All posts by Marshall Brain

Chemical Attack, Terrorism, Warnings

The Fentanyl Drug Epidemic – A documentary – And Opioid Weapons of Mass destruction

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This documentary describes the fentanyl drug epidemic in the United States and Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtGpPhd-c7Q
The fentanyl drug epidemic in North America | DW Documentary

From the video’s description:

One hundred times stronger than heroin, the opioid fentanyl is cheap, potent and can be sent through the post. These market forces have seen it replacing heroin and causing unprecedented death, destruction and misery. The death toll has disproportionately affected the homeless and already marginalized. Now, due to its strength and low cost, the drug is also starting to be mixed into party drugs, such as cocaine and cannabis – with fatal results. The documentary travels to Vancouver, the epicenter of the fentanyl epidemic to meet with health care workers, activists, fentanyl dealers and addicts. It shows some of the radical initiatives fighting the abuse of this drug, and asks what the world could face if the fentanyl epidemic spreads outside of North America.

Fentanyl has killed tens of thousands of people.

The other side of fentanyl and carfentanil is their potential use as terrorist weapons, weapons of mass destruction.

Could fentanyl be a weapon of mass destruction?
What You Need to Know about Carfentanil

For more info see:

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Rainforest Collapse

The Last Rainforests in Asia are Doomed

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The burning scar: Inside the destruction of Asia’s last rainforests

From the article:

A Korean palm oil giant has been buying up swathes of Asia’s largest remaining rainforests. A visual investigation published today suggests fires have been deliberately set on the land.

As discussed in the chapter on Rainforest Collapse, a rainforest is a symbiotic loop where the trees contribute to the rain and the rain waters the trees. Kill off enough trees and this beneficial cycle ends, turning a rainforest into savannah or desert. In the process, more gigatons of carbon dioxide enter the atmosphere (from trees that die or burn), causing the planet to heat up even more in a deadly positive feedback loop. The only solution is to stop destroying the raiforests and start rebuilding them.

In other doomsday rainforest news:

Report: Neste responsible for rainforest destruction ‘the size of Paris’ since 2019

From the article:

A new report claims that Finland’s majority state-owned fuel company Neste is responsible for the destruction of at least 10,000 hectares of rainforest since 2019 – an area the size of Paris. Friends of the Earth Netherlands Milieudefensie says Neste also continues to buy palm oil from suppliers in Liberia with links to armed militias who extorted land from villagers to grow the lucrative crops. According to Milieudefensie, the Finnish company buys 1.3 million tons of palm oil and a substance called PFAD – palm fatty acid distillate – every year to turn into biofuel.

Also:

Scientists say that combatting rising deforestation rates in the Amazon rainforest – a major store of planet-warming carbon that stretches across nine South American countries – is crucial in the fight against climate change.

Also:

The world’s largest wetlands are on fire. That’s a disaster for all of us

Wetlands like the Pantanal are Earth’s most effective carbon sinks — ecosystems that absorb and store more carbon than they release, keeping it away from the atmosphere. At roughly 200,000 square kilometers, the Pantanal comprises about 3% of the globe’s wetlands and plays a key role in the carbon cycle.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Geoengineering, Global Warming, Warnings

Many parts of the world will become uninhabitable to humans and animals as the planet heats up

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Planet Earth is growing warmer, and as it does we will see parts of the planet become uninhabitable due to heat and humidity. The southeastern United States is vulnerable to this – it will be impossible to go outside without an air conditioned vehicle or suit:

Climate Change Will Make Parts of the U.S. Uninhabitable. Americans Are Still Moving There.

From the article:

The data shows that the warming climate will alter everything from how we grow food to where people can plausibly live. Ultimately, millions of people will be displaced by flooding, fires and scorching heat, a resorting of the map not seen since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Now as then, the biggest question will be who escapes and who is left behind.

It’s crazy to think that it will come to this – that humans will choose to destroy the planet instead of taking action to stop the burning of fossil fuels. Nonetheless, this is the path humanity is following right now, and it will have gigantic economic and social costs for all human beings unless we as a species change course. See the Global Warming chapter for details. And this video paints a dire picture:

Extreme Heat Could Make One Third of Planet Uninhabitable

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Warnings

“We are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021”

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“We are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.” This is the dire warning from The UN’s World Food Program:

Nobel-winning UN agency warns of ‘famines of biblical proportions’ in 2021 

Beasley said WFP needs $15 billion next year – $5 billion just to avert famine and $10 billion to carry out the agency’s global programs including for malnourished children and school lunches which are often the only meal youngsters get. “If I could get that coupled with our normal money, then we avert famine around the world” and minimize destabilization as well as migration. he said.

Nuclear Bombs, Terrorism

Iran now has 2,000kg (4,000 pounds) of enriched uranium

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Iran has been producing enriched uranium at a breakneck pace and now has about a ton of enriched uranium. This means that Iran has been increasing the amount of uranium it can process, and the process it is using is effective. Further, it indicates that Iran could easily take the next step and start producing weapons-grade (90%) enriched uranium:

Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile ’10 times limit’

“Iran now has more than 10 times the amount of enriched uranium permitted under an international agreement, the UN’s nuclear watchdog says. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile had reached 2,105kg (4,640lb).”

From Iran’s perspective it is a spectacular achievement. From the world’s perspective it points toward the potential emergence of yet another nation with nuclear weapons.

