From Climate Denial to Climate Authoritarianism: Fossil Fascism, Ecofascism, and Petro-Masculinity

Posted on 2026/09/272026/09/27 by admin

by Daniel Brouse

Introdution

🌎 FROM CLIMATE DENIAL TO CLIMATE AUTHORITARIANISM

Climate politics is evolving.

As outright denial becomes harder to sustain, the narrative can shift from:

“Climate change isn’t happening.”
→ “Fixing it will cost too much.”
→ “Blame the outsiders.”
→ “Protect our resources.”

This article examines four related concepts:

🔹 Climate denial & climate delay
🔹 Ecofascism
🔹 Fossil fascism
🔹 Petro-masculinity

These aren’t interchangeable terms. Each describes a different way climate change, energy, identity, economics, and political power can become intertwined.

The central question is increasingly not simply whether the climate is changing—but how society explains the change, assigns responsibility, and responds to it.

Who gets to survive climate change?

Read the full report:

Fossil Fascism, Ecofascism, and Petro-Masculinity

Climate misinformation is no longer limited to simply denying that the planet is warming. As climate change becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss, the political narratives surrounding it have evolved—from outright denial, to attacks on climate science, to opposition to climate policy, and, in more extreme forms, to narratives that blame immigrants and other marginalized populations for environmental decline.

These narratives are not identical. They operate through different mechanisms and identify different enemies. But they can overlap, creating a broader political strategy in which climate science, energy policy, immigration, race, gender, and national identity become interconnected.

The International Panel on the Information Environment’s 2025 assessment concluded that powerful actors—including corporations, governments, and political parties—intentionally spread inaccurate or misleading narratives about anthropogenic climate change, contributing to declining public trust and political inaction.

Four concepts help describe different parts of this landscape: climate denial and delay, ecofascism, fossil fascism, and petro-masculinity.

1. Climate Denial and Climate Delay

The most familiar form of climate misinformation is outright denial: rejecting the existence, severity, or human cause of climate change.

Political rhetoric has also attacked renewable energy through claims that wind turbines, solar power, or other clean-energy technologies are inherently dangerous or economically destructive. Some of these claims have been challenged by scientific evidence, while others involve legitimate questions about environmental impacts that require quantitative comparison rather than political rhetoric.

As public acceptance of climate change has increased, however, the political emphasis has increasingly shifted from denying the problem to opposing proposed solutions. Researchers commonly describe this strategy as climate delay.

The basic argument changes from:

“Climate change isn’t happening.”

to:

“Climate change may be happening, but addressing it will cause even greater economic or social damage.”

This framing can emphasize immediate costs—higher energy prices, job losses, grid reliability, restrictions on vehicles or industrial activity—while giving less attention to the long-term economic costs of continued warming.

Government-sponsored challenges to climate science

A prominent recent example was the U.S. Department of Energy’s July 2025 publication of A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. The report was produced by five scientists assembled by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and argued, among other things, that the economic damages from CO₂-induced warming may be smaller than commonly believed and that aggressive mitigation policies could be more harmful than beneficial.

Carbon Brief subsequently conducted a detailed fact-check with climate scientists and reported more than 100 statements it characterized as false or misleading, including claims involving the economic consequences of climate change, extreme weather, and the interpretation of scientific literature.

The significance of such disputes is not simply whether individual claims are correct. It is also about which scientific evidence is selected, which uncertainties are emphasized, and how those choices are translated into public policy.

2. Ecofascism: Climate Change as a Scapegoating Narrative

Ecofascism represents a fundamentally different approach.

Rather than denying climate change, ecofascist narratives accept environmental collapse but attribute it to supposedly undesirable populations—particularly immigrants, refugees, or people in the Global South.

The “overpopulation” narrative

One recurring theme is the claim that environmental degradation is primarily caused by population growth among poorer or non-white populations.

This can obscure the enormous differences in consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions between populations. High-income populations have historically produced far greater per-capita emissions than the world’s poorest populations.

The political transformation occurs when legitimate concerns about ecological limits are converted into arguments about which people supposedly deserve access to resources.

Blaming immigrants for environmental degradation

A related narrative links immigration directly to pollution, resource depletion, or greenhouse-gas emissions.

This is sometimes described as eco-bordering: using environmental concerns to justify more restrictive borders.

The danger of this framing is not the discussion of the environmental consequences of population growth or migration itself. Those are legitimate subjects for analysis. The problem arises when immigrants are treated as the primary ecological threat while the much larger effects of industrial energy systems, fossil-fuel consumption, land use, and unequal resource consumption are displaced from the discussion.

“Lifeboat ethics”

At its most extreme, ecofascist thinking adopts a form of “lifeboat ethics”: the assumption that resources are becoming so scarce that societies must protect their own populations by excluding outsiders.

Climate disasters can intensify this mentality. As droughts, floods, heat waves, sea-level rise, and food insecurity increase displacement, refugees can be portrayed not as people affected by climate change but as the cause of further environmental decline.

In its most extreme forms, this worldview has intersected with white-supremacist and accelerationist movements. Researchers have documented cases in which perpetrators of mass violence invoked “Great Replacement” ideas alongside environmental or resource-based fears.

The resulting political question changes from:

How do we respond to climate change?

to:

Who gets to survive climate change?

That is a profound shift in the political meaning of climate change.

3. Fossil Fascism: Protecting Fossil Capital

Fossil fascism is related to, but distinct from, ecofascism.

The term has been used by scholars studying the intersection of fossil-fuel dependence, authoritarian politics, nationalism, racism, and opposition to climate action. Recent scholarship defines fossil fascism as a political, legal, and cultural system centered on an ultra-nationalist defense of fossil-fuel extraction while suppressing opposition to it.

In simplified terms:

Ecofascism accepts ecological crisis but blames the “outsider.”

Fossil fascism protects the fossil-fuel system and attacks those who seek to change it.

From “Blood and Soil” to “Black Fuel”

The historical roots of ecofascist thought are often connected to European romantic nationalism and the “Blood and Soil” tradition, in which land, national identity, and racial identity became intertwined.

Fossil fascism has a different historical lineage.

Political scientist Cara Daggett and other scholars have used the concept to examine the relationship between fossil fuels, authoritarian politics, nationalism, and racialized power. Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective further developed the concept in White Skin, Black Fuel, connecting fossil-fuel development to the history of European imperialism, colonialism, and racial hierarchy.

The underlying argument is that fossil fuels are not simply an energy source. They can also become embedded in political institutions, economic power, national identity, and cultural ideas about social hierarchy.

Two different responses to ecological crisis

Feature	Fossil Fascism	Ecofascism
Climate position	Often characterized by denial, obstruction, or minimization	Accepts the reality of ecological crisis
Primary target	Climate scientists, activists, regulators, and opponents of fossil extraction	Immigrants, refugees, minorities, and supposedly “overpopulated” populations
Economic orientation	Defends fossil-fuel production and associated economic power	Often hostile to aspects of industrial globalization
Environmental vision	Nature treated primarily as a resource for economic and national power	Nature portrayed as a homeland requiring protection from perceived outsiders
Political expression	Deregulation, fossil-fuel expansion, political obstruction, and suppression of opposition	Anti-immigration politics, exclusionary nationalism, and, at its extreme, violent white-supremacist movements

These categories are analytical concepts, not descriptions that apply automatically to every politician, government, or person who opposes a particular climate policy.

4. The Dangerous Crossover

Although fossil fascism and ecofascism can be distinguished conceptually, they can also overlap.

A political movement can simultaneously defend fossil-fuel extraction, oppose climate regulation, promote authoritarian nationalism, and blame immigrants or minorities for environmental problems.

As climate impacts become increasingly difficult to deny, the political narrative can therefore move through several stages:

Denial → Delay → Scapegoating → Authoritarian Protection

The first stage says the problem does not exist.

The second says the problem exists but solving it is too expensive.

