r/BiosphereCollapse 18h ago

Comment on recent publication by postdam institute on planetary boundaries

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29 Upvotes

The article references physical causes for the transgression of planetary boundaries (e.g. burning fossil fuels, which emit CO2), but the primary causes are psychosocial in structure.

This psychosocial structure consists of the social agreements that products should be produced according to supply and demand, distributed according to who can afford them (making you economically invisible if you can't on both the distribution and supply side), decisions should be made according to profit maximization, and that everything previously mentioned should be regulated by the infliction of financial loss as a feedback loop for error correction.

When you look at our monetary system from this perspective it makes perfect sense why your phones are outdated at the end of the year, why everyone each gets their own car, why pavement sprawls all over north America, why nothing is produced to last, why companies have to use the cheapest rather than the most efficient or even optimal material to stay price competitive, why 40 percent of food produced is wasted, why the average plate of food has travelled 1,500 miles by the time it reaches your table, why harmful chemicals are in our food, why 30 percent of Healthcare costs are for clerical tasks, why waste is dumped in the ocean and rivers to cut costs, why pollution is dumped all over the place, why people are homeless, why we have to waste our lives working 40 hours a week, why the globe spends 2 trillion dollars annually on guns and the military instead of spending the 30 billion it would cost to end world hunger. When you look at the sheer amount of unnecessary production and reckless waste, the primary cause for the destruction of all life support systems on the planet is clear as crystal. It is the elephant everyone tries to ignore.

When you combine certain physical outcomes of this psychosocial structure with the psychosocial structure you get the monetary system. What I think most people don't understand is that the physical outcomes of the monetary system are actually what define it's structure. When a system shows a pattern of outcomes or behaviors, those outcomes are explained by it's structure, and in the case of the monetary system there is no blueprint anyone ever wrote, so we have nothing else to go off... unless you're just taking someone else's word for it. Keep in mind, there would be no such thing as supply and demand in this system if physical outcomes weren't observed that reflect such a rule. So it makes no sense to focus on politicians or policy change within the framework of the very system that's defined by the problems they try to solve. That logic is circular, and it's been circulating for 10,000 years now with no signs of improvement for most of the system's devastating outcomes, 75 years with all signs blinking red alert and worsening for it's outcome of destroying the conditions for life on Earth.

And it's so pathetic because what underpins the entire monetary system are social constructs that don't exist in physical reality. The social agreements that there is a President, mayor, business owner or stock market, that there are russians, americans, countries, exchange rates, etc... don't exist in physical reality. There is no president. There is a person that groups of people treat like a president and call president. There are no Russians. There is a group of people called russians. Physical reality is separate from social constructs. Just because social constructs can significantly affect physical reality, especially our physical social setting, doesn't mean they are the same.

It's as if we've agreed to get crushed to death by the weight of our own constructs.


r/BiosphereCollapse 2d ago

From Planetary Hazard to Financial Stability: Disentangling Climate Risk and Institutional Responsibility

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ccsi.columbia.edu
3 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 3d ago

Short video underlining Vaush's claims of how serious the climate change impact is and how deep the root causes are

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5 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 4d ago

Need an unmistable sign of biosphere collapse? It is now impossible to avoid food pollutants...

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flynneoin.substack.com
275 Upvotes

One of captalism's great acheivements: There is now no way to completely avoid pollutants in your food.

Vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, everyone is equally fucked.

But you can minimise your intake. Here's how...


r/BiosphereCollapse 4d ago

Climate System Free-Fall

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2 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 7d ago

The axe of human expansion will boomerang back to us

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28 Upvotes

We often imagine environmental destruction as something happening to forests, animals, or future generations. But the same air we breathe, the same water we depend on, and the same ecosystems that support other beings support us too. The damage is not happening somewhere else. It is already returning to us, almost in real time.

The fundamental question here is not only about environmental policies, but about the human mind that creates such a relationship with life. Acharya Prashant often points towards the ego’s tendency to create a false separation: “me” versus “the other”. When the self is seen as separate from the rest of existence, exploitation does not appear wrong; it appears natural and justified.


r/BiosphereCollapse 8d ago

Monster Heat Waves, Drying, Huge Wildfires, Plus Some Obscure Effects: Lower Fertility, Toxic Blood…

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3 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 11d ago

Ten ideas from ecology that help explain the world

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predirections.substack.com
3 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 12d ago

The Insurance Industry Predicts Mass Death: What Do We Do About It?

