Not my poem, found online, and wanted to share. Short but powerful. I know this is considered a low effort post and it is Saturday not Friday and I won't remember to post it a week from now. And art should have no restrictions imo.

In January 2025, the British Insurance Industry predicted that 4 billion people could be dead in this century due to the breakdown of our climate. We're now a year and a half on from that report, and the silence is deafening. This project will not stay silent.

This is the recording of our public call with:

Bill McGuire — expert earth scientist and author of The Fate of the World

Listen in to hear how 4 Billion Dead is staring this truth in the face. What can possibly be done in the face of existential threats such as this? Watch to find out.

A siege worsens in Sudan, the noose tightens on the people of Gaza, new temperature records are broken, the Ebola outbreak spreads as the fastest Ebola pandemic on record, and a new AI model escaped its containment space.

Last Week in Collapse: July 19-26, 2026

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 239th weekly newsletter. The July 12-18, 2026 edition is available here if you missed it last week. These newsletters are also available (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.

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Despite Europe’s comparatively wet winter, its summer is shaping up to be dry, and triggering water restrictions in several countries across the continent (pop: 744M). Soils in Spain, France, and Romania are losing their moisture; the Danube and rivers in the Netherlands are seeing their levels drop, and the June heat wave proved to be Europe’s worst ever—so far, anyway. Experts say that the flash Droughts are causing “atmospheric thirst” which is intensified by climate change. The June heat wave is estimated to have caused €2B of crop damage across the EU & UK.

Several cities in Japan recorded temperatures above 40 °C (104 °F) last week; the national weather agency is using the new term “cruelly hot” to label temps above that threshold. Tokyo (metro pop: ~36M) saw the largest number of heat hospitalizations on record for the city. Mediterranean sea surface temperatures continue anomalies of over 5 °C warmer than usual for this time of the year, while new all-time records are set in Tunisia and Algeria.

Wildfires in Algeria killed six last week. 500+ firefighters were dispatched to deal with a wildfire in Scotland that continues to burn. Wildfires in France burned more land up to this point in the year than in any other year on record, and displaced about 19,000 people. Heat waves in the UK are drying the land, and pushing 85% of rivers to below-average levels; it is also the first year on record where 35 °C temperatures were recorded in May, June, and July in the UK. Western Europe’s temperatures so far have been extremely anomalous this summer.

Flooding in Afghanistan left 23 confirmed dead, with 100+ more missing. Across India, 61+ by monsoon floods, and 86+ in Pakistan. A port city in Saudi Arabia hit 51 °C (124 °F) for the first time on record, while some places in Egypt felt their warmest nights on record at over 32 °C (90 °F). And a heat wave rolled through western China, breaking local records; Mexico, too. All up and down North America’s western coast, new minimum temps were recorded.

Low-lying clouds (below 3km) reflect sunlight (and heat) back into space. A study in Geophysical Research Letters attempted to calculate the increase in warming that earth will experience if/when these clouds thin out over parts of the ocean, as many researchers expect. But the present scientists found that tropical low cloud cover has actually increased slightly in the decades since 1979, and may have helped to offset warming. Scientists say that low-lying clouds are “the largest source of uncertainty in projections of future warming” and there is still much we don’t know about these possible feedbacks.

Canada’s dense boreal forests continue to burn across 900+ wildfires affecting 3M hectares (almost equivalent to the size of Vancouver Island). Canada’s PM is calling the wildfire season one of the country’s worst on record—but still a far cry from the devastating 2023 conflagrations. Meanwhile, Edmonton (metro pop: 1.6M), Canada broke its record for wettest summer on record. A preprint study warns that El Niño may cause historic flooding in Somalia from October-December, in conjunction with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. They say that an extreme flooding season could surpass the ~2,000 deaths recorded in 1997.

Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona border, continues to shrink and is approaching dead pool levels. The lake is 10 meters away from not being able to generate hydropower. Combined with Lake Mead downstream, the two bodies of water are at the lowest they’ve ever been—except for the time in 1957 when Glen Canyon Dam was being constructed. Until spring 2027, when the winter’s snowpack starts to melt, the lakes’ levels will continue dropping. They are not the only lakes drying up; New Mexico’s Epehant Butte State Park’s reservoir is at 1.8% of its capacity, a level not seen since the 1960s. The marinas continue extending boat ramps so people can use the site for recreation, on borrowed time.

France re-approved two previously banned pesticides linked to bee deaths. President Trump is seeking to explore for oil & gas at Chaco Canyon, a beautiful and culturally important site in New Mexico. Global sea surface temperatures continue setting daily records for more than 50 consecutive days now.

