan’s pollution of the marine environment from land-based sources violates UNCLOS Article 207.” (Source: Victoria Cruz-De Jesus, Preserving the Sea in a Radioactive World: How Japan’s Plan to Release Treated Nuclear Wastewater into the Pacific Ocean Violates UNCLOS, American University International Law Review, Vol. 27, Issue 4, 2023)

Adding insult to injury, Japan considered several available waste disposal measures that, in part, would have complied with portions of its treaty obligations under UNCLOS Article 192 and Article 207 but ultimately settled for the cheapest, easiest, most convenient, yet most harmful, policy, dumping it into the Pacific Ocean, which conveniently is “right next door.” Japan could have chosen (1) geosphere injection or (2) underground burial as options that lessen the risks of nuclear waste released into the environment, or they could build more storage tanks. But both #1 and #2 options are considerably more expensive.

As a result, Japan’s outrageous disregard for nature has only served to highlight the insanity surrounding nuclear energy: “The Japanese Government and TEPCO falsely claim that discharge is the only viable option necessary for eventual decommissioning. Nuclear power generation, which experiences shutdowns due to accidents and natural disasters, and perpetually requires thermal power as a backup, cannot serve as a solution to global warming.” (Source: Japan Announces Date for Fukushima Radioactive Water Release, Greenpeace International Press Release, August 22, 2023)

According to Greenpeace, which has strong expertise in nuclear energy: “As of 8 June 2023, there were 1,335,381 cubic meters of radioactive wastewater stored in tanks, but due to the failure of the ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) processing technology, approximately 70% of this water will have to be processed again. Scientists have warned that the radiological risks from the discharges have not been fully assessed, and the biological impacts of tritium, carbon-14, strontium-90 and iodine-129, which will be released in the discharges, have been ignored,” Ibid.

It seems inconceivable at a time when the world’s oceans are confronted with immense stress: (1) inordinate record-setting heat, (2) illegal overfishing to the point of near exhaustion of major fishing stocks, (3) human trash accumulating in vast swirls of plastic garbage, e.g., the Great Pacific Garbage Patch three times the size of France, plus four more major garbage patches in the oceans, (4) rampant levels of agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, and (5) industrial discharges. In the face of so much stress, Japan has the nerve to add toxic radioactive muck from a crippled nuclear power plant. Oh, please!

“For years, we have looked at the ocean as a dumping ground. Because it was out of sight and out of mind, we have treated it like a universal sewer.” (Jean Michel Cousteau, St. Petersburg Times) Cousteau has spent a lifetime fighting to expose ocean abuse, saying it needs to stop “if marine life, and therefore everything on the planet, is going to survive.” Alas, Japan is violating everything Cousteau ever stood for.

As a result of indiscretions, will Japan essentially self-destruct its economy as boycotts of products follow in the footsteps of its blatant disregard for the health of the ocean?

China has banned all seafood from Japan, calling the release a “selfish and irresponsible act.” Chinese social media registered 800,000,000 views on Weibo, filled with anger. China is Japan’s largest buyer of seafood, accounting for one-half of Japan’s seafood exports.

Major Japanese cosmetics manufacturers have seen sales drop along with public share prices as Chinese internet users began compiling lists of Japanese brands to boycott, attracting 300,000,000 views on Weibo. The boycott could be a “trigger for Chinese consumers to switch away from Japanese premium cosmetics brands,” said Wakako Sato, an analyst for Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. (Source: Controversial Fukushima Nuclear Waste Plan Spurs Chinese Boycott of Japanese Cosmetics, Time, June 22, 2023)

On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, users have circulated lists of Japanese brands ranging from cosmetics to food and beverages, urging people not to buy those products.

South Korea and Hong Kong are banning Japanese seafood from Fukushima and nine other prefectures. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry called the release a “crime against humanity,” which Japan can only view as the most humiliating insult of all time.

Is Japan setting a dangerous precedent? According to the New York Times, August 22, 2023: “If Japan dumps its tainted Fukushima water in the ocean, what’s to stop other countries from doing the same?” Indeed, this may be one of the most deadly consequences of TEPCO’s dumping, with G7 approval.

