Protests, sickness, War, and tariffs. “Liberation Day” feels more like a life sentence to an unstable world.

Last Week in Collapse: March 30-April 5, 2025

This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.

This is the 171st weekly newsletter. You can find the March 23-29, 2025 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these newsletters (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.

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Last March proved to be the Netherlands’ driest and hottest on record. A couple monthly heat records were set around the Bay of Bengal, some nighttime highs in March were broken across India, and we came close to a record cold March temperature in Antarctica. Flooding on some Greek islands lasted a couple days, but did not result in any human deaths. Madrid meanwhile hit 920% of its average March rainfall, while Morocco suffered from Drought and locusts.

An interesting study in Science Advances reports that inland waters have been experiencing a progressively worsening phenomenon relating to “oxygen turnover” caused by a variety of human factors: dams, climate change, and fertilizer runoff. Most inland bodies of water are producing more oxygen than they did in 1900 (much more, perhaps 4x as much)—but are also consuming much more (more than 3x) than they used to. The net result is that these bodies of water have become bigger oxygen sinks, thereby endangering marine animals and damaging water quality.

Damage report from Myanmar’s 7.7 earthquake on 28 March: 3,838+ have been confirmed dead in Myanmar; plus 21 deaths in Thailand. A number of major bridges around Mandalay have Collapsed, and 37 °C (100 °F) temperatures, alongside mosquitoes, add to the misery. “The smell of the dead bodies has overwhelmed the town,” one observer recounted. The central government is busy with combating a patchwork of rebel factions that, combined, hold about half of the country’s territory—and the rebels are too poor & disorganized to respond at scale. Until last Thursday, government forces were still launching airstrikes raiding villages, and forcibly conscripting the unlucky, but they recently agreed to a 3-week ceasefire. USAID is largely absent. Food remains the top priority for most of the affected people, and the military junta is accused of appropriating over half of some incoming humanitarian aid. Some major aid partners have already run out of funding & supplies.

What happens when invasive species take over completely. In the Hawai’an island of Oahu, some forests have experienced the total displacement of native species to tropical foreign species—what some ecologists call “freakosystems.” Meanwhile, a study found an invasive bamboo has established itself in the wild in Poland, along with the giant miscanthus plant.

1,900+ scientists signed an open letter condemning the Trump Administration's large cuts to scientific research and investment. The letter comes just as a Nature poll (with about 1,600 scientist responses) announced that 75% of scientists (particularly early-career professionals) are reportedly considering leaving the United States. Other scientists are writing & warning about fossil fuels and climate change, but nobody is listening. If scientists spent as much time actively marketing & advertising their work as they do researching, perhaps people would pay attention more.

Scientists are warning about the weakening of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, currently earth’s strongest ocean current. The strength of this current is important, because it keeps cold water flowing in the Southern Ocean. It is projected to weaken by 20% by 2050, which could invite warmer waters (and pollutants) farther south, hastening the melting of Antarctica, with all the attendant consequences. Another study which came out last week suggests that a warming Southern Ocean will result in greater rainfall in wetter summers in East Asia & wetter winters on the west coast of the U.S.

And another study’s lead author says that the Beaufort Gyre is weakening in the Arctic Ocean above Canada, which will eventually release freshwater outside the region and will probably impact the AMOC.

El Niño events have been getting longer and longer—and a study from Nature Geoscience says this one isn’t humanity’s fault; it’s been part of an ongoing process for some 7,000 years, mostly as a result of earth’s changing orbit. The implications include increased sea surface temperatures & storms in parts of the Pacific, while other regions will receive Droughts. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice hit new record lows for this time of the year.

A holistic macroeconomic study on global warming’s impact on the economy warns that a 3 °C rise could result in a 40% loss of the world economy—when factoring in declines in worker productivity due to rising temperatures & heat waves; mass migration disrupting everything; the spread of diseases; the impact on agriculture; etc. The researchers write that “it is the impact of global warming on the frequency, magnitude and duration of extreme events that is likely to have the greatest effect on systems.”

A study on Quebec tree ring rises over the last 195 years found decreasing snowpack since the late 1930s. Scientists say that roughly 1,430 bird species have been made extinct by humans, though the true number may be around 2,000. Brisbane’s 2032 Olympic Games has had its Olympic contract altered to loosen the obligation on being “climate positive,” changed to simply “aiming at removing more carbon from the atmosphere than what the Games project emits.”

