Collapse Catch-Up: May 21–27, 2023

Welcome to the 15th edition of Collapse Catch-Up, a weekly newsletter that catches you up on the latest signs that we are living through the collapse of global industrial civilization. You can find the 14th edition here.

This week we have news about wildfires destroying millions of hectares, droughts reducing crop yields, climate protests ending with arrests, deregulation leading to more pollution, research that proves were in the sixth mass extinction, the rapid spread of bird flu, bad news for the world economy, and signs we’re inching closer to World War III.

Extreme Weather

Typhoon Mawar has left a trail of destruction in Guam, and now it’s headed for the Philippines. With maximum sustained winds up to 185 mph and gusts up to 210 mph, Mawar is the most powerful storm on Earth in more than two years.

We’re likely to see more storms like this later this year as ocean temperatures have been at record highs for over 2 months. As pointed out in this tweet, there were record high sea surface temperatures, record high air temperatures, and record low sea ice extent all on the same day. And now it’s happened three days in a row.

Asia is still enduring a series of heatwaves, especially Sir Lanka, where temperatures have been rising faster than the global average at about 1.8°C…