“We’ve seen an inadequate radiological, ecological impact assessment that makes us very concerned that Japan would not only be unable to detect what’s getting into the water, sediment and organisms, but if it does, there is no recourse to remove it… there’s no way to get the genie back in the bottle,” marine biologist Robert Richmond, a professor with the University of Hawaii, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.” (Source: Fukushima: What are the Concerns Over Waste Water Release? BBC News, August 25, 2023)

TEPCO admits to some level of radiation when it releases water from storage tanks. According to a CNN news article, Japan claims other countries are also guilty of releasing tritium-laced water into the ocean. So, why can’t they also do it? However, this misses the point that nobody should be allowed to release radioactive water into the oceans. Furthermore, TEPCO’s concentrations, with 60 highly toxic radioactive isotopes, hopefully treated by ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) processing technology, make other dumpers look like pipsqueaks. Even worse yet, Greenpeace/Japan, and others, have strong reservations about the effectiveness of ALPS, and consider: Who’s measuring?

The U.S. National Association of Marine Laboratories, with over 100 member laboratories, issued a position paper strongly opposing the toxic dumping because of a lack of adequate and accurate scientific data in support of Japan’s assertions of safety.

And regardless of Japan’s attempts to downplay the dumping as inconsequential, it has been scientifically established that even very low doses of radioactivity bio-accumulate in the human body, as well as in marine life, over time leading to physical deterioration because of DNA damage.

“At high doses, ionizing radiation can cause immediate damage to a person’s body, including, at very high doses, radiation sickness and death. At lower doses, ionizing radiation can cause health effects such as cardiovascular disease and cataracts, as well as cancer. It causes cancer primarily because it damages DNA, which can lead to cancer-causing gene mutations.” (Source: National Cancer Institute)

How is it possible to justify dumping any amount of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean? Is the world’s consciousness so low, so lacking a moral compass, that it’s okay to dump the most toxic material on the planet into the oceans?  

Stop destroying the oceans!

And please contemplate the dire ramifications of the nuclear energy trap

Robert Hunziker

Los Angeles

by Robert Hunziker

Nuclear reactors are directly in the line of fire of global warming. 

In fact, nuclear reactors cannot survive global warming. But that’s only the start of serious issues with the world’s newly found love affair with nuclear energy. This article examines the likelihood of nuclear energy as a fixit for global warming, or is it a victim?

The world is turning to nuclear energy as one solution for raging global warming, which has been in the news on a real-time basis drying up commercial rivers, depleting major reservoirs and spreading wildfires like there’s no tomorrow. Yet, that’s only a sampling of global warming knockoffs. Significantly, it’s getting worse by the year, and there are some who wonder how much worse before the climate system literally implodes with destructive capacity beyond Hollywood’s wildest imagination.

In consequence, nuclear energy’s popularity is on the rise in concert with rising global temperatures. The hotter it gets the more supporters jump on the bandwagon, but there are plenty of reasons to believe it’s a fool’s paradise. History will likely judge this worldwide movement for nuclear energy as one of the biggest traps of all-time. Nevertheless, the nuclear energy trap is coming onstream faster and faster and without much opposition. Maybe there should be some.

A Gallup survey found 55% of U.S. adults in support of nuclear energy, which is the highest in over a decade. The Biden administration views nuclear as a key climate solution to net zero. Japan is restarting its idled plants and plans on building more as it commences the absolute insanity of releasing radioactive toxic water in storage tanks at Fukushima’s TEPCO nuclear plant directly into the readily available, right-next-door Pacific Ocean, as its neighbors squeal and many smart scientists squirm. Meanwhile, China, with 24 nuclear energy plants currently under construction, ambitiously plans to build at least 150 new reactors over the next 15 years. India is planning to commission 20 reactors by 2031. Worldwide, 60 new reactors are under construction. 