One possible reaction is to go to war with Iran as described in this article:

Are Israel and the US planning to attack Iran?

This is important to keep in mind amid speculation – once again during a presidential lame duck period – that in his last few weeks in office, Donald Trump will either order US military action against Iran or give Israel a green light, as well as some assistance, to do so on its own.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Warnings

Arctic Temperatures point toward extreme warming for the entire planet

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This article paints a dire picture:

It’s Way Too Hot in the Arctic Right Now

From the article:

In the latest sign that the transformation of the Arctic continues full speed ahead, Svalbard hit a record high temperature for November on Wednesday. A station set on the mountain pass of Reindalspasset recorded a high of 49 degrees Fahrenheit (9.4 degrees Celsius). That is, to put it lightly, extremely not normal and very bad.

The “very bad” part is going to get even worse as humans pour more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The only solution is to immediately stop burning all fossile fuels and to start extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reverse the process:

Any hope of keeping Earth habitable now requires sucking carbon back out of the atmosphere, a new study found

From the article:

Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gas today, the Earth would continue warming for centuries. Arctic ice and permafrost are already on an irreversible path of melting. That’s the finding of new research published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. The model suggests that even if emissions were to drop to zero this year, global temperatures would ultimately rise to be 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit higher in 2500 than they were in 1850 (that’s 3 degrees Celsius).

Humans must take extraordinary steps now or watch a disaster unfold through multiple mechanisms:

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Pandemics

“COVID Hell” in United States as new cases top 150,000 in a single day and deaths head toward 2,000 per day

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‘Covid-hell.’ ‘Humanitarian disaster.’ Experts sound the alarm about U.S. coronavirus outbreak.

From the article:

The experts use different language to underscore the situation’s urgency: Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden said the nation is experiencing a “dangerous time.” CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta called the crisis a “humanitarian disaster.” Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who was recently named to President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, described the situation bluntly as “covid-hell.”

The COVID-19 virus now appears to be spreading uncontrollably in the United States, and will begin overwhelming hospital systems. While the announcement of a vaccine this week is good news, it will not have any effect on the disease for several months. Those months could see a further explosion of cases unless extraordinary steps are taken to stop the spread. 10,000+ dead people per week is the likely path for the foreseeable future.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Warnings

A historian believes he has discovered iron laws that predict the rise and fall of societies. He has bad news.

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The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse

From the article:

“The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can’t cover its financial positions. His models, which track these factors in other societies across history, are too complicated to explain in a nontechnical publication. But they’ve succeeded in impressing writers for nontechnical publications, and have won him comparisons to other authors of “megahistories,” such as Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari.”

Also:

“We are almost guaranteed” five hellish years, Turchin predicts, and likely a decade or more. 

It is a fascinating article. See also this blog post.

Global Warming, Hurricanes & Cyclones, Mass Extinction, Ocean Acidification, Rainforest Collapse, Sea Level Rise, Warnings

Our young are terrified by climate change

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Doomsday Book cover
Order the book today

The headline is “Our young are terrified by climate change” and they have every reason to be. “Climate change” is not just one thing. As the climate changes due to the combustion of fossil fuels, many different things happen including:

Our young are terrified by climate change

From the article:

“I often ask people to describe how they feel about their future given the specter of climate change, using just one word. The words I hear are painful — “fearful,” “concerned,” “terrified,” “frightened,” “hopeless” and — the most painful — “black”, from a 20-something. The words I hear are not unusual — over half of U.S. teens feel afraid or angry. And I have also heard apathy — no one cares. Most of those I ask are college students with their life ahead. Ask someone younger for their one word. Start with your children or grandchildren. Their word may frighten you.”

They have every reason to feel terrified and hopeless. This is an incredible doomsday scenario barreling down the tracks toward us, and humanity appears to be doing nothing concrete to stop it.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Global Warming, Hurricanes & Cyclones

Hurricane frequency and damage are becoming epic as Global Warming provides the fuel

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Hurricanes cross the Atlantic ocean and gather their energy + water from warm ocean waters. So it makes sense that global warning will increase hurricane strength as oceans warm up.

Now we start to see the doomsday scenario unfold. This year the Atlantic ocean spawned the most hurricanes ever:

Subtropical Storm Theta Makes 2020 Busiest Hurricane Season On Record

“Monday, Subtropical Storm Theta became the 29th named storm of the year, surpassing the 28 storms of 2005 and making the 2020 hurricane season the busiest on record.”

With so many hurricanes in play, it is inevetable that they start overlapping their destructive paths, so we get situations like this:

‘Nothing Left’: How Back-to-Back Hurricanes Gutted a U.S. Town

What’s happened to Cameron is a taste of what may be coming for other towns along the Gulf Coast as climate change takes hold. Warmer Gulf water and moister air are the kindling for tropical cyclones, helping to make them more ferocious. The 2020 hurricane season isn’t over, and it’s already produced 25 named storms. That’s the most since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina all but drowned New Orleans. At least seven hurricanes have struck Southwestern Louisiana in the last 20 years, twice as many as the previous two decades.

The problem is that it is likely to get worse rather than better unless drastic action on global warming and climate change takes place on a global level. Humans need to completely stop emitting carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and start extracting CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Humans may need to consider geoengineering techniques. And more.

“The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.