This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, soul-crushing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 234th weekly newsletter; you may read it in full here on Reddit if you’d like. The June 7-13, 2026 edition is available here on Reddit if you missed it last week. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.
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In Memoriam: The Major Oak, an approximately 1,200-year old tree in Nottinghamshire, England, has perished. The colossal tree was said to have been the most famous tree on earth, and experts say that tourism to the mammoth oak, along with Drought and heat eaves, led the tree to its death. The soil underneath was also reportedly seriously lacking in microbes. In death, the Major Oak will continue to play a role in the local ecosystem.
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How much damage do the Top 10% wealthiest people on earth cause to the environment? A study in Communications Sustainability found that the “annual damages owed by the global 10% to be $1.7–$5.7 trillion, equivalent to $2.3k–$7.5k per person (in $2017).” Biodiversity loss and climate change account for about 90% of their damages. “The top 10% of consumers are disproportionately responsible for transgressing planetary boundaries, causing one to two thirds of the overshoot of any given boundary.” Rich Americans were found to be the greatest contributors to environmental damage.
UNICEF claims that almost all children worldwide are affected by at least one “climate hazard,” while about half of them face at least three different, overlapping hazards through the year. A study summary claims that the impact of reforestation on precipitation varies depending on whether the future is high or low warming. The scientists write, “under low warming, reforestation slightly increases global water but makes wet regions wetter, worsening water inequality. Under high warming, the same reforestation reduces global water availability....In a hotter world, planting trees may come with hidden water costs.”
A 6.7 earthquake in Indonesia sent thousands fleeing, and left at least one person dead. Spain’s weather agency said 2025 was their 3rd warmest year on record, and last year broke 25 daily heat records for the country. The Equatorial Pacific Ocean’s temperatures hit at least 19 consecutive days of record warm temperatures, and as El Nino ramps up, this is expected to continue.
A gigaton of CO2 emissions equals one billion metric tons. Currently the world produces some 35-40 Gt of Co2 each year. The summary of a paywalled study suggests that the carbon emissions from AI over the next five and a half years will equal almost 3 Gt, and that AI will not begin to have a net negative carbon impact until around 2032. The researchers call this phenomenon a “carbon valley”: the period where AI still produces lots of emissions before (theoretically) eventually “AI will {somehow} save energy and cut carbon emissions across global industries.”
A study in Science Advances determined that CO2 emissions from melting permafrost north of 30° N are probably larger and earlier than previously expected. “Under high-emission pathways, the northern soil carbon balance shifts from a sink to a source of 32 petagrams of carbon {by 2100?}.” One petagram is 1,000 Gigatonnes. China is currently the world’s largest annual CO2 emitter, at 13.1 Gt. Scientists expect the region to shift into becoming a carbon source around 2050. So, deep permafrost carbon is probably a larger climate risk than many current models assume; Arctic warming could accelerate climate change more and faster than expected.
Though it appears impossible to prevent the forthcoming AMOC Collapse, some distinguished scientists are saying that we need to dramatically improve AMOC monitoring systems so we can at least get a better understanding of the crisis that lies ahead.
A remote part of Tasmania is seeing an “indestructible doomsday device” installed to monitor and record events on earth’s path to Collapse. They are calling it “Earth’s Black Box,” and it was announced in 2021, though it is only now beginning to be installed. The Box’s website claims that the Box “will record every step we take towards this {climate} catastrophe….The purpose of the device is to provide an unbiased account of the events that lead to the demise of the planet, hold accountability for future generations, and inspire urgent action.”
Fish dieoffs have been recorded from Minnesota to Arizona, attributed to Drought causing low oxygen levels in bodies of water. Though events like these happen every year, biologists say they have begun occurring earlier in the year than usual, and say that they will happen earlier and more regularly in future years.
Sydney, Australia saw ten consecutive days of weather topping 20 °C for the first time in 107 years. Record warm temps in Greenland. Morocco felt a new record minimum temperature at 31.4 °C (88.5 °F); Mongolia, too at 26.9 °C. Meanwhile southern Africa felt new daily highs across a few countries, Panama tied its hottest June night; so did St. Thomas in the Caribbean.