Several locations in Mexico set new March heat records on the last day of the month. Northern Michigan experienced its worst ice storm in 100+ years. Tornadoes and storms in the U.S. killed 7 last week. Togo tied its hottest day in history (44 °C, or 111 °F). There is a heat wave stretching through much of Asia—after Europe—at the moment.

The IUCN Red List says that about one third of all fungi species are in danger of going extinct as a result of worsening deforestation. Armenia recently ended its driest winter in 90 years. And a landslide in Indonesia killed 10.

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A study from India determined that air pollution plays a strong role in mortalities during heat waves. The convergence of these two factors is particularly powerful “beyond the 75th percentile of temperature” and illustrates the interconnected (and unavoidable) nature of this predicament…and that’s not to mention the role humidity plays as well.

A deeper look into Africa’s Harmattan wind indicates that it is also carrying airborne disease, along with its greater-than-expected quantities of dust and particulate.

New research on underwater landslides—termed “turbidity currents”—found that these landslides are channels through which large quantities of pollution, including microplastics, find their way into the deep, deep sea. The study claims there are over 5000 such pathways bringing sediment deeper into the ocean.

“Liberation Day” (the beginning of Trump’s large-and-wide-scale tariffs) arrived on Wednesday, and economists are already sweating over the implications. A baseline of 10% tariffs have been imposed on all non-American products entering the U.S., with 60 other countries facing higher tariffs, based on a crude analysis of trade deficits with the U.S. Many countries, such as China, have retaliated with their own tariffs—sometimes in solidarity with regional adversaries. The EU is adding its own tariffs, and is reportedly considering more. Stocks are falling as financial fear spreads. This may only be the beginning. Anti-Trump protests erupted across the U.S. on Saturday.

HIV cases have risen over 600% in Egypt since 2010, and over 110% across the MENA region. Scientists warn about the risk of drinking raw milk, which could transmit bird flu. Experts remain concerned over the possibility of H-H transmission of bird flu in the future.

In a moment of good news, a team of researchers may have found a way to convert/recycle PFAS chemicals into graphene using “flash Joule heating.” Another new strain of COVID seems to be taking over: LP.8.1. Experts say it does not pose an increased risk. Meanwhile, recent research indicates that pregnant women seem to suffer less from Long COVID, possibly because of immunological changes experienced during pregnancy.

Another threat hospitals have been seeing more of are diverse fungal infections. The WHO reports that very few new antifungal drugs have been launched in recent years. The full 140-page report outlines the predicament of diagnosis and treatment.

“there are more than 6.5 million invasive fungal infections and 3.8 million deaths globally each year from severe fungal disease….and each year about 1.5 million people have invasive candidiasis or a Candida bloodstream infection, with almost 1 million deaths (63.6%)....There is also increasing concern with antifungal resistance. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial medicines…” -excerpts from the report, which is not really worth skimming

Samoa has been dealing with weeks of power outages, due to old generators and a worsening energy crisis for the island nation. Their annual GDP is expected to contract more than 15% as a result. Meanwhile, a currency shortage in Mozambique has resulted in a lack of bread and fuel. And a board member of a colossal insurance company stated that our climate is threatening capitalism—or it it the other way around?

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Hundreds of thousands of people protested Türkiye’s government last week, following a week of arrests and repression. Whether the anti-government forces can sustain this enthusiasm remains to be seen. In central Haiti, gang forces freed 500 inmates from a prison; some of the released men are certain to join up with the gang-armies terrorizing the failed state. Gang fighting against multinational police has become more common as they intensify efforts to seize all of the capital.

A photographic report sheds some light on Khartoum, the long-contested capital of Sudan’s Civil War, which was finally fully retaken by government forces two weeks ago. The national museum has been nearly totally looted, and the whereabouts of ancient relics unknown. After years of waffling in the War, it appears like Saudi Arabia has chosen a side, the central government. Meanwhile, growing tensions in South Sudan are engendering the resumption of their civil conflict.

Niger is pulling out of a multinational team of soldiers fighting Islamist forces in order “to reinforce security for oil sites” in the country—Niger is also focusing on expanding mining in its volatile northern regions. Tensions are growing between Algeria and Mali after Algeria shot down a Malian surveillance drone in Algeria’s airspace. Hungary announced that they are withdrawing from the ICC on the same day Israel’s PM visited.