The third says the problem exists because of particular groups of people.

The fourth argues that extraordinary political power is necessary to protect the nation and its resources.

This does not mean every instance of climate skepticism follows this progression. Rather, it illustrates how different narratives can reinforce one another.

5. Petro-Masculinity: The Cultural Engine

A related concept helps explain the cultural dimension of fossil-fuel politics: petro-masculinity.

Political scientist Cara Daggett introduced the term in her 2018 paper Petro-Masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire. Daggett argues that fossil-fuel systems can become connected not only to economic interests but also to identity, masculinity, authority, and resistance to social change.

The central idea is that fossil fuels can represent more than energy.

They can represent:

independence
personal freedom
economic security
traditional gender roles
national power
resistance to perceived cultural change

Fossil-fuel identity

During the twentieth century, American masculinity became closely associated with breadwinning, industrial employment, suburban development, automobile ownership, and inexpensive gasoline.

As a result, challenges to fossil-fuel consumption can sometimes be interpreted culturally rather than simply economically.

An electric vehicle, public transportation, reduced meat consumption, or restrictions on fossil-fuel use can be portrayed not merely as policy choices but as attacks on traditional identity.

This helps explain the cultural significance of behaviors such as “rolling coal,” in which modified diesel vehicles deliberately produce large quantities of exhaust smoke. The behavior can function as a form of political or cultural expression rather than transportation alone.

Petro-masculinity and authoritarianism

Daggett’s framework connects fossil-fuel dependence with authoritarian desire, particularly where climate action is interpreted as a threat to established gender roles, economic autonomy, or social status.

The connection to fossil fascism can therefore be understood at two levels:

Petro-masculinity is the cultural and identity dimension.

Fossil fascism is the political and institutional dimension.

The former can help create emotional resistance to changes in the energy system; the latter describes political structures and movements that defend fossil-fuel power.

6. Putting the Concepts Together

The four concepts describe different mechanisms rather than four interchangeable labels.

Climate denial rejects or minimizes the underlying science.

Climate delay accepts some degree of climate change while arguing against effective or rapid responses.

Ecofascism accepts ecological crisis but redirects blame toward immigrants, minorities, or other supposedly threatening populations.

Fossil fascism describes the fusion of fossil-fuel interests with authoritarian, nationalist, racialized, and anti-climate-action politics.

Petro-masculinity describes one cultural mechanism through which fossil-fuel dependence can become tied to identity, masculinity, autonomy, and authoritarian desire.

The concepts can overlap, but they should not be treated as synonyms.

The broader pattern is important because climate change is not merely a scientific problem. It is also a struggle over how societies interpret risk, distribute responsibility, allocate resources, and respond to disruption.

The critical question is therefore not only whether people acknowledge that the climate is changing.

It is also how they explain why it is changing, who they hold responsible, and what solutions they believe are legitimate.

That is where climate science, economics, energy policy, nationalism, race, gender, and political power increasingly intersect.

When Climate Change Hits the Wallet: Insurance, Interest Rates, and Taxes

Posted on 2026/09/252026/09/25 by admin

by Daniel Brouse

What will change consumer behavior when it comes to climate change?

Money. Insurance, interest rates, and taxes.

Most consumers do not substantially change their behavior until doing nothing becomes cost prohibitive.

For years, we assumed that climate change was unlikely to change consumer behavior in the near term. Climate change seemed too distant, too gradual, and too abstract to overcome the immediate economic incentives that drive everyday decisions.

That is now observably changing.

Climate change is increasingly entering the household economy through three powerful financial mechanisms:

Insurance. Interest rates. Taxes.

These mechanisms can transform climate change from an environmental issue that consumers can ignore into an economic reality they cannot.

Insurance

The United States, Australia, and parts of Asia and Latin America face some of the heaviest disruptions in insurance markets from climate change. The climate-driven insurance crisis is no longer just a problem for insurance companies. It has triggered a massive shift in housing and financial markets.

As climate risks increase, insurers are raising premiums, increasing deductibles, restricting coverage, and withdrawing from markets where losses have become too great.

That directly affects consumers.

Because most people rely on banks and mortgages to purchase homes, the withdrawal of insurers directly threatens both property values and mortgage stability. A home that cannot be affordably insured becomes more difficult to finance, sell, and maintain as an investment.

The chain is straightforward:

Climate change → insurance losses → higher premiums → reduced insurability → declining property values → mortgage disruption

This creates a powerful economic incentive for consumers to change where they live, what they buy, how they build, and how they protect their property.

Insurance therefore has become one of the first places where climate change forces consumer behavior to change—not through persuasion, but through price.

Interest Rates

Climate change is also becoming a financial problem through the cost of borrowing.

Developing and climate-vulnerable nations bear the heaviest burden. Climate change directly drives up sovereign bond yields, contributes to credit-rating downgrades, and locks vulnerable countries into a punishing vicious cycle of debt and disaster. A landmark 2026 report by ActionAid International revealed that across 65 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, debt servicing is projected to consume a staggering 65% of all government revenue in 2026.

The mechanism is another accelerating feedback loop:

Climate disaster → economic losses → declining government revenue → increased borrowing → higher debt costs → reduced adaptive capacity → greater vulnerability

The consequences do not remain confined to developing nations.

The approximately $2 trillion annual climate-driven fiscal drain acts as a massive structural accelerator for interest rates in the United States. It does not directly determine daily Federal Reserve rate decisions. Instead, this enormous and growing economic burden alters the underlying macroeconomic conditions that the Federal Reserve and bond markets use to price capital.

Climate damage requires money. Rebuilding requires money. Infrastructure adaptation requires money. Insurance losses require money. Government deficits require money. And when the demand for capital rises while economic productivity and fiscal capacity are simultaneously pressured, the cost of capital rises.

Consumers ultimately experience that cost through mortgages, automobile loans, credit cards, business financing, and other forms of debt.

Taxes

Climate change affects taxation at both ends of the global economic spectrum.

Low-income developing nations face catastrophic losses in baseline tax revenue as climate disasters destroy crops, businesses, infrastructure, and productive capacity.

At the same time, wealthy economies are rapidly restructuring their tax systems around carbon emissions, energy production, subsidies, and the transition to lower-carbon energy.

The result is another financial feedback loop:

Climate damage → economic losses → reduced tax base → increased government spending → greater fiscal pressure → higher taxes and fees

In the United States, the financial impact of climate change is not represented by a single “climate tax.”

Instead, the costs are absorbed across federal, state, and local tax systems.

Local governments face increasing costs for damaged infrastructure, emergency response, stormwater management, roads, bridges, utilities, and other public services. Those costs ultimately have to be paid by taxpayers.

Property taxes can therefore become another mechanism through which climate change reaches the household balance sheet.

At the federal and state levels, climate-related disaster costs, infrastructure requirements, energy policies, and changes in taxation can add additional fiscal pressure.

Consumers may never see a line on their tax bill labeled “climate change.” They do not have to. They simply see the bill go up.

The Consumer Climate Feedback Loop

Insurance, interest rates, and taxes are not isolated financial effects.

They interact.

A homeowner faces higher insurance premiums because of increasing climate risk. Higher insurance costs increase the cost of homeownership. Reduced insurance availability threatens property values and mortgage financing. Climate-related disasters increase government expenditures. Government spending increases borrowing and tax pressure. Higher borrowing costs increase the cost of mortgages and other consumer debt.

The feedback loop becomes:

Climate disruption → financial losses → insurance increases → property and mortgage pressure → government spending → higher taxes and borrowing costs → higher household costs → changed consumer behavior

This is the critical transition.

Consumers do not necessarily have to become convinced by climate science before climate change changes their behavior. They only have to experience its economic consequences. A homeowner who can no longer afford insurance behaves differently. A buyer who cannot obtain a mortgage behaves differently. A family facing higher property taxes behaves differently. A business facing higher borrowing costs behaves differently. A community facing rapidly increasing infrastructure costs behaves differently.