Pakistan felt its hottest night at 700m elevation, with 36 °C. Southern Thailand set a new June temperature record. Lima (metro pop: 12M), Peru saw a new hottest night for the year at 22.5 °C……and it’s winter. Global water vapor is rising, and expected to rise further by November, possibly later surpassing records set in 2024. A paywalled study in Nature Climate Change says that “Climate change may soon cause a catastrophic loss of global biodiversity….climate-related local extinctions were significantly more frequent among temperate (49% of surveyed species) than tropical species (33%).”
Where have all the monsoon rains gone? For the first two weeks of India’s historic monsoon season, rainfalls are down 41%, or 30cm below average. Some meteorologists say the monsoon rains could be linked to the AMOC Collapse (impacts on the mid-latitude jet stream may shift India’s rainfall northward); others say it’s partially the result of El Nino. This is India’s weakest monsoon in 11 years, and Mumbai’s driest June in some twenty years.
Despite the environmental challenges threatening humanity and global biodiversity worsening in the past decade, U.S. Democrats are pulling back from environmental policies in the wake of their 2024 election autopsy, which allegedly suggests that affordability and voters’ individual finances are more important to them.
Antarctica has been facing three weeks of record temperatures; a large section of ice that usually forms in West Antarctica failed to materialize this year. Some think it will never appear again; Antarctic sea ice is at its second-lowest on record for mid-June. On the opposite side of the planet, a British geoengineering attempt has been playing out: deep sea water, pumped up and onto snow-covered ice in the Arctic, has been freezing nearly instantly. This was done on a section of the Arctic in the winter, and the results are surprisingly optimistic: scientists say they have added an extra 7-10 days worth of ice on top of part of the ice, reflecting sunlight back and delaying the polar melt.
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Scientists say bird flu was responsible for the deaths of 13,000+ baby seals in Australia. A case of suspected bird flu in Western Australia marks the first recorded case of H5 bird flu in Australia; all 7 continents have now seen cases of avian flu.
SpaceX, which recently set the record for largest IPO, saw its value drop $620B in about two days. And a rule change on investments allowed SpaceX to join index funds ahead of schedule, essentially forcing millions of investors to tie their long-time retirement accounts into SpaceX and AI companies. When the AI bubble pops, it’s going to take a lot of retirement accounts down with it.
While more cases of the New World Screwworm are found in Texas, some entomologists are theorizing how far the parasite might be able to travel this summer. Extreme scenarios predict that, this year, it could travel as far as Virginia and Missouri, while more conservative estimates hypothesize that several generations of the fly could travel into Georgia and southern Florida.
He who controls the water controls the future—but not just because we need water to stay alive. Water has become the currency of power for cooling data centers, expanding at record speed to handle all your urgent AI slop, and the computations for our surveillance states. The countries that play host to the massive server farms (namely the United States, followed by China) also get to set the conditions for other countries. Though Europe has abundant water in its northern regions, electricity is expensive, and a maze of regulations is obstructing development, benefiting its people but eroding its strategic leverage in a more AI-dependent world. In fact, opposition to data centers is becoming a potent issue for voters to organize around, though tech giants are trying to intimidate their employees into staying out of the data center fight, and the U.S. government is accelerating approvals for new data center connections to the electrical grid.
Rising energy prices are pushing the UK’s industries closer to insolvency and Collapse. China’s retail sector saw a decline over the past 12-month period for the first time in three years. A study found associations between long COVID and cardiovascular disease, particularly angina and myocardial infarction.
Screening efforts for Ebola are increasing around the DRC and Uganda. As of Friday, 230+ deaths from Ebola were confirmed, and 896+ infections. About 9% of those killed and infected were healthcare workers. Experts say the outbreak is still quickly spreading, and has not yet reached its peak. Ebola is spreading particularly quickly among conflict-affected people, like those internally displaced in the eastern DRC.
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