Top 40 Impacts of Climate Change
In this post, I list 78 current and future impacts of climate change, along with references for some of the more unexpected items. That list was compiled scouring the web along with suggestions and comments to a Twitter post I made. In retrospect, many of these items are redundant or speculative. And so, I refined that list down to 40 distinct and near certain short-term consequences, which is what I present here.
Most of these consequences are already happening to some degree. Many of these are harbingers of the collapse of modern industrial civilization. Some of these are foretelling of the sixth great extinction. All of them are extraordinarily sad.
As I write this, politicians all over the world continue to side with the fossil fuel industry. Greenhouse gasses, including CO2 and methane, continue to spike. The weather just gets more deadly and more chaotic. It’s hard to believe we have until 2050 (net-zero) or even 2030 to get on track. Truth: we don’t.
All it’s going to take is one more El Nino super-heating event (like 2016), one more La Nina drought in the Southwest US and one more summer of hellacious record highs, floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, crop failures and droughts. That’s it — that’s all the buffer we have left to separate functioning modern civilization from becoming a hellscape, a condition that already exists in many third-world and less privileged countries.
I am not suggesting that this is a list of problems that will be “solved” by addressing climate change. It’s too late for that. The events in this list will happen with ever increasing severity the deeper we get into the climate crisis.
There is so much suffering ahead. Be kind, be generous, be of service.
Top 40 Impacts of Climate Change
1. Acid rain
2. Algae blooms
3. Ash & smoke
4. Bees dying & pollination loss
5. Climate refugees & migration
6. Coral bleaching
7. Crop failures
8. Deforestation
9. Desertification
10. Disease, pandemics (plants & animals)
11. Droughts
12. Drying up of lakes, rivers, wells, springs
13. Earth axis shift
14. Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes
15. Extreme cold
16. Financial/bank/stock collapse
17. Fires
18. Floods
19. Food & water riots
20. Hazardous, smoke-filled & polluted air
21. Heat waves: frequency, power, duration
22. Hunger, famine & starvation
23. Infrastructure collapse
24. Melting Antarctic & Greenland land ice
25. Melting Arctic & Antarctic sea ice / Blue Ocean Event
26. Melting glaciers (drinking water crisis)
27. Methane bomb (Siberian permafrost methane & Clathrates from ESAS)
28. Nuclear plant meltdown
29. Ocean acidification & deoxygenation
30. Ozone layer depletion
31. Permafrost thaw
32. Price instability & inflation
33. Reanimated bacteria/viruses
34. Sea level rise (e.g. Thwaites glacier)
35. Shutdown of AMOC, SMOC
36. Species extinction (100+/day)
37. Storms — more frequent, power, duration
38. Supply chain & transportation collapse
39. Unemployment & poverty
40. War, extremism, fascism & terrorism
References
Algae Blooms
- Is Humanity Doomed? Science Says We Are In The Middle Of A ‘Mass Extinction Event’, India Times, September 26, 2021
- Mass Extinction Events Can Turn Freshwater Into Toxic Soup, And It’s Already Happening, Science Alert, September 19, 2021
Bees & Pollination Loss
- Bumblebees are going extinct in a time of climate chaos, National Geographic, February 7, 2020
- Climate change reduces the abundance and diversity of wild bees, study finds, PENN State News, September 5, 2021
Earth Axis Shift
- Climate change has shifted the Earth’s axis, new study suggests, USA Today, April 26, 2021
Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes
- How climate change triggers earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, The Guardian, October 16, 2016
- Get Ready for More Volcanic Eruptions as the Planet Warms, Scientific American, December 21, 2017
- Five ways climate change increases the threat of tsunamis, Phys.Org, January 22, 2022
Extreme Cold
- A Full List of All The Record Cold Texas Temperatures , Spectrum News 1, February 17, 2021
- Antarctica’s last 6 months were the coldest on record, CNN, October 9, 2021
Nuclear Plant Meltdown
- Climate Change Could Cause Fukushima-Style Meltdowns in the US, The_Byte, April 19, 2019
Ozone Layer Depletion
- The ozone hole over the South Pole is now bigger than Antarctica, CNN, September 16, 2021
Price Instability and Inflation
- The Great Inflation of the 2020’s, Eudaimonia, October 19, 2021
Reanimated bacteria/viruses
- Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up, Scientific American, November 20, 2020
- Permafrost thaw could release bacteria and viruses, The European Space Agency, October 22, 2021
Supply Chain Collapse
- The workers who keep global supply chains moving are warning of a ‘system collapse’, CNN, September 29, 2021
Thwaites Glacier
- ‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All, Rolling Stone, December 29, 2021
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Thank you for this list of events most probably happening quite all in parallel per year.
You missed diminished attendance at Trump rallies and dead golfers that have to be carted off of Trump golf courses. Thanks Eliot, your bro in the pain of accepting facts
I don’t recall the dead golfers at Trump courses — but thanks for your suggested addition to the list 🙂
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“Be kind, be generous, be of service” Your optimism is appears genuine but may not be realistic. I would be interested in an article on climate disaster battlefield triage. What rules and regulations should we use to evaluate nation’s climate disaster and if it can be rescued or not?
Thank you for this, and for your work … your service. I am also a doomer. It absolutely breaks my heart to witness the impacts of climate change and unleashed capitalism around the world. At the same time, staying connected to the harsh reality, to the work of experts I respect, my eyes and heart empowers me to do what I can to help.
Again, thanks! … Lee
Thank you for your kind words!
It is obvious that intelligence and greed is not conducive, nor a guarantee for long term survival of any species.
At this point in our lifecycle, we have decided to participate in a collective suicide, which in many ways, may be the best thing for this planet. It is unfortunate to be part of the last generation of the shortest living species in the history of our planet.
At the moment, the best we can do is observe the spectacle and be a witness to its demise; hopefully our sacrifice will make room for the next group of sentient guardians.
Regardless of where we are on the #FUBAR scale of 1 to 10 the end result is certain. Why, you may ask?! Well, the “Tragedy of the Commons” accurately describes the predicament we’re in and the only way out of such a predicament is a strong, mandatory regulatory system to administer the resources (“the commons”). On a global scale this was never going to happen; the IPCC was always merely a placebo. Governments/countries are the biggest stakeholders in Fossil Fuels and associated infrastructure so limited action will only happen AFTER disasters become intolerable 🙁
(I and anyone with his eyes open can show many cases that PROOF the duplicity of the governments!)
Always impressed by your equanimity in the presence of jerks.
The end of capitalism will come about only with the collapse of civilization, ironically caused by capitalism in the first place. In that sense there is something to be hopeful about. I’ve been a doomer for over 50 years now: A boomer doomer. During the 60s I was a dreamer. By the 70s I felt an overwhelming sense of doom. Why didn’t everyone see this coming I wondered. I’ve been waiting a long time. Next stop – tomber.