February 11, 2020
By AJ Dellinger

Superstorm Cell sweeps across Kansas, bringing hail and tornadoes (click here)

We often think of the many threats (click here) that face humanity as singular challenges, perhaps locked to the region that is experiencing them. But according to scientists at the international research program Future Earth, these threats aren't just a problem in isolation. We run the risk of these problems combining and compounding the problems that we face. In a recently published report, the experts warn that the interconnection of a number of ecological threats could result in in a potentially devastating series of events that would cascade into a global systemic collapse....

"Our Future on Earth" (click here)

...If the country of Australia was facing one of these difficult ecological situations at a time, it would be challenging to address. But the country no longer has that luxury — it is experiencing them all at once, and it is difficult not to see how each individual condition worsens the overall situation. Heat waves exacerbate droughts, which result in water shortages that push towns to the point of crisis, which leaves these regions high and dry (literally) as bushfires close in, leaving them with a limited supply of water to fight off the flames. Ignoring the interplay of these conditions only serves to allow them to feed into each other — and allows this situation to create potentially worse outcomes in the future, as well. It is expected that the long-term effects of the bush fires could end up contributing to more extreme weather events by pumping more carbon into the atmosphere. Australia's government for decades has largely ignored the role of climate change and the weather events that it has delivered to the nation. It is now experiencing the worst case version of what happens when all of these conditions run head-first into one another....