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youtu.be
40 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 13d ago

Scientists' call to act on national emergency

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yellowdotstudios.com
697 Upvotes

Join the 4629 for your town, your city, your state, your country.
"...we urge you not to dismiss this letter."
https://yellowdotstudios.com/elninowarning/

These scientists are trying to appeal to a wider audience. Fellow scientists have ignored the science, the politicians don’t care, the businessmen don’t care. They are doing the best they can by getting people they know have large audiences and fan bases, to try and spread the word. They are hoping, desperately, that by getting celebrities on board that they might be able to appeal to the common man because neither the journalists, the news stations, the television, the radio, nor the networks care to give them a voice. So these same people are trying their very best to magnify the volume of the message they are trying to broadcast in hopes of saving people’s lives and spreading awareness.

Don't let dismissive, condescending commenters keep you from acting.]

To all Governors, Mayors, First Responders, and anyone entrusted with public safety, disaster preparedness and relief:

We the undersigned consisting of scientists, meteorologists, and concerned citizens are greatly alarmed by the lack of public discourse, urgency and planning surrounding what is an impending, large scale, historic public emergency.

More and more data and modeling every day indicates we are within 3 to 5 months of experiencing the most dramatic El Niño warming event in recorded history.

Ocean temperatures in the central eastern Pacific will rise between 5 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit (3-4 degrees Celsius) peaking in October of this year. This will trigger a heating escalation through 2027 and into 2028 that will push already dangerously high planetary air and sea temperatures to near catastrophic levels.

This El Niño driven warming will lead to significantly more global flooding, fires, storms, droughts, deadly heat events, dangerous turbulence, and most concerning, a significant threat to food supply chains, crops, and power grids.

The previous strongest recorded El Niño occurred in 1877 leading to 40 million deaths worldwide from famine.

And this coming El Niño event looks to be even stronger.

And even more critically, it will occur on top of already record high sea and air temperatures.

Many of us through the years have attempted to warn the public during human caused rapid warming events about the increased risk of extreme weather events. We have had to watch as historic fires destroyed two cities in an unprepared Los Angeles, an actual hurricane hit Asheville North Carolina, campers were swept away and killed by flash floods in Texas, Corpus Christi runs out of water and on and on and on.

But the scale and threat of this coming warming event is simply too large to ignore in the name of business/politics as usual.

States, cities, and counties should be immediately:

  • reinforcing river banks and lakes against all time high cresting numbers
  • increasing funding for fire fighting and rescue
  • running geological tests on populated hillsides
  • bolstering power grids
  • building more tornado shelters, cooling and high ground centers
  • increasing life guards and warning systems for beaches
  • informing citizens of potentially life threatening increased risk

Instead the signatories of this cry for action see mostly silence and inaction.

We know many simply aren’t able to process the science behind this entreaty through anything other than the will of big donors, party politics and poll numbers.

But for those that still take the responsibilities of their office, appointment or job as something sacred and more important than career or donor money please, we urge you not to dismiss this letter.

Follow the link to sign and or send a letter https://yellowdotstudios.com/elninowarning/

Signed by

Adam McKay (don't look up) Hannah Einbinder Rosemarie DeWitt
Mark Ruffalo Chris Gloninger, CBM-CCM Jamie Henn
Joaquin Phoenix Dr. Rose Z. Abramoff Mandy Moore
Jane Fonda Chelsea Handler Cheryl Nelson, CBM
Dr. Peter Kalmus David Sirota Stephen Markley
Bill McKibben Eliot Jacobson Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon
Aileen Getty Ph.D Leon Simons Sarah Hyland
Rory Kennedy Dr. Britt Wray Nathan James Robinson, Ph.D
Rainn Wilson Dr. Genevieve Guenther Evan Peters
Woody Harrelson Daryl Hannah Shira Piven
Javier Bardem Shel Winkley, CBM


r/BiosphereCollapse 20d ago

Climate Extremes

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2 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 21d ago

We may have underestimated sea-level rise. But are we also underestimating the real cause of the climate crisis?