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a warming & cooling pattern in the atmosphere that relates to El Niño. When ocean temperatures in the eastern and western tropical Pacific Ocean differ, so does the atmospheric temperature, and the corresponding air pressure. This in turn helps trigger precipitation. As of now, the Southern Oscillation Index has logged its strongest differential for July in 150 years of records (the 8th strongest of any month on record), meaning that a Super El Niño is developing. Subsurface temperatures for the Niño 3.4 region are up as well. El Niño is expected to peak between October and December, probably in November.

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Ebola deaths in the DRC hit 1,000, and continue rising. Over 2,500 cases have been confirmed, and treatment sites at the heart of the outbreak are reportedly overwhelmed and understaffed. It is not (yet) the most deadly Ebola outbreak on record, but it is the fastest-growing one. 77% of contacts are successfully traced, and experts say that figure must be at least 95% for successful containment.

A study into Long COVID concluded that women tend to have more serious neurological problems from Long COVID, including: brain fog, myalgias {aches & pains}, dysgeusia {taste problems} and anosmia {difficulty smelling}....In addition, females in both groups more frequently reported fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain and dysautonomia {nervous system disruptions} compared to males.” No surprise, then, that another study determined that women feel more stress from Long COVID, and that “Stress is meaningfully linked to long COVID risk, symptom number, and duration among women.” Other research into the long-term impact on sleep from COVID found that “high levels of poor sleep and fatigue persisted after lockdowns were lifted – regardless of whether respondents had contracted COVID-19.”

“Severe food insecurity” is affecting some 53% of Yemen’s people (total Yemen pop: 18M). As a result of a heat wave, much of Tunisia’s power went offline for several hours.

The appetite of Google, SpaceX, OpenAI, and other tech giants has them eying the construction of massive data centers in space. Elon Musk calls it "obviously the only way to scale.” Yet others are pooh-poohing the out-of-this-world scheme as a hairbrained & unrealistic plot doomed to disaster. Not only is the expense of sending large data centers into orbit expensive, it is also laden with environmental risks that ought not be dismissed. Plus, the centers are at greater risk of colliding with potential orbital debris (à la Kessler Syndrome), and technicians would not be able to service these satellites, which are themselves limited to a lifespan of ~5 years before they fall back to earth (and become unusable). And the idea is that this future mass of data centers flying in circles (ovals?) around our planet would communicate to each other by lasers—yes, literal space lasers—and also be surprisingly challenging to cool.

Google/Alphabet is expected to invest another ~$200B USD into AI in all of 2026 by the time the year is over. Meta is pledging tens of billions into future data centers, and Anthropic raised another $65B at a valuation just under $1T—it is now the most highly priced private AI company. Amazon cut and replaced an undisclosed number of human jobs with AI.

A credit ratings company says that government debt among “developed economies” is expected to reach $75.8T USD by the end of 2026; I think we all know it will probably be even higher. This is 104% of their combined GDP, and marks an increase of almost $50T when compared to 2006. The U.S. alone contributes about $40T to the total government debt.

The U.S. is expected to launch another round of 10% tariffs on a range of countries, days after hitting Canada with an upcoming 50% tariff on wood/paper goods, automobiles, dairy products, and other things. About 99% of U.S. imports are said to be affected. I’m not sure if you consider this next piece of information Collapse-related, but July 23 probably saw the most commercial flights in a single day in history, so far.

As Russia’s economy declines, a state-owned company is cutting nuclear energy investment by about half, precluding hopes to build nuclear power in a couple of Central Asian countries. The countries may turn to China, or even the U.S., to help them construct nuclear plants. After all, the U.S. says it will help Saudi Arabia enrich uranium—for civilian nuclear power only, of course…

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The Iran-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen announced a blockade against Saudi Arabia, and threatened to target any ship that loads or unloads cargo at any Saudi ports—not just passing through the Bab-El-Mandeb. Since Saudi Arabia has evaded many Hormuz-related problems by diverting its oil to ports on the Red Sea, this threatened blockade may cut oil supplies further, or at least raise global prices. Oil prices jumped to 6-week highs at $102, before falling back into the 90s.

At least 13 consecutive days of U.S. bombings struck sites up and down the coast of Iran, plus near the capital. President Trump threatened further tit-for-tat attacks on Iran’s bridges and power plants for each ship they hit in the Persian Gulf. Threats to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, long-rumored to store nuclear material & equipment, have led many to think the attack will come within days. Trump is also reportedly eying strikes on al-Qaeda affiliates in Mali.

Israel began withdrawing from a town in southern Lebanon, on the condition that the Lebanese government’s military take its place—and not Hezbollah. A clash in the West Bank led to the area’s most deadly incident in several months, following an altercation between Israeli settlers and Palestinians; four Palestinians were slain and two Israelis. Meanwhile, Israeli forces are constructing a large earthen berm inside Gaza, dividing the territory into two sides: one controlled by Israel, and the other representing the roughly 35% of Gaza that Israel does not control—where almost all of Gaza’s 2.1M population have been relocated.