Nuclear energy is on the move at a time when more and more exposure of cancer cases and deaths become public knowledge, as follows:

• A BBC Future Planet article d/d July 25, 2019, The True Toll of the Chernobyl Disaster: “According to the official, internationally recognized death toll, just 31 people died as an immediate result of Chernobyl while the UN estimates that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster. In 2005, it predicted a further 4,000 might eventually die as a result of the radiation exposure… Brown’s research, however, suggests Chernobyl has cast a far longer shadow.” 
• “The number of deaths in subsequent decades remains in dispute. The lowest estimates are 4,000; others 90,000 and up to 200,000.” (Source: Janata Weekly: Cuba and the Children of Chernobyl, May 7, 2023)
• According to an article in USA Today d/d February 24, 2022, What Happened at Chernobyl? What to Know About Nuclear Disaster: “At least 28 people were killed by the disaster, but thousands more have died from cancer as a result of radiation that spread after the explosion and fire. The effects of radiation on the environment and humans is still being studied.”

In time, Fukushima will reflect statistics, oftentimes second-third-fourth generations.

According to Chernobyl Children International, 6,000 newborns are born every year in Ukraine with congenital heart defects called “Chernobyl Heart.”

The newest nuclear energy craze is Small Modular Reactors to be built and installed throughout the world. Thereby, the entire planet could easily go nuclear.

Meanwhile, America’s left is onboard the let’s go-for-it nuclear cruise ship. The acid test of America’s left-leaning greenish advocates suddenly in favor of nuclear energy is left-leaning California, the birthplace of America’s anti-nuclear movement, which decided to extend the life of Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor, the state’s last nuclear energy plant, rather than close it down. Beyond this shift of allegiance to nuclear in greenish California, National Public Radio ran a report on the outbreak of support for nuclear, August 30, 2022, entitled: Why Even Environmentalists are Supporting Nuclear Energy Today. 

But on a cautionary note, nuclear energy has an adversarial voice that’s difficult to ignore: “Multiple and unexpected failures are built into society’s complex and tightly coupled nuclear reactor systems. Such accidents are unavoidable and cannot be designed around.” (Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents, Princeton University Press, 1999)

The widespread rousing excitement over nuclear energy is a trap. In part because global warming is the kiss of death for reactors. Global warming and nuclear energy clash, incompatible, mutually destructive. Global warming is the enemy of nuclear energy, out to destroy it by drying rivers and overheating ocean waters amidst rising seas that cascade onto shoreline reactors a la Fukushima. Reactors only survive at the mercy of cool waters, and they’re seriously challenged/damaged by increasing levels of ocean surges. Nuclear reactors are not drought-tolerant, which is one of global warming’s biggest weapons.

The truth about nuclear energy’s fallibility is enunciated in a recent interview with one of the world’s leading experts, Dr. Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, former secretary to the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Internal Radiation, and Visiting Fellow, University of Sussex, who said: “It’s important to understand that nuclear is very likely to be a significant climate casualty.  For cooling purposes nuclear reactors need to be situated by large bodies of water, which means either by the coast or inland by rivers or large water courses. Sea levels are rising much quicker than we had thought and inland the rivers are heating up, potentially drying up, and also subject to significant flooding and flash-flooding and inundation. The key issue for coastal nuclear is storm surge, which is basically where atmospheric conditions meet high tide, which is essentially what happened in Fukushima.” (Source: Interview of Dr. Paul Dorfman, Nuclear Energy Is Already a Climate Casualty, Hot Globe, July 19, 2023)

“In recent years, nuclear plants across Northern Europe have been forced to shut down or reduce output because seawater became too warm to safely cool the reactor cores. Over the past decade, the Millstone energy plant in Connecticut saw a series of shutdowns on hot summer days until regulators raised the temperature limit of its cooling waters by 5 degrees Fahrenheit.” (Source: Nuclear Energy Plants are Struggling to Stay Cool, Wired, July 21, 2022)

France is an example of nuclear energy going wrong. The French Court of Auditors’ Report on the Safety and Operation of France’s Fifty-six (56) Reactors recently highlighted an increasingly unstable supply of water necessary for the country’s cooling reactors. (Source: Climate Change, Water Scarcity Jeopardizing French Nuclear Fleet, Balkan Green Energy News, March 24, 2023)

In France, Loire River is the longest river in the country at 625 miles. As of early 2023, global warming had clobbered the river, some areas completely dry with flow rate down to 1/20th of normal. Some of the country’s nuclear energy plants depend upon the river for cooling purposes. To date, forced shutdowns have only occurred in the summer, but France’s Court of Auditors warned that such events are likely to become 3–4 times more frequent unless global warming somehow subsides; yet France’s environmental minister thinks 4°C is on the horizon for the country. Moreover, for the first time since 1980, France has been a net importer of electricity, losing its 40-year net exporter status as its celebrated nuclear energy capability (70% of electricity for France) caved-in to global warming.