The financial system can therefore become the transmission mechanism through which climate change reaches individual consumer decisions.

Ending Synthesis: When Climate Change Becomes Cost Prohibitive

The question is not whether climate change will eventually affect consumer behavior.

The question is when the financial consequences become large enough that consumers can no longer ignore them.

That threshold is already being crossed in parts of the world.

Insurance makes climate risk visible through premiums and availability.

Interest rates transmit climate-related economic and fiscal disruption into the cost of capital.

Taxes distribute the growing costs of climate damage, adaptation, infrastructure, and energy transition across households and businesses.

Together, they create a socioeconomic feedback loop:

Climate change → economic disruption → financial disruption → higher household costs → consumer behavior → market disruption → further economic pressure

This may prove far more powerful than climate messaging alone.

People can ignore a temperature graph.

They can dismiss a scientific projection.

They can debate climate policy.

But they cannot easily ignore an insurance cancellation, a mortgage that costs hundreds of dollars more each month, or a tax bill that keeps rising.

That is why money may ultimately become the mechanism that changes consumer behavior on climate change.

Climate change does not have to become universally accepted before it changes what people do.

It only has to become cost prohibitive to ignore.

Simplified Social Media Version

💰 WHEN CLIMATE CHANGE HITS THE WALLET

What will actually change consumer behavior when it comes to climate change?

Money.

Insurance. Interest rates. Taxes.

For years, climate change was largely treated as an environmental issue. But that is changing as climate risk increasingly enters the household economy.

🏠 Insurance premiums and availability are being affected by rising climate risks.

💰 Climate-related economic and fiscal pressures are affecting the cost of capital.

🧾 The growing costs of climate damage, adaptation, infrastructure, and energy transition are increasingly flowing through tax systems.

These forces can reinforce one another:

Climate change → financial disruption → higher household costs → changed consumer behavior

Consumers may ignore a temperature graph. They are much less likely to ignore an insurance cancellation, a higher mortgage payment, or a rising tax bill.

Climate change does not have to be universally accepted before it changes behavior.

It only has to become cost prohibitive to ignore.

New paper:
“When Climate Change Hits the Wallet: Insurance, Interest Rates, and Taxes”

About the Price of Oil: The Price You Don’t See

Posted on 2026/09/14 by admin

What Does a Barrel of Oil Cost—and What Does It Mean to You?

When you hear the price of oil reported on the news, you are usually hearing the futures price.

But what does that number actually mean?

The futures price is essentially a “paper” price. Very little physical oil actually changes hands through the futures market. The price that matters to consumers and businesses buying and using petroleum products is the spot price—the price of physical oil being purchased today. And right now, there is a significant difference between the two.

Today, the futures price of oil is roughly $102–$107 per barrel. But the spot price—the actual price being paid for physical oil—is approximately $125–$150 per barrel.

That is the price that ultimately matters to everyone buying refined petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel, and heating oil.

The Pain at the Pump

This is why diesel has reached approximately $6 per gallon, making it the highest price in history. It is also why gasoline is currently averaging approximately $4.32 per gallon. Yes—this is the highest average gasoline price ever recorded for this time of year.

And what’s next?

Heating oil.

As we move toward the winter months, parts of the Northern Hemisphere are already seeing heating oil prices averaging between $5.15 and $5.75 per gallon. Yes. Just like gasoline, heating oil is trading at an absolute record high for the month of September.

Historically, heating oil prices have hovered around $3.50 to $4.00 per gallon during a typical winter season. The current offseason surge above $5.00 per gallon is unprecedented. And this is happening before winter has even arrived.

For millions of households that depend on heating oil, the implications are obvious. The price shock at the pump can become a much larger household energy shock when temperatures fall and heating demand rises.

Adding Fuel to the Fire

There is another problem developing in the background. Oil borrowed from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) under the 2026 emergency exchanges is scheduled to be repaid in tranches between November 1, 2026, and September 30, 2028.

Under the 2026 SPR emergency exchange program managed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), companies are contractually required to return approximately 1.18 to 1.24 barrels for every barrel they borrowed.

In other words, oil that was taken out of the reserve during an emergency must eventually be replaced—and companies are not simply returning the same amount of oil they received. They have to return more. That creates another future demand on the physical oil market.

So when you look at the oil price reported on television, don’t assume that the futures number tells the whole story.

The price of oil isn’t just a number on a screen.

It flows directly through the economy. It becomes diesel. It becomes gasoline. It becomes heating oil. It becomes transportation costs, food costs, manufacturing costs, electricity costs, and ultimately the cost of living.

And if physical oil is already trading substantially above the futures price, while heating demand is about to increase and SPR repayment obligations are beginning to come due, the question isn’t simply:

“What does oil cost today?”

The more important question is:

“What is the price of oil going to cost you tomorrow?”

How much land do I need for my own shit?

Posted on 2026/09/062026/09/07 by admin

Tonight’s homework assignment: How much land do I need for my own shit? (AKA The Eat n’ Poop Experiment)

Both literally and figuratively.

This is an experiment I’ve been working on for years. And when you actually try to do it—when you have to think about where your food comes from, where your water comes from, and what happens to everything that comes out of you—you gain a very different perspective.

And yes, sometimes the experiment even comes down to a question like: Do I eat the worm, or don’t I?

Food and water are big problems.

But getting rid of what comes out of you can be an even bigger problem.

I’ve been meeting quite a few other people who are “doing it”—trying to become more self-sufficient, reduce their dependence on centralized systems, and figure out what is actually required to sustain a human being.

So I thought a good test for me would be to reevaluate the whole concept at two scales:

Macro. And micro.

Tonight is micro night.

How many acres do you need for your own shit?

A commonly cited homesteading rule of thumb is roughly 2–5 acres per person for a fairly self-sufficient setup—but that’s not a universal number. It depends enormously on your diet, soil, climate, water supply, livestock, energy needs, and how much of your waste you can safely recycle.

And that’s where it gets interesting.

Food production:
You might be able to produce a substantial amount of plant food on a fraction of an acre. Add grains, livestock, dairy, or meat, and the land requirement can increase dramatically.

Water:
You need a reliable source of potable water—and potentially enough watershed, recharge area, storage, or infrastructure to keep that supply reliable.

Waste:
This is the part people tend to overlook.

Your sewage system doesn’t just need a place to put sewage. It needs soil, treatment capacity, separation from groundwater and drinking-water sources, and enough suitable land for the system to function safely.

In Pennsylvania, for example, wastewater land-treatment systems can require significant separation distances from private drinking-water wells. That means the geometry of the property can matter almost as much as the number of acres.

And then there’s the really interesting question:

What if the waste isn’t actually waste?

Humanure, composting systems, graywater, nutrient cycling, orchards, biomass…

At the right scale—and with proper treatment—some things we call “waste” become inputs into another system.

So tonight I’m starting at the smallest possible unit:

One human.

How much land does one human actually need to provide food, water, and a safe place to put—or recycle—everything that comes out of them?

How many acres do you need for your own shit?

Then we’ll scale it up.

Because four people don’t necessarily require four times the land. And four people sharing a watershed, a food system, and a waste-treatment system creates an entirely different problem.

Tonight: micro.
Next: macro.

MACRO

Tonight’s homework assignment: How much land do we need for all our shit?

AKA: The “Who Will Fend for Themselves?” Experiment

Last night was micro: How much land do I need for just me?

Tonight is macro: How much land do we need for me, my family, and company?

In two different experiments—one in New Zealand and one in Pennsylvania—families have been trying to find the answer.

Interestingly, both case studies arrived at a remarkably similar result: if you can optimize the use of roughly 100 acres, you can support about 20 people, although toward the lower end of what we would consider a modern standard of living.

And that’s when the bigger problem became evident.

As part of our long-term planning, we had to determine who would be allowed to come live with us in a crisis such as climate change.