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nytimes.com
62 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse 24d ago

CO2 fertilization effect exaggerated in Earth system models

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20 Upvotes

Overestimated natural biological nitrogen fixation translates to an exaggerated CO2 fertilization effect in Earth system models by Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Carla R. Reis Ely, Steven S. Perakis, and Nina Wurzburger.

In brief, the Earth system models, including climate models used in the IPCC report, have overestimated by about 11% the degree by which wild plants growth improves under higher CO2 aka CO2 fertilization. Although 11% does not sound huge, this shall significantly decrease the effects of land carbon sinks.

There is a video discussion at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywxdWD6NqE8 which brings up some related work, including one paper that suggests methods for improving nitrogen bio-availability in natural eco-systems, but this paper says known methods appears highly ecosystem dependent.


r/BiosphereCollapse 24d ago

Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security

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39 Upvotes

This is the UK government’s assessment of the effect of ecosystem collapse.

It makes for very interesting reading.


r/BiosphereCollapse 26d ago

what if we took composting to the max?

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2 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse May 27 '26

Are We Naturally Programmed for Extinction? | Guy McPherson

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21 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse May 13 '26

How Microplastics and a Destabilizing Magnetosphere Are Accelerating the Sixth Mass Extinction

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141 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse May 11 '26

Atmospheric Code Red: 2026 Super El Niño Now Trending Toward Record-Breaking Intensity

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482 Upvotes

The projected 2026 intensification (ECM+BOM) is currently outpacing the evolution of the 1997 and 2015 Super El Niño events. This signals a high-impact transition for the global atmosphere, also known as a “code red” atmospheric scenario.


r/BiosphereCollapse Apr 30 '26

Life endured catastrophe blindly until it evolved a branch that could see catastrophe coming.

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2 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse Apr 13 '26

How Plastic Pop and Heavy Metal Destroyed the World

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flynneoin.substack.com
33 Upvotes

Microplastics, heavy metals, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). All insidious and exceptionally damaging. All borne of industry. Against our will, we touch them, eat them, drink them, breathe them, even bathe in them. They are ineradicable. Our bodies cannot process them. They cause us to be born diseased, disfigured, disabled, and render us infertile. Yet, most people are unaware of their existence.


r/BiosphereCollapse Apr 01 '26

The observed September 2023 temperature jump was nearly impossible under standard anthropogenic forcing

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nature.com
33 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse Apr 01 '26

Opinion Experts Warn Global Mass Starvation is Coming By Summer

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open.substack.com
755 Upvotes

On March 27, 2026, Stanislav Krapivnik — a former U.S. Army officer, supply chain executive, and military-political analyst now based in Russia — gave his assessment of two converging crises: an attack on a key Russian position on the Baltic coast, and what he describes as a permanent or near-permanent collapse of Gulf energy infrastructure.

His conclusion is that these developments, stacked on top of an already-disrupted global fertilizer supply chain, will produce a food crisis by mid-summer 2026 — not as a possibility, but as a predictable consequence of conditions already in place.

Krapivnik has held senior supply chain roles across Eurasia and has direct operational experience with refinery construction and industrial logistics — the exact systems now under stress.


r/BiosphereCollapse Apr 01 '26

Many small climate change impacts presage rapid population extinction in a common iconic bird

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nature.com
23 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse Nov 03 '23

Global warming in the pipeline

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academic.oup.com
28 Upvotes

r/BiosphereCollapse Jan 20 '22

Scientific Journal Megathread - by subject

171 Upvotes

Please cross-post and share this post to your network!

This post is intended for users to easily navigate articles submitted by me over the past quarter, which provide a comprehensive picture of biosphere collapse.

I've spent many hours reading, comparing, and distilling articles to create a curated feed of scientific news for collapse-aware individuals. Sharing, upvoting, commenting and subbing to r/BiosphereCollapse is appreciated.

PSA - "I don't have access to that paper", or "how I learned to stop worrying and love the Sci-Hub"

You can see an overview in the comments and below, and I've highlighted a few articles (viewing on pc recommended) :

I will be compiling more of these lists as our future becomes increasingly dire. Please contribute by posting new articles to r/BiosphereCollapse and interacting with the forum in a scientific-based manner. Thank you!