Israel’s PM announced that they are planning to divide Gaza by “seizing territory” in southern Gaza and isolate Rafah. The new security corridor is still taking shape, but analysts believe it will also bisect the humanitarian zone on its way to the sea. The import ban on goods into Gaza turned one month old—food and medicine is in short supply. In Syria, Israeli airstrikes blasted two airbases which Türkiye was said to have its eye on, rendering them unusable. In Gaza, IDF airstrikes reportedly killed 27 people in a repurposed school. In Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed 4, including at least 2 Hezbollah fighters.

“The lives of hundreds of thousands of people here in eastern DRC are hanging by a thread,” said one aid director.. Over 1.2M people in the eastern DRC have been displaced since New Year’s, and many of their lives and livelihoods have gone up in smoke (in some cases, literally). Cholera is surging as a result of drinking contaminated water. The M23 gang army’s representatives are meeting with government officials in Qatar next week, while M23 soldiers allegedly move closer to the still-very-far-away capital, Kinshasa (metro pop: 18M).

The Philippines is stepping up preparations for a conflict against China, assuming that they will be pulled into a War if/when China goes for Taiwan. Over a quarter million Filipinos work in Taiwan. American defense officials appear to be pivoting towards the Pacific—but whether this is genuine resolve or just bluster is up for debate.

Europe is preparing for a potential War against Russia, with or without the United States. Germany has stationed its first permanent troop detachment outside Germany for the first time in 75+ years. Although there are only about 150 soldiers in Lithuania at present, the number is expected to eventually reach 5,000—although only 500 are planned to arrive by the end of 2025. One week after the Baltic states and Poland withdrew from an anti-landmine treaty, Finland announced that it is also pulling out so it can stockpile mines, for use along their border with Russia.

In Ukraine, Russian airstrikes hit President Zelenskyy’s home city (pre-War pop: 600,000), killing 19 and injuring 72 more—the most deadly strike on the city yet. Whether President Putin even wants a ceasefire will be decided within weeks, according to American diplomats. Several people were injured as more airstrikes struck Kyiv last night.

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Things to watch for next week include:

↠ The International Maritime Organization is meeting next week to discuss, among other things, whether to impose a carbon tax on all international sea-shipping. Sea commerce is theoretically supposed to become carbon neutral by 2050, and 3% of global emissions are currently made by sea shipping. A number of industrial countries, namely China, are opposed to a carbon tax, suggesting that a bullshit carbon credits system may be agreed upon instead.

Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:

-It’s not so easy to cut microplastics out of your life. This thread attempts to do so through changing your wardrobe, but the responses are less than reassuring, since we eat & inhale micro/nanoplastics as well. Microfibers are everywhere.

-The subreddit has some very wonderful writers, like the one in this thread who posted a number of excerpts from a book of some 50,000+ words. That’s like 5 months of this weekly newsletter.

Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, accusations, ceasefire predictions, permaculture advice, coping mechanisms, etc.? Check out the Last Week in Collapse SubStack if you don’t want to check r/collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to an email inbox every weekend. As always, thank you for your support. What did I miss this week?

Bulwark Podcast considers the worst case scenario for the rest of our lives here in the USA.

For the last several days, I've been trying to make some sort of sense of the US Tariffs. I've expected crazy from Trump, but these go beyond what I deemed possible. I've struggled to form a working theory as to what's goin on, and what the motivations of his administration are. This is my best attempt.

There's a theory going around the internet that the tariff formula used by the US for various countries was actually decided by AI. They didn't involve trade experts or actual economists at all. That's crazy right? The US is effectively smashing the global trade system with a blunt instrument. However, there is one area of life, where seeming to be crazy and irrational is good. Crime. In particular, protection rackets. When a Mafioso smashes a baseball bat into a glass counter and smashes the display of jewellery underneath, does the hoodlum care if the items smashed are expensive, or simply cheap costume jewellery? Of course not. The point is violence as a demonstration of intent. The threat is that even if the stuff smashed was cheap, the next blow might be to something more expensive. Or your head. That's why the US fundamentally doesn't care about the details of its tariffs. They are a blunt instrument to demonstrate a certain level of crazy before negotiating about a protection fee.

The underlying motivations of the US are based on the current economic position the country has put itself in for the last several decades. The dollar is the global reserve currency. This means most international trade is in dollars, and in particular every country needs dollars in order to trade in oil. This has had a number of effects. The US has been able to spend beyond its means for a long while, remaining a wealthy nation with an outsized military. However, the strong dollar has also hurt the US in other ways. In particular, it's destroyed their own domestic industrial capacity and caused most of their manufacturing to relocate to Asia.