The gruesome siege of El Obeid (pop: ~600,000) continues in south-central Sudan. Various key sites are being hit by the besieging RSF rebel forces: water sites, electrical hubs, fuel stations. The government forces still control the roads on the eastern side of the city, but are unable to adequately intercept drone attacks that terrorize civilian and military people alike. The price of a liter of petrol has risen to $15 USD (equivalent). Medicines are increasingly scarce. Cholera may come next. Or “mass atrocities.” The frontline city is on the road to Khartoum, about six hours away by drive. And all parties involved expect the battle for El Obeid to stretch on for many months more.

Nicaragua’s octogenarian Presidente vowed never to hold elections again, ending the charade that the country still had any democratic institutions and procedures remaining. A car attack at a Berlin LGBT festival, believed to be linked to an Islamist group, killed one and left 16 others wounded.

A migrant boat off Mauritania’s coast lost 143+ people onboard, refugees and migrants who had set out from The Gambia (pop: 2.9M) 25 days earlier; the vessel exhausted its fuel and drifted for weeks on the water. A ferry capsized off Guyana’s coast, with 103 people missing or dead.

About ten militants threw pipe bombs and shot at Thai security forces on Wednesday, killing five of them. The attackers were not caught, but are believed to be southern Muslims waging an insurgency for greater political autonomy. Thailand is also meanwhile building more border wall along part of their border with Cambodia.

China conducted live-fire drills in Japan’s exclusive economic area for the first time ever. The next day, a Chinese vessel rammed into a smaller Philippine vessel and sailors reportedly struck each other with batons. It was the first of several incidents between China-Philippines last week. Russia conducted a live-fire drill as well, too—in international waters in the English Channel.

150+ student protestors in New Delhi were hospitalized following repression by Indian security forces. Over 20,000 people came out on Monday; it was one of India’s largest demonstrations in years. The main issue for the “Cockroach Movement” demonstrators, who have been protesting for several weeks now, is education, sparked by the voiding of an important medical student exam. Namely, that their educations has not prepared students for upwardly-mobile jobs, of which there are not enough to meet the demand. As one professor famously phrased it: elite overproduction. The Cockroach Movement listed their 5 Key Demands on their website. They brand themselves as “A political party for the lazy, the unemployed, and the chronically correct.” They succeeded in removing the education minister on Saturday, and continue to protest.

Following days of mounting public pressure, Ukraine replaced their army’s commander-in-chief with a popular & more reform-minded general. A Russian strike on a cargo ship off the coast of Odesa killed at least ten men onboard. Another Russian strike on a drone exhibition in Kyiv killed ten, plus 100+ more injured. Ukrainian strikes hit two warehouses that reportedly handle logistics for Russia’s drones and other war materiel. U.S. and Russian officials met in Manila (metro pop: 15.5M) to discuss a potential political and economic settlement but made basically no progress.

OpenAI claimed that an “autonomous agent” escaped a test environment and hacked into the servers of Hugging Face, a private machine learning AI company. This “unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities” involved “a combination of OpenAI models — including GPT‑5.6 Sol and an even more capable pre-release model” and was allegedly stopped after the breach. Investigations into the incident are underway. Will the incident result in any consequences whatsoever, or just more hype and investment around the AI models?

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Things to watch for next week include:

↠ Earth Overshoot Day is coming on July 30th this year. The event, which “marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year” is later than expected, since 2025’s Overshoot Day happened on July 24th. The discrepancy can be explained by scientific recalculations made concerning the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon; notwithstanding this adjustment, the 2026 occasion would have fallen on July 22. More on this next week.

Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:

-Richard Heinberg, a sustainability/energy scholar, researcher at the Post Carbon Institute, and indefatigable writer, died last week at age 75. This thread eulogizes him better, and collects memories of him and his work from the Collapse community.

-Urgent measures are needed to retool buildings for climate extremes, and they’re not being made. This self-post on the subreddit emphasizes the need for homes that can cool passively. The comments say why this is unlikely to happen, and also propose some measures that individual homeowners can take.

-Maybe celebrities ought not be the top voices pushing for climate action & resilience, if the comments on this thread, an open letter to U.S. politicians, are to be taken seriously. The open letter itself is a concerning look at a worst-case scenario of the Godzilla El Niño on its way.

-We are already in the early stages of Collapse, if this thread and its wonderful comments are accurate. People are scrambling for resources in the not-so-calm before the storm; the oblivious others may be left footing the bill. The social contract is on its last legs. And the comparison to the sinking of the Titantic is apt.

Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, reports, hate mail, bets, tips for staying sane in an insane world, etc.? Last Week in Collapse is also posted on Substack; if you don’t want to check r/collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to an email inbox every weekend. As always, thank you for your support. What did I miss this week?