There were eight of us. We figured our parents would need to be among the first to come. That added six, bringing us to 14. Then we started adding siblings, their partners, and their children. We quickly exceeded 25.

So the real question became:

Who gets invited?

And who is left to fend for themselves?

That sounds like an abstract thought experiment when you have plenty of land, food, water, and energy. It becomes a very different question when those resources have a hard limit. And as climate change accelerates—and the number of grandchildren continues to grow—these questions are no longer really about “future generations.”

They are about our own descendants.

They are the people who may actually have to confront the new realities we are leaving them.

That’s the part of the experiment I find hardest to calculate.

Not how many people the land can sustain.

But who gets to be one of them.

Notes

In New Zealand, Ganantchian Claire said:

Human waste is a very easy “problem “. Composting is super easy, safe, and valuable. Water of course depends where you are. Stream, or roof water are easy gravity fed, groundwater requires energy to bring it up. Food, acreage… as you say, depends entirely on your soil and climate. My opinion is a cow or a couple of goats are the easiest quickest way to get food security as milk covers all your needs. My experience is plants are great, but unreliable as crops can be devastated in a flash by pests or weather events. To avoid starvation, I would never give up my milking cow. One could actually survive with no land at all just walking a cow along the roadsides. A bit extreme, but why not?

In Pennsylvania, USA, I replied:

Nice! Thanks. “Real food” is the hardest thing in my environment as well, especially in the winter. When I say real food, I mean exactly what you said—food security. Eating vegetation is not something I can do for any extended period, and winter makes that particularly difficult.

Though your winters get cooler, I assume they aren’t quite as extreme as Pennsylvania’s, are they?

This becomes particularly relevant when we get to the “macro” experiment.

You also raise another important point with your example of “walking a cow along the roadsides.” In our experiment, we set it up as a game. One of the rules is that you can’t use other people’s land.

That, too, depends on where you live—and on what is considered public property versus private property. Ultimately, I think this is a debate that is likely to intensify as climate migration itself intensifies.

As for waste management, this also appears to be heavily dependent upon location.

In Pennsylvania, the largest long-term problem is waste management, followed by food, then water. But if you don’t manage waste properly, water quickly becomes your biggest problem. Contamination of drinking-water supplies from inadequate or poorly located waste management has been a long-term issue.

Traditionally, you needed at least 10 acres if you could not “perc” your lot.

Collecting rainwater isn’t necessarily a viable solution either. There simply isn’t enough precipitation in many locations across the continental U.S. And in several states, there are legal restrictions on collecting or impeding the flow of water unless you specifically own the water rights.

That’s what makes this experiment so interesting.

The answer isn’t just “How much land do I need?”

It’s where is the land, what can it produce, where does the water come from, and where does the poo go?

How many acres do you have available and how many people do you think you could sustain?

Ganantchian replied:

Interesting conversation. It highlights one of the biggest obstacles to self sufficiency is regulations.

We have 100 acres of land. 25 acres retired to native bush and wetlands, 50 acres very steep of very poor quality soil, 25 acres of which have been planted in poplars. And 25 acres of gently slopping with average quality soil.

I reckon we would comfortably feed 20 people in a localised system ie no fossil fuels or synthetic fertilisers use. Because of the poor inherent quality of our soil, manure from animals and us is the most valuable resource. If composted properly, it is safe to use around fruit and nut trees, which we have planted over 100 over the farm.

Our climate is very mild and with usually good rainfall although we do get drought. Rainwater is vital for drinking as I drunk water from our creek as an experiment and got quite sick Although it’s fine when boiled.

But again, the biggest hurdle is having to pay land rates. Which at the moment the livery horses cover. They do take up 90% of our grazing land… so currently the farm can only sustain 1 or 2 people… All because we are forced to fund Growth in the region, new roads, infrastructure for cars which I loathe, airport extensions which I vowed to never use again…

Hence it is very difficult to prepare for the unfolding multi crisis while the authorities are impeding our progress.

I responded:

Yes, very interesting indeed. Our macro experiment was intended to demonstrate how many people we could sustain on similar acreage. The result was almost identical.

Two families of four acquired 135 acres. About 35 acres were “public rights of way,” and another 20 acres were steep slopes and other unlivable acreage. Some of those 35 acres consisted of three streams, so potable water wasn’t a problem. One of the streams originated from a spring on the property and tested safe for drinking.

We had a cattle and chicken farmer adjoining the property. We exchanged our tillable acreage, about 65 acres, for him to grow feedstock in exchange for him raising a couple of cows and some chickens for us. There were also fish, small game, deer, and other protein sources. That left us about 15 acres for vegetables.

We did not fully develop and complete the land-management plan because it was not economical at the time. However, we did a thorough plan for being able to survive the winters. Solar panels offered the best and cheapest energy source. Small hydroelectric systems installed in the streams could add additional wattage. In addition, a small windmill could pump water up the steep slope to a small reservoir, which could be used as a “battery” for hydropower when the sun wasn’t shining.

Sewage ended up being the limiting factor.

Without sewage, we could sustain about 38 people. With sewage, that number dropped to about 25. The three streams were great for eating and drinking, but they limited where we could build sewage treatment systems without having rainwater runoff contaminate the drinking water and food sources.

The end result was a self-sustaining property of roughly 100 acres that could provide enough food, water, and energy for 20–25 people.

That is when the bigger problem became evident.

As part of our long-term plan, we had to determine who would be allowed to come live with us in a crisis such as climate change. There were eight of us. We thought our parents would need to be the first to be saved. That was an additional six, bringing the total to 14. If all of our siblings, their mates, and kids were included, we quickly exceeded 25.

So that became the bigger issue.

Who would be on the list of people invited versus the list of people to fend for themselves?

As climate change accelerates and the number of grandchildren grows, these questions are no longer about future generations. They are about our own descendants being forced to confront the new realities they will inherit.

She asked:

did you give up?

Yes, I equally feel that I only can provide for close loved ones. It might become different if our local community wakes up. But so far, most of my neighbors think the crisis is a distant worry for the next generation. I’m more than happy to open my gardens to as many people as possible. As long as they are on the same page, and putting in the hard yards.

People seem to think we have time. But the systems you are describing take years to put into place. 50 years ago is when humanity should have gone down that track.

Now… we barely have time to prepare for our small family groups…

Makes me ponder if I’ve done it in the right place as the local population (walking distance) is about 2000 people. 99% of whom rely entirely on being fed by supermarkets and takeaways…

I replied:

No, we didn’t give up. We achieved the goals of the study.

I was the climatologist, economist, and estate planner, as well as the land-management executive. What became obvious was that the physics, science, and logic of a crisis weren’t going to be the real problem.

The security of the infrastructure from outside threats—and the internal trust required to manage the “financial trust fund”—were going to be the larger crisis within the crisis.

One would hope that a crisis would bring us—humanity—together.

Unfortunately, the opposite appears to be true.

Fear and greed are inherent problems that get amplified in a crisis.

That was probably the most important thing we learned from the experiment.

Scientists Using AI: From Computational Efficiency to Climate Innovation

Posted on 2026/09/042026/09/05 by admin

by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee

Why Do Scientists Use AI?

The short answer is:

We’ve conducted case studies on the use of AI in a wide variety of environments, including everything from the dynamics of nonlinear chaotic systems to songwriting and musical production.

All produced similar results—benefits to the environment, the economy, and society.

For instance, the climate education and graphics used for this post are based on this scientific paper as well as the publicly accessible version.

If I had created them manually, the costs in time, labor, energy, and resources would have been substantial. Using AI, the direct dollar cost to me was effectively zero, the graphics were generated in about a minute, and the estimated natural-resource cost was roughly $0.067 per image.

By comparison, producing similar graphics through traditional methods could easily have cost hundreds of dollars when accounting for labor, software, revisions, and associated natural-resource use. Mathematically, the AI-generated version required approximately 0.005% of those resources—just five thousandths of one percent of the traditional cost. These savings are equivalent to a reduction in environmental impact.

