Even though collapse is unfolding before everyone's eyes, so many just don't give a flying shit. I can hear it now; why didn't someone warn us? It is what it is; too much doomerism? Oh, well, best.
PARIS (Reuters) - The head of the European Space Agency (ESA) has warned economic damage from heatwaves and drought could dwarf Europe's energy crisis as he called for urgent action to tackle climate change.
Director General Josef Aschbacher told Reuters successive heatwaves along with wildfires, shrinking rivers and rising land temperatures as measured from space left no doubt about the toll on agriculture and other industries from climate change.
"Today, we are very concerned about the energy crisis, and rightly so. But this crisis is very small compared to the impact of climate change, which is of a much bigger magnitude and really has to be tackled extremely fast," he said.
Yet another extreme event has arrived in Western Europe as the continent's withering crops spark worries of a hunger crisis lingering into autumn and winter. Wildfires have caused tens of thousands to evacuate their homes in France. 80% of northern Italy's agriculture was lost, not far behind France and Spain.
In countries with little to no air conditioning, the heat crisis is felt by humans; wildlife and livestock suffer and die as the fourth heatwave scorches the region. The drought affects two-thirds of the land area in Europe.
The increased heating of rivers and seawater is too warm and dangerous for nuclear plants to operate safely. In France, many power plants have shut down, and a few have been allowed to discharge the plants' hot water into rivers despite the threat to wildlife.
The Rhine River water levels in Germany are so low that goods cannot be transported by barge. The Danube is dry; the source of the Thames river has dried up for the first time on record. The Po in Italy and the Loire in France are both dry.
In the Loire valley, France's garden for vegetables has failed for the season. Milk and cheese prices are surging as cows cannot graze on grass anymore and lack access to water, forcing farmers to buy hay and other fodder. France is just one of a few wheat exports. A severe food crisis haunts the EU.
Rainfall has been minimal, and irrigation has been banned in the northwest and southeast due to drinking water shortages. When precipitation does fall (it could be months), the water will be difficult to contain as it will be shorter and more intense. The heatwave exacerbates evaporation, drives up demand, and is with forever chemicals.
In the UK government? Not one of them has a care in the world.
'The new normal: how Europe is being hit by a climate-driven drought crisis
More than 100 French municipalities have no running drinking water and are being supplied by truck, green transition minister Christophe Béchu said, adding: “We are going to have to get used to episodes of this type. Adaptation is no longer an option, it’s an obligation.”
With surface soil humidity the lowest ever recorded and July rainfall 85% lower than usual, water restrictions including hosepipe and irrigation bans are in place in 93 of the country’s 96 mainland départements, with 62 classified as “in crisis”.
The Washington Post writes:
It has been barely three weeks since a historic spate of extreme temperatures baked western Europe, smashing all-time records in Britain. Now a new heat wave is building over the continent, with alerts issued and more records in jeopardy.
By Thursday, much of France and southern parts of England are expected to see high temperatures 18 to 27 degrees (10 to 15 Celsius) above normal — with highs in the 90s (above 32 Celsius) rather than the 70s (above 21 Celsius).
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Driving the heat is a ridge of high pressure, colloquially known as a heat dome, which will be parked directly over Britain by Tuesday night into Wednesday. In addition to bringing hot, sinking air, it will deflect any inclement weather — making for incessant sunshine.
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While the core of the heat will be situated over southern Britain and France from Thursday through Sunday, above-average temperatures will also swell from the Netherlands through southern Scandinavia. The heat will retreat from western Europe early next week shifting toward Eastern Europe.
It’s well-established that human-caused climate change is amplifying the severity, duration and frequency of high-end heat events. In addition to the ultrarare heat that baked Britain last month, a similar-magnitude event brought record-shattering temperatures, including a high of 109 degrees in Paris, in late July 2019.
..France faces an electricity 'Waterloo.'
In the European energy crisis, all of the attention is focused on Germany and gas from Russia. But France and its fleet of struggling nuclear reactors are at least as important. Indeed, the first European city to suffer a blackout as temperatures drop toward the end of the year may well be Paris rather than Berlin.
As winter approaches, the outlook in France is increasingly dire. Electricite de France SA, the state-owned utility, is running only 26 of its 57 reactors, with more than half of its chain undergoing emergency maintenance after the discovery of cracked pipes. With atomic reactors generating the lowest share of the country’s power in 30 years, France faces an electricity ‘Waterloo.’
The slump in nuclear availability is forcing France to rely more than ever on gas-fired plants, intermittent wind and hydro as well as imports. That’s pushing up the cost of electricity in the wholesale market for the whole of Europe, with French forward prices surging to almost 1,000% more than their decade-long average through 2020.
Climatologist John Sweeney has warned the world was effectively reaping the rewards of inaction on climate change.
Recent heatwaves in Europe were a consequence of the lack of action, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“We're seeing a more marked intensification of heatwaves, a more marked intensification of the frequency and intensity of them by three to four times the average for this part of the middle latitudes.
“It's something that we have been telling people about for many years now but certainly this has been a brutal summer in much of Europe. We know now for example that the heatwave last month in the UK was ten times more likely as a consequence of what we've been doing to climate.
“So, we're effectively reaping the rewards of much of the inaction that the globe has had on this topic over many years now and that consequence is coming home to roost big time in Europe.”
Europe may be the first continent to get a kneeing in the shorts; they will not be the last.
Winter is coming…
I, do not see agricultural disasters factored in the recession debate. But the lack of energy will be a major factor
A Worrying Signal From Oil Traders Of A European Recession
From OilPrice.com
Norwegian electricity normally goes to the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. However, hydropower output, which accounts for the bulk of Norway’s total electricity output, has been low this year, and the country is trying to secure local sufficiency. More bad news for struggling Europe, where renewable power output remains uneven.
The picture is not pretty, and earlier this month, the IMF signaled it could become even worse as it advised European governments to pass on the additional energy costs to consumers to encourage energy savings. The fund argued that financial aid only keeps energy consumption high when it should be going down.
Meanwhile, Nomura analysts recently forecast that the eurozone, along with the UK, the U.S., South Korea, Australia, and Canada, are among the countries facing recession in 2023.
“Right now central banks, many of them have shifted to essentially a single mandate — and that’s to get inflation down. Monetary policy credibility is too precious an asset to lose. So they’re going to be very aggressive,” Nomura’s head of global markets research, Rob Subbaraman, said last month.
Add to this central bank aggressiveness the equally aggressive stance the EU is taking in its standoff with Russia, and there’s a recipe for recession right there.
Reuters’ Kemp predicted that at least four European economies will fall into a recession before the year’s end. Unfortunately, it’s the four largest - Germany, France, Italy, and Britain - which means the pain will be felt across the bloc and the rest of Europe, too. The silver lining: fuel prices might begin to fall once a recession settles in.