So what would a win-con for the Americans be? How do they triumph from all this tariff chaos? What they want is to cease to be the global reserve currency, weaken the dollar, so their manufacturing can recover, but still remain a global economic and military superpower. How will they do this? The clues can be found in how US politicians talk in public and in leaked signal chats. They want the rest of the world to pay for the US military. So the US gets to have its cake (a strong military) and also eat it and go back to being a strong industrial power. This could be looked on in a number of ways. I've characterised it above as a gangster demanding a protection fee. Some countries may see it as a vassalization where the rest of the world become subordinates to a US military overlord. Asian countries might recognize this as similar to the old tributary system of Imperial China, where other countries sent regular gifts to the Emperor in acknowledgment of his supremacy. Thar's the position the US is aiming for, and it can only be reached via a global trade conference, and the tariffs are to force this to take place rather than for defining a position relative to any particular country.

Why the hell would the rest of the world agree to that? This is where I think the Trump administration are being idiots. They are vastly over-estimating their own negotiating strength. I'm reminded of the situation before Brexit. I remember right-wingers at the time predicting how strong Britain's negotiating position was. They told us that "we hold all the cards". We could get complete free trade with the EU, without any of the restrictions associated with EU membership. Liam Fox told us this would be the easiest trade deal in history. The Brexiteers genuinely believed what they were saying, and the US negotiators are in a similar position.

Ultimately we are dealing with extremely highly paid and well-educated Harvard economic professors who have never actually had their theories put to the test in any meaningfully way, but, due to vastly over-estimating their own ability due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, are convinced they are right and that the rest of the world of economics is wrong.

So what is this card the US holds? Why do they think they can win? Can they? I believe this comes down to the dollar's status as a reserve currency. Every other country needs dollars to trade, and this effectively means that every country needs dollars to even exist. For this reason, many countries have built up large dollar reserves in their national banks. However, with the US tariffs kicking in, international supply of dollars is likely to dry up. The US won't be spending nearly as much, and so some other countries will quickly find themselves unable to pay their way in international trade. So they won't only struggle to obtain US goods, but also important commodities like oil. Meanwhile, richer countries like Japan will have to plunder their own currency reserves, weakening their economy.

This means that whilst the US will be facing short-term economic pain, they reason that the rest of the world will suffer worse pain, and after a few months, they will be forced to the negotiating table where they will have to take the US position seriously. For this reason, because they think they can win, and the short term pain will be worth it, the Americans are likely to continue to force their tariffs far longer than many people will see as rational. They will go past the point of no return.

Maybe the US has other cards that I can't see. It's hard to be sure. However, if they don't, then they are sure to lose. They think their hand has 4 Aces, but their eyes are dodgy, and they are only holding a pair of 2s. They shouldn't be going all in on this. Because when international trade issues start to occur, capitalism will do what capitalism does best and route around barriers to trade. In particular, China and the EU will renegotiate their trading relationships with the Arab oil states in order to trade in Euros and Renminbis.

If this is the case, then the net effect of this tariff war will be for the US to suddenly cease to be the world's global reserve currency, but without the compensation they feel they are owed. This will cause a sudden and precipitous drop in the value of the dollar. The US will cease to be solvent as an ongoing concern, and will experience a bout of hyperinflation. Hard to predict exactly how that will play out, but mass political upheaval and violence are highly likely.

Anyone here living in South Africa and willing to offer some insight on the current situation and likely trajectories in the short to medium term? We have been living in Europe and the US for the last 25 years and the precarity (this is definitely a word right?!) of things has me feeling like the sacrifices of home and belonging that we made for our children no longer make sense. I am having a hard time getting my bearings though.

The Great Depression was accompanied by the Dust Bowl. Unlike the First Recession of the 2000s, the planet has gotten warmer ever since fueling the seemingly endless seasons of intense Hurricane activity, wildfires, and other natural disasters. The inputs of the Los Angeles fires earlier in the year is still up in the air in terms of how it will impact the housing insurances industry with insurances increasingly become expensive and unavailable due to climate change. But the introduction of the Trump tariffs, mass deportations, and the potential for another recession makes the blows from climate Change even more difficult to absorb for America. Climate-induced economic breakdown is more likely now that America has opened itself up to more vulnerabilities in it's economy.