The benefits—in both environmental savings to the planet through reduced physical-resource use and in the ability to produce and distribute education—far outweigh the costs.

Most importantly:

The only effective way to stop the acceleration of climate change is through the reduction of fossil-fuel combustion.

However, the most likely way of reversing the trajectory of climate change is through people using AI to develop previously unthought-of methods and technologies that can fundamentally change how we produce, consume, and manage resources—and potentially remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Anti-Science and Technology Rhetoric

Unfortunately, the lack of science and technology literacy is at the root of many of society’s problems. Anti-AI opinions are ironically very similar to the anti-science rhetoric used by climate-change deniers.

Climate-change deniers tend to have little, if any, experience as climate scientists. They often show signs of impaired executive function: the brain’s ability to plan, analyze, and think abstractly. This makes processing complex or nuanced information nearly impossible, fostering an aversion to science, mathematics, and logic. Their thinking becomes rigid, emotionally driven, and black-and-white, leaving them highly susceptible to political propaganda, conspiracy theories, and fear-based messaging. Unable to reason critically or tolerate uncertainty, they cling to misinformation and reject rational discourse—no matter how much evidence is presented.

The same holds true for anti-technology opinions expressed in public. The ill-informed individual has likely never used AI in the role of a climate scientist. Scientists train their own highly specialized AI assistants. AI is artificial SUPPLEMENTAL intelligence. This is not how the ordinary individual usually interacts with AI.

In my case, I have spent years developing multiple specially trained “lab assistants” that have learned from scores of our own work. When Sidd and I started, our work had to be done on Ohio State computers and supercomputers that Sidd helped create. Things like “a floating decimal” were, and still are, a significant problem. Problems that needed solving would take months or years to process. The amount of energy spent on computation was enormous compared with today.

Things have changed for the better.

This year, we were able to establish third-derivative behavior across multiple climate indicators—extremely important developments in climate science that confirm that the acceleration rate of climate change is itself accelerating. This work was completed within four months. Historically, I would have been unlikely to complete this work in my lifetime if it were not for AI.

In the meantime, the United States has gone extremist in anti-science and anti-technology ideology, much to the detriment of science and scientists in the U.S. In fact, we are now working on bringing up our own AI computer using Chinese technology. It will be running on DeepSeek. The single computer will do the work of what used to take at least a dozen servers to accomplish, at a fraction of the price. It will not be run in a data center. It will not be costing society anything. In fact, it will be greatly benefiting society and helping to solve the climate crisis.

So, the next time you want to voice your opinion about AI, do your homework first. Start by getting at least a master’s-level education in climate science. Then spend years training your AI assistants. After completion, I would be happy to discuss AI with you.

How Is Climate Energy Hitting You? Socio-Economic-Ecological Feedbacks

Posted on 2026/08/25 by admin

by Daniel Brouse

From Biodiversity to Monoculture: The Socio-Economic-Ecological Feedback Loop

Climate change is often described as a problem of rising temperatures, but temperature is only one expression of the additional energy entering the Earth system.

That energy moves through the atmosphere, hydrologic cycle, soils, vegetation, ecosystems, agriculture, forests, and human economies. As each system responds, it can alter the conditions experienced by the others.

This creates feedback loops.

A recent investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting found that glyphosate is being sprayed in California forests at record levels. The U.S. Forest Service, timber companies, and other land managers use glyphosate after wildfire or timber harvest to suppress competing vegetation and improve the establishment of commercially valuable conifers.

At first glance, this may appear to be a straightforward forestry practice: kill competing plants, plant trees, and accelerate forest recovery.

But viewed through the lens of climate-system dynamics, it raises a much larger question:

What happens when our response to climate disruption further simplifies the ecosystems we depend upon for resilience?

Climate Energy Is Changing the Recovery Environment

Western forests are already experiencing a combination of higher temperatures, increasing atmospheric moisture demand, changing precipitation and snowpack, declining soil moisture, drought stress, and increasingly severe wildfire.

Our earlier paper, Western U.S. Woodlands Ecosystem Conversion, examines what happens when these pressures push a forest beyond its ability to regenerate.

A forest can experience increasing stress for years without an obvious transformation. Then a threshold can be crossed.

Trees die.

Seed sources disappear.

Regeneration fails.

Shrubs and grasses occupy the landscape.

The ecosystem begins transitioning from one state to another.

As the paper explains, under moderate emissions scenarios, up to 40% of western conifer forests could convert to shrubland or grassland by 2100.

That is not simply forest damage.

It is ecosystem conversion.

And once we recognize that distinction, the economics of post-fire forest management look different.

The Economics of Reforestation

After a major wildfire, rapidly growing shrubs, grasses, ferns, and deciduous vegetation can compete with planted conifer seedlings for water, nutrients, and sunlight.

From a timber-production perspective, that competition is a problem.

Glyphosate provides an efficient way to remove it.

The Forest Service has used herbicide treatments as part of regeneration efforts because suppressing competing vegetation can improve the early survival and growth of desired seedlings. Forest research acknowledges that this is one reason herbicides have been used in reforestation.

The economic objective is therefore understandable:

reduce competition → increase seedling survival → accelerate timber production.

But that is not necessarily the same objective as:

restore biodiversity → restore ecological function → increase climate resilience.

Those two objectives can overlap.

They can also conflict.

A Forest Is Not a Tree Farm

The distinction matters because a forest is not simply a collection of trees.

A functioning forest contains an enormous biological network:

multiple tree species
shrubs
grasses
flowering plants
fungi and mycorrhizal networks
insects and pollinators
birds
mammals
reptiles and amphibians
soil organisms
decomposers
streams and wetlands
genetic diversity

Each component participates in the functioning of the ecosystem.

When glyphosate is applied to eliminate “competing” vegetation, those plants are competitors only from the perspective of the desired crop.

From the perspective of the ecosystem, they may be food, shelter, habitat, soil cover, pollinator resources, firebreaks, nutrient sources, or participants in water and carbon cycling.

This creates a fundamental difference between restoration and production.

Production asks:

How efficiently can we produce the desired commodity?

Ecological restoration asks:

How effectively can we restore the biological relationships that make the ecosystem resilient?

Biodiversity Is Infrastructure

Biodiversity is often treated as an aesthetic or conservation issue.

It is much more than that.

Biodiversity is a form of ecological infrastructure.

Different species respond differently to drought, heat, insects, disease, fire, and changing precipitation. A diverse ecosystem therefore contains multiple biological responses to disturbance.

If one species performs poorly, another may survive.

If one food source disappears, another may remain.

If one plant cannot regenerate under new climatic conditions, another may occupy the available ecological niche.

This is one reason biological diversity can provide resilience.

A simplified ecosystem has fewer alternatives.

A diverse ecosystem has more.

That distinction becomes increasingly important as climate variability increases.

From Biodiversity to Monoculture

The problem becomes more obvious when forestry is compared with modern industrial agriculture.

Large-scale agriculture often relies on monocultures: enormous areas devoted to a single crop or a very small number of genetically similar crops. Monoculture creates economic efficiencies. Machines can plant, fertilize, spray, harvest, and transport a standardized product at enormous scale. But biological simplification creates vulnerabilities.

A pest that specializes in the crop has an enormous continuous food supply. A disease can spread rapidly through genetically similar plants. Soil nutrients can become depleted. Pollinator and insect diversity can decline. Herbicide and pesticide dependence can increase.

The economic system becomes increasingly dependent upon external inputs to maintain productivity.

The result can be a feedback loop:

biodiversity declines → ecological resistance declines → pests and disease become more consequential → chemical inputs increase → biodiversity declines further.

This is not an argument that all monoculture agriculture inevitably fails.

It is an argument that efficiency and resilience are not the same thing.

The same distinction applies to forestry.

The Forest Monoculture

When post-fire management suppresses naturally regenerating vegetation in order to establish commercially desirable conifers, the landscape can move toward a forest plantation rather than a naturally regenerating forest.

A plantation can contain thousands of trees and still possess considerably less biodiversity than the ecosystem it replaced.

This creates a dangerous semantic trap. We see trees. We call it a forest. But ecological function depends upon far more than tree cover.

A plantation of one or a few commercially valuable species can look green from above while functioning very differently from a diverse forest.

And in a warming climate, that distinction can become critical.

Ecosystem Conversion Versus Reforestation

This is where the concept of ecosystem conversion becomes important.

Suppose a severe wildfire destroys a mature conifer forest.

The original ecosystem does not necessarily return.

Under the warmer and drier conditions described in my Western U.S. Woodlands paper, grasses and shrubs may become better adapted to the post-fire environment than the trees that previously occupied it.

The landscape may therefore transition:

forest → wildfire → shrubland/grassland

That is climate-driven ecosystem conversion.

Now introduce intensive human intervention:

forest → wildfire → herbicide → removal of natural competitors → planted conifers → managed timber plantation

This is something different.

The second pathway is not simply allowing the ecosystem to respond to its new climate. It is imposing an economic land-use objective upon that response. That distinction should be explicit in public policy.

The Carbon Question

There is another important distinction. A green landscape is not necessarily equivalent to the forest that existed before. Grasslands and shrublands photosynthesize and absorb carbon.

So do plantations.

But carbon uptake is not the same thing as carbon storage.

A mature forest contains carbon in:

trunks
branches
roots
dead wood
forest soils
long-lived biomass

The Ecosystem Conversion paper makes this distinction explicitly:

carbon uptake ≠ carbon storage capacity

and

positive carbon flux ≠ preservation of the previous carbon stock.

A plantation may therefore satisfy a narrow definition of reforestation while failing to reproduce the carbon reservoir, biodiversity, hydrology, and ecological complexity of the original forest.

The Glyphosate Feedback

This brings us back to glyphosate. The current controversy is not simply about a herbicide. It is about the interaction between climate disruption, economic incentives, land management, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience.

The emerging feedback looks something like this:

Climate warming

↓

Heat + drought + atmospheric moisture demand

↓

More severe wildfire

↓

Loss of mature forest

↓

Economic pressure to recover timber production

↓

Herbicide use to suppress competing vegetation

↓

Reduced vegetation diversity

↓

Simplified forest structure

↓

Greater dependence on managed inputs

↓

Potentially reduced ecological resilience

↓

Greater vulnerability to future climate disturbances

This does not mean glyphosate necessarily causes every subsequent step.

The feedback is systemic.

The larger point is that a management strategy designed to optimize one component of a complex system can unintentionally weaken other components.

The Scientific Evidence Must Be Independent

There is also a legitimate question about the evidence used to evaluate glyphosate. The recent investigation found that a study heavily relied upon by the Forest Service in assessing glyphosate safety was subsequently retracted after concerns about Monsanto’s involvement in the research process.That does not establish that every use of glyphosate is unsafe. It does establish why the underlying evidence should be independently reviewed.

When government policy determines what chemicals can be sprayed across public landscapes, the scientific foundation for those decisions should be exceptionally transparent.

Public land requires public confidence. And public confidence requires independent science.

From Wildfire Recovery to a National Policy

The issue also has a national economic dimension.

On February 18, 2026, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Promoting the National Defense by Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Elemental Phosphorus and Glyphosate-Based Herbicides.”

The order invokes the Defense Production Act and directs federal action to ensure an adequate domestic supply of glyphosate-based herbicides. That places glyphosate within a much larger economic framework involving agriculture, forestry, chemical manufacturing, supply chains, and national security.

The feedback becomes:

climate disruption → increased agricultural and forestry stress → greater dependence on chemical intervention → greater economic importance of chemical production → stronger incentives to maintain chemical availability.

The system becomes self-reinforcing.

The Bigger Problem: Optimizing the Wrong Variable

Climate change forces us to rethink what we mean by efficiency. A system can be economically efficient while being ecologically fragile. A monoculture can produce enormous quantities of a commodity while containing very little biological diversity. A plantation can produce timber while failing to reproduce the ecological functions of a natural forest. A landscape can be covered in green vegetation while holding substantially less carbon than the forest it replaced. And a post-fire intervention can accelerate tree planting while simultaneously simplifying the ecosystem that must survive the next climate shock.

The central question is therefore not:

How quickly can we replace the trees we lost?

It is:

What kind of ecosystem will survive the climate that is coming?

The Resilience Test

Climate change is increasing the importance of resilience.

A resilient ecosystem does not necessarily maximize production under ideal conditions.

It maintains function when conditions become abnormal.

That means diversity matters.

Species diversity.

Genetic diversity.

Structural diversity.

Age diversity.

Habitat diversity.

Landscape diversity.

Biological diversity is effectively a portfolio of responses to uncertainty.

Industrial systems tend to reduce that diversity because standardization creates efficiency.

Climate instability does the opposite.

It increases the value of diversity.

That creates one of the central contradictions of the climate era:

The more unstable the climate becomes, the more we need ecological diversity—and the more economic pressure we may face to simplify ecosystems for efficiency.

Climate Energy Is Hitting the Whole System

This is ultimately what I mean by How Is Climate Energy Hitting You?

Climate energy does not stop with a thermometer reading or a measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It moves through the entire coupled human-Earth system.

Heat changes water demand.

Water stress changes forests.

Forest stress changes wildfire.

Wildfire changes ecosystems.

Ecosystem disruption changes economic decisions.

Economic decisions change land management.

Land management changes biodiversity.

Biodiversity changes resilience.

And declining resilience feeds back into the next disturbance.

The resulting system is not a collection of unrelated environmental problems. It is a coupled socio-economic-ecological feedback system in which changes in one component propagate through the others.

Wildfire becomes an economic loss.

Economic loss creates pressure for rapid recovery.

Rapid recovery creates demand for herbicides, machinery, labor, and planted timber.

Those interventions alter ecosystems.

Altered ecosystems influence water, biodiversity, soil, carbon storage, and future fire behavior.

Government policy can then reinforce the economic system that produced the intervention in the first place.

The feedback can therefore become self-reinforcing.

The challenge is to recognize when a short-term economic solution becomes a long-term ecological feedback.

That distinction becomes especially important when an ecosystem crosses a threshold. Restoring the trees may not be the same thing as restoring the forest.

And once biodiversity has been converted into monoculture, replanting the landscape does not necessarily recreate the ecosystem that was lost.

Climate change is not simply changing the weather.

It is changing the decisions we make about the world around us—and those decisions can become feedbacks that determine how resilient that world remains.

Sea-Level Rise: Rubbing Salt in the Wound

Posted on 2026/08/232026/08/23 by admin

by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee

How Is Climate Energy Hitting You?

The Jersey Shore Is Sure

Sea-Level Rise: Rubbing Salt in the Wound

Sea-level rise is not simply a matter of the ocean getting higher. Climate change is altering the physical forces that move water toward and onto the shoreline. Rising seas, changing atmospheric pressure, stronger winds, altered ocean circulation, storm surge, king tides, and saltwater intrusion can interact to turn gradual sea-level rise into a much more immediate coastal threat.

A Real-World Warning: The Wetlands Institute

The experience of The Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, provides a striking example of how quickly coastal conditions can change.

The institute’s Salt Marsh Trail reportedly flooded only a few times a year around 2000. Over the past five years, flooding has averaged nearly 70 times annually. The institute is closing its headquarters on September 7, 2026, to begin a major coastal-resilience transformation.

The response includes raising the Salt Marsh Trail by two to three feet using clean dredged material, temporarily relocating operations and educational programs, and pursuing a broader campaign to replace and elevate the existing campus buildings.

This is more than an inconvenience. Increasingly frequent inundation can fundamentally alter the coastal ecosystem itself.

The Climate Shift

Accelerated sea-level rise: Sea levels along parts of the New Jersey coast are rising faster than the global average.
Marsh degradation: Repeated inundation can overwhelm salt-marsh vegetation, converting productive marsh into mudflats and eventually open water.
Wildlife disruption: More frequent flooding threatens habitats used by marsh-dependent birds and can interfere with diamondback terrapin nesting.
Infrastructure exposure: Roads, buildings, trails, drainage systems, and utilities face increasingly frequent flooding even without a major storm.

The critical point is that the climate signal is not experienced as a smooth, uniform rise in water level. It is experienced as more frequent encounters with water.

1. The Inverse Barometer Effect: Atmospheric Pressure Pushes the Ocean

Atmospheric pressure exerts physical force on the ocean surface. When a deep low-pressure system moves over the coast, the reduced atmospheric weight allows the ocean surface to rise.

The approximate relationship is:

A 1-hectopascal (hPa) decrease in atmospheric pressure produces roughly a 1-centimeter rise in sea level.

A very deep storm can therefore raise the local ocean surface substantially before the effects of wind-driven storm surge are even considered.

This is known as the inverse barometer effect.

Climate change does not simply “raise the sea.” It can alter the atmospheric conditions that determine how that elevated ocean is distributed along the coastline at any particular moment.

Inverse Barometer Effect Examples

Storm type	Approx. pressure near coast	Pressure drop from 1013 hPa	Inverse-barometer rise
Ordinary coastal storm	990–1000 hPa	13–23 hPa	5–9 in
Strong nor’easter	970–985 hPa	28–43 hPa	11–17 in
Very strong coastal storm	950–965 hPa	48–63 hPa	19–25 in
Sandy-type extreme	~945 hPa	~68 hPa	~27 in / 2.2 ft
Exceptional low-pressure event	930–940 hPa	73–83 hPa	29–33 in / 2.4–2.8 ft

The Combined Impact

The inverse barometer effect combines with wind stress, coastline shape, bathymetry, wave setup, tides, and storm track can produce much larger water-level changes. Hurricane Sandy’s actual coastal water levels were dramatically higher because the pressure effect was combined with enormous wind-driven surge, wave action, tide, and the storm’s exceptionally favorable track. At Sandy Hook, water reached about 8.9 feet above ground level, while the storm produced major surge throughout the central and northern Jersey Shore.

An additional 5 inches to 3 feet of sea-level rise represents a new baseline of climate energy impacting coastal communities. The inverse barometer effect then combines with wind stress, coastline shape, bathymetry, wave setup, tides, and storm track to produce much larger water-level changes. The result can be extreme coastal flooding, with observed water levels reaching roughly 9 feet above ground level along parts of the Jersey Shore and as much as 30 feet in parts of Florida during major storms.

2. Wind and Wave Energy: Turning Pressure Gradients Into Coastal Damage

Atmospheric pressure gradients—the differences between areas of high and low pressure—drive winds.

When those gradients become stronger, winds can become stronger and more persistent. Strong winds transfer energy to the ocean, generating larger waves and increasing wind setup, the piling of water against the coast.

The consequences can include:

Higher water levels along exposed shorelines
Larger and more destructive waves
Increased dune erosion
Offshore transport of beach sand
Overtopping of coastal defenses
Greater storm-surge penetration

The shoreline therefore experiences not only a higher baseline sea level but also increasingly energetic ways of moving that water around.

3. Altered Ocean Circulation: When Water Piles Up

Changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation can alter ocean currents and regional sea levels.

The relationship between the Gulf Stream, the North Atlantic circulation, winds, and coastal sea level is particularly important along the U.S. East Coast. Changes in ocean circulation can redistribute enormous volumes of water, producing dynamic sea-level changes that may differ substantially from the global average.

In simplified terms, when ocean circulation changes, water can accumulate against a coastline rather than being transported away from it.

That means a community can experience a rapid increase in local relative sea level even when the global mean is changing much more slowly.

4. Compound Coastal Flooding: When Everything Arrives Together

The most dangerous coastal flooding occurs when multiple processes reinforce one another.

Imagine a high tide occurring while:

Global sea level is already elevated.
A low-pressure storm raises the ocean through the inverse barometer effect.
Strong onshore winds push additional water toward land.
Large waves increase water levels and erode dunes.
Heavy rainfall overwhelms drainage systems.
Rivers are already elevated and cannot discharge efficiently.

These processes can combine into compound flooding.

The problem is not simply that the water is higher. The problem is that multiple pathways for moving water onto the land are operating simultaneously.

Salt marshes normally provide a natural buffer. But repeated inundation and erosion can eventually overwhelm the marsh itself. Once protective wetlands deteriorate, more wave energy reaches infrastructure, creating a feedback loop of increasing exposure and increasing damage.

Saltwater Intrusion: When the Ocean Moves Underground

Sea-level rise has another consequence that is much less visible than coastal flooding: saltwater intrusion.

Saltwater intrusion occurs when seawater moves into freshwater systems, including groundwater aquifers, rivers, wetlands, agricultural soils, and drinking-water supplies.

Two forces are especially important:

Rising sea level increases the hydraulic pressure and inland reach of seawater.
Drought and reduced groundwater recharge weaken the freshwater pressure pushing outward toward the sea.

Together, these forces can shift the boundary between freshwater and saltwater inland.

Research has projected that saltwater contamination could affect a very large proportion of coastal aquifers by 2100, although the extent varies substantially by geography, aquifer characteristics, groundwater use, and future climate conditions.

How the Saltwater Wedge Moves Inland

Under normal conditions, rainfall replenishes groundwater. Freshwater flows toward the coast and maintains a hydraulic gradient that helps resist seawater intrusion.

Because freshwater is less dense than seawater, a freshwater lens can exist above denser saltwater beneath coastal areas.

But the balance can shift.

1. Underground Aquifer Intrusion

As sea level rises, the hydraulic pressure exerted by seawater increases. At the same time, climate-driven drought and higher temperatures can reduce groundwater recharge in some regions.

Less freshwater flowing toward the ocean means less outward pressure resisting seawater.

The underground saltwater boundary can therefore migrate inland.

This process can occur largely out of sight until a well begins producing water with elevated salinity.

2. Surface and Vertical Infiltration

Storm surge, king tides, and coastal flooding can push seawater onto land.

If that water remains on the surface, it can infiltrate downward through soils and shallow geological formations, contaminating groundwater.

Repeated flooding is especially important because a single event may be temporary, while dozens of inundation events each year can progressively alter soil and groundwater chemistry.

3. The “Highway Effect”

Human modifications to coastal landscapes can provide pathways for seawater to travel inland.

Agricultural drainage ditches, shipping channels, tidal creeks, canals, and other engineered waterways can connect coastal waters with areas that were historically protected by natural terrain.

When sea level rises or storm surge moves inland, these channels can function as highways for saltwater.

The Ecological and Economic Consequences

Saltwater intrusion does not stop at the shoreline.

Ghost Forests

As saltwater enters coastal soils and groundwater, freshwater-dependent trees can die from prolonged salt stress. The result can be stands of dead trees known as ghost forests.

These landscapes provide visible evidence that the boundary between marine and terrestrial ecosystems is moving inland.

Agricultural Damage

Salt deposited on agricultural land can accumulate in the root zone.

Excessive soil salinity interferes with plants’ ability to absorb water and can reduce crop productivity. Persistent salinization can make valuable coastal farmland increasingly difficult—or eventually impossible—to farm without expensive remediation and freshwater management.

Infrastructure Corrosion

Saltwater and brackish groundwater are highly corrosive.

Repeated exposure can accelerate deterioration of underground pipes, electrical infrastructure, concrete, foundations, roads, and other infrastructure.

The damage can occur beneath the surface long before it becomes visually obvious.

Drinking-Water Threats

Coastal communities that depend on groundwater face a particularly serious vulnerability.

Pumping already lowers groundwater levels around wells. If the freshwater table is lowered too far, the hydraulic gradient resisting seawater intrusion weakens further.

This can create another feedback:

More pumping → lower freshwater pressure → greater saltwater intrusion → less usable freshwater.

The Larger Picture: Climate Energy Does Not Disappear

Sea-level rise is one expression of a much larger physical process.

The additional energy accumulating in the climate system does not simply produce a higher average temperature. Energy moves through the atmosphere, ocean, land, ice, and biosphere.

Along the coast, that energy can appear as:

Higher baseline sea level → more frequent tidal flooding → stronger storm impacts → erosion → wetland loss → saltwater intrusion → infrastructure damage → freshwater stress.

The critical distinction is between average conditions and actual events.

A few inches of average sea-level rise may sound modest. But those inches can determine whether a high tide remains below a road or flows across it. They can determine whether a storm surge is absorbed by a functioning marsh or reaches buildings and infrastructure.

The climate system does not deliver its additional energy evenly.

It delivers it through water, wind, waves, heat, storms, erosion, flooding, and ecological disruption.

And along the coast, the ocean is increasingly finding more ways to come ashore—and stay there.

The Bleeding Edge of Climate Change

Posted on 2026/08/192026/08/19 by admin

by Daniel and Sidd

While Sidd was in town, I took some notes. Somehow, they turned into this:

Climate Change: The Big Picture

There are many ways to look at climate change. From a micro perspective, there are millions of individual feedbacks operating throughout the Earth system. From a macro perspective, there is the climate system as a whole.

Understanding how those feedbacks interact—and, more importantly, how they feed back into one another—is at the bleeding edge of climate science.

One of the simplest examples is the albedo effect. The physics of ice is straightforward: bright, reflective ice sends a portion of incoming solar energy back into space, while darker ocean absorbs it. Less ice means more absorbed energy and, therefore, more warming.

But the system quickly becomes much more complicated.

How does changing albedo affect cloud formation, particularly over the tropics? And what happens to the climate if those clouds increase—or decrease?

The low clouds are especially important. They can reflect substantial amounts of incoming sunlight back into space. If tropical low clouds diminish, the ocean could absorb significantly more solar energy, accelerating warming.

This is where the bleeding edge begins.

Clouds are arguably the largest remaining uncertainty in our understanding of climate sensitivity. They can both reflect incoming solar radiation and trap outgoing heat. Which effect dominates—and how that balance changes as the planet warms—is one of the great questions in climate science.

My expectation is that the climate system could eventually approach a new equilibrium around +4°C above the preindustrial baseline, perhaps over the course of a couple centuries. That would imply roughly +2–3°C this century, with additional warming continuing into the next.

But that remains uncertain.

The important point is that climate change is not a simple linear equation. It is a massively interconnected system in which changes in one component can alter another, which then feeds back into the first. Ice affects albedo. Albedo affects heating. Heating affects clouds. Clouds affect radiation. Radiation affects ocean temperatures. Ocean temperatures affect evaporation and atmospheric moisture. And the cycle continues.

Everything is nonlinear.

Yet uncertainty about the exact trajectory does not mean uncertainty about what we should do.

The clearest lever we have is still the same: reduce CO₂ emissions and slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

And while the long-term equilibrium matters, there is a much more immediate question.

What happens to you over the next five years?

We are already seeing rainfall becoming more intense and, in many places, more destructive—violent. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, increasing the potential for extreme precipitation. The question isn’t simply how hot the planet might become over the next 50 years.

The more immediate question is:

What is the violent rain going to do to your home, your community, your infrastructure, your insurance—and you—over the next five years?

That is where climate change stops being a distant projection and starts becoming a personal reality.

Demand Destruction: Bad News for the Economy, Good News for the Environment

Posted on 2026/08/14 by admin

U.S. retail sales fell unexpectedly by 0.6% month over month in July 2026, coming in well below the forecast of a 0.1% increase. The data, released this morning, points to a significant slowdown in American consumer spending and a reversal of the momentum seen in previous months.

Key Figures From the July Report

Headline retail sales: Down 0.6%, following a revised 0.2% increase in June.
Excluding autos: Down 0.3%, versus expectations for a 0.2% increase.
Excluding autos and gasoline: Down 0.2%, compared with an expected 0.3% increase.
Control group sales: Down 0.4%, missing the projected 0.3% gain.

Bad News for the Economy

The broad-based weakness suggests that American consumers are becoming increasingly constrained by high prices, elevated living costs, and strained household budgets. Discretionary spending appears to be particularly vulnerable as consumers cut back in response to declining purchasing power.

The slowdown is also affecting financial-market expectations, potentially strengthening the case for a more accommodative Federal Reserve monetary policy in the months ahead.

But there is another way to look at these numbers.

Demand Destruction

This may be another indication of demand destruction—a sustained reduction in consumption caused by rising prices, declining purchasing power, supply constraints, or the availability of alternatives.

Climate change can contribute to this process in several ways. Extreme heat, drought, flooding, wildfires, and other climate-related disruptions can damage agricultural production and supply chains, increasing the cost of food and other necessities. Rising insurance, energy, transportation, and infrastructure costs can further squeeze household budgets.

Food prices are particularly important. Climate-driven disruptions to agriculture can contribute to food inflation, creating one of the most direct ways climate change reaches the household budget. When essential goods become more expensive, consumers have less money available for discretionary purchases.

That creates an uncomfortable paradox.

Bad News for Consumers. Good News for the Climate?

For lower-income households, this is unquestionably bad news. Families already living close to the edge have far less ability to absorb higher food, housing, energy, transportation, and insurance costs. For them, demand destruction isn’t a lifestyle choice. It can mean doing without necessities or postponing purchases they would otherwise make.

But from an environmental perspective, declining consumption can have an unexpected benefit.

Our economy is built around a powerful cycle: produce more → sell more → consume more → produce even more. Economic growth has traditionally depended heavily on increasing consumption of energy, materials, goods, and services.

If rising costs begin breaking that cycle, the result could be a gradual decline in resource consumption.

That is the paradox of demand destruction:

What is bad news for the economy can sometimes be good news for the environment.

A reduction in fossil-fuel consumption, material throughput, unnecessary production, and resource-intensive consumption can reduce environmental pressures. In that sense, demand destruction could unintentionally contribute to the transition away from an economic model based on ever-increasing consumption.

The problem is that we should not confuse economic hardship with a successful environmental transition.

There is a profound difference between people consuming less because they have chosen more efficient, sustainable alternatives and people consuming less because they can no longer afford what they need.

The first represents managed transition.

The second represents contraction.

The challenge is to find a way to reduce humanity’s environmental footprint without forcing the people least able to absorb the costs to bear the greatest burden.

That may ultimately be one of the defining economic challenges of climate change: how do we move beyond consumerism without making poverty the mechanism that gets us there?

Money Moves People: Why Demand Destruction May Be the Fastest Path Beyond Fossil Fuels

Posted on 2026/08/132026/08/13 by admin

by Daniel Brouse

2026: The New Economic Reality

Money moves people.

The climate costs of fossil-fuel dependence are increasingly outweighing its benefits—not in some distant future, but here and now. We are moving beyond arguments about what climate change might cost decades from today. Across the Western world, climate impacts are already imposing costs of hundreds of billions of dollars in real time.

Insurance is only one part of the story.

Infrastructure, agriculture, transportation, labor productivity, public health, energy systems, and financial markets are all beginning to absorb the cost of a destabilizing climate. The economic question is therefore changing. It is no longer simply:

“What will climate change cost us?”

It is increasingly:

“How much are we willing to pay to preserve an energy system that is becoming progressively more expensive to maintain?”

Climate Stress Is Becoming an Economic Stress Test

The physical infrastructure of the global economy is already being affected.

Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc has warned that climate change is