Since water-cooled  conventional nuclear energy reactors (95% of the 436) are vulnerable to global warming, then is a molten salt reactor a magical solution?
Answer: No, it is not!

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published a detailed analysis of molten salt reactors entitled: Molten Salt Reactors Were Trouble in the 1960s – and Remain in Trouble Today, June 20, 2022. The lengthy article traces the attempted development of molten salt reactors dating back to the 1950s. The various avenues of experimentation with halting results consume paragraph after paragraph. For example, here’s one excerpt: “These problems remain relevant. Even today, no material can perform satisfactorily in the high-radiation high-temperature, and corrosive environment inside a molten salt reactor. In 2018, scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory conducted an extensive review of different materials and, in the end, could only recommend that ‘a systematic development program be initiated.’ In other words, fifty years after the molten salt reactor was shut down, technical experts still have questions about materials development for a new molten salt reactor design.”

In conclusion, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists claims that if molten salt reactors are constructed, they are unlikely to operate reliably and would result in various safety and security risks and would produce several different waste streams, all of which require extensive processing and serious disposal challenges. Accordingly, according to the Bulletin: “Investing in molten salt reactors is not worth the cost or the effort.”

If not large-scale reactors, will Small Modular Reactors (“SMR”) save the day?

According to a 2021 article in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: SMRs are at an early stage of development and are speculative technologies. It will take at least a decade to get them off drawing boards into serious production and longer to determine if they really work according to plans. It’s too slow and too costly to meet climate deadlines. 

Stanford News published a SMR study: Stanford-led Research Finds Small Modular Reactors Will Exacerbate Challenges of Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste. The study concludes that SMRs will generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear energy plants. “Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study.” (Stanford)

Then, to satisfy the overwhelming popularity to go nuclear, are any modern “advanced” nuclear reactor designs worth pursuing?

Answer: No. According to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists: Report Finds That ‘Advanced’ Nuclear Reactor Designs Are No Better Than Current Reactors — and Some Are Worse, March 18, 2021. The 140-page report highlights studies of (1) sodium-cooled reactors (2) molten salt-fueled reactors (3) high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and whether they meet the requirements of (a) safer (b) more secure (c) lower risk of nuclear proliferation and terrorism than the existing fleet of nuclear reactors. None of the three satisfactorily passed the study. 

Additionally, the report analyzed unsubstantiated claims developers are making about designs and using little hard evidence to advance their causes. For example, Bill Gates’ statements about the 345-megawatt Natrium claiming it will produce less nuclear waste and be safer than conventional light-water reactors: The UCS report found the sodium-cooled fast reactor Natrium to be less “uranium-efficient,” and it would not reduce the amount of waste, and it’s subject to serious safety problems not at issue with conventional light-water reactors, e.g., sodium coolant can burn when exposed to air or water, and its fast-reactor could experience uncontrollable energy increases leading to rapid core melting, which is the overriding bane of nuclear energy.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists: Timing is another killer of contemporary designs. According to requirements to be met by federal regulators, it could take up to 20 years and billions of dollars to commercialize non-light-water reactors, fuel cycle facilities, and related infrastructure. Timing, timing, timing is everything when it comes to the necessity of reaching net zero emissions, as global warming is not waiting around for solutions. It is accelerating like never before as stated by Dr. James Hansen (Columbia University): “There has been a staggering increase in Earth’s energy imbalance.” Hansen’s formula supporting that statement points to a distinct possibility of 1.5C right around the corner. Which begs the question: How long does it take to plan, approve, build, and commission a nuclear reactor? Oh, well!

In conclusion, the Union of Concerned Scientists recommends: “The DOE and Congress should consider spending more research and development dollars on improving the safety and security of light-water reactors, rather than on commercializing immature, overhyped non-light-water reactor designs.” 

As usual in cases with extremely difficult circumstances dealing with nature there are no easy answers but plenty of traps. In that regard, is nuclear energy a Trojan Horse for devastating global warming?

Robert Hunziker
Los Angeles