Another disaster on the scale of the LA firestorm or Hurricane Harvey in the short-term future would be terminal and probably trigger the collapse of insurance due to the high cost of rebuilding now with the tariffs. With the lower classes now exposed to even more vulnerabilities with the cost of everything going up, any event of such magnitude holds higher stakes now with millions of Americans unable to afford a disaster upon them with their chances of recovery becoming evermore slimmer. With global supply chains disrupted, America's economy won't be able to tap into redundancies elsewhere to make up for disruptions in production if factories, farms, etc are impacted.

When it comes to other impacts of climate change, how would they factor into the looming depression of the 2020s to induce economic collapse?

I believe we’re watching the slow death of the United States—not as a country, but as a system. Not because of conspiracy. Not even because of politics. Because of incentives. Entropy. Denial.

We’re in late-stage imperial rot. That’s not a metaphor. That’s a strategic diagnosis.

Check out my first YouTube video about it:

https://youtu.be/vk1KmXWkhLs

This has been a looming thought that becomes increasingly larger as I grow older. In 30-40 years we are going to lose nearly 2 entire generations (boomers & gen-x), that is, hundreds millions of people who grew up in a world with no social media, smart phones, internet, computers, etc.

The world will be solely comprised of those who were born into and/or raised in the digital age. Those who spent their adolescence posting their every thought on their social media of choice, rather than keeping a diary. Those whose default mode of social interaction is done via the medium of a screen, rather than in-person. Those who are so captured by the internet, they are nearly incapable of communicating an original thought, resorting to blurting out the handful of phrases that are popular at the moment; as if to be the embodiment of a social media comment section (honestly, top of the list as to what i dread the most). There will be no more of the white-haired, 'out of touch', (untainted, in my view), generation who couldn't be bothered to learn what a tik tok or a meme was, had no idea how to use a phone to do anymore than call a relative or the internet, to pay their medicare payment.

I'm aware of the obvious knee-jerk reaction to this. 'Time passes, people die. Generations are comprised of people, what more of it really?', yet I can't help but feel so sad, so full of dread when I take the time to think about who the future will be made of. This is really it. Every passing day is a world where we lose a people with the first hand experience of the 'old world' for a people who will be handed smart phones at the age of 5 and left to their own devices. Is it not scary? What kind of a people will we be, when we're comprised of a generation that would rather ask the latest GPT model to conjure up an image for them, instead of drawing it themselves. Or have the robot write a story for them, instead of doing the thinking & imagining themselves. One whose default preference is to sit inside and enter their VR utopia, rather than engage with our albeit flawed, reality.

I say this as someone about to complete their undergraduate degree. I look around at my peers and I don't hold much faith in their ability to rebel against where we're headed. Convenience takes priority, treats take priority, leisure takes priority. These are our future leaders, decision makers, fellow citizens. People who prioritize their private taxi burrito over exercising self-discipline and abstaining from their treats for a bit. It scares me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see people in the streets, but if feels like too little too late. We let a fascist into the highest office in the country. The supreme Court says he has legal immunity for all official acts. At this point I don't think protesting in the streets on a Saturday is going to make a bit of difference in his agenda. Most of the signs I saw were about not cutting social services or getting rid of DOGE. Those are definitely major concerns, but right now our government is shipping people to labor camps in El Salvador for the crime of existing while not US citizens. Fascism is happening here and protest signs are not stopping it. Voting harder did not stop it. We're not going to elect a Democrat in 2028 and make all of this better. Fascism is here to stay unless we do something fast and that something is not holding up signs that say FDT

With all the destruction going on, it's hard to keep up. I'm a librarian and former history teacher and I've been reading big thick history books since I was 10 years old. I've read enough to know how this ends.

I've been keeping a list the last few days of things that stand out to me as extremely concerning or that chill me to the bone.

• All 56 state and territorial humanities councils had funding terminated. This will decimate small town and rural libraries.
• This US is being boycotted globally and our long-time allies are now warning their citizens against coming here for their own safety.
• 10,000 Health and Human Services employees laid off including FDA and CDC.
• Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, flagged by TSA for foreign ties.
• Pomona College turning over student disciplinary records regarding pro-Palestinian protests to Congress. There are probably others
• Entire Civil Rights branch of the Department of Homeland Security fired.
• IRS sharing data of undocumented immigrants with ICE.
• They are openly considering sending American citizens to El Salvador. 
• DJT now has immunity from crimes.
• 300,000 federal employees laid off.

I actually think that Musk wants things so hard that Americans will take on the jobs the migrants or immigrants were doing. I'm really afraid of where we are heading.

Please add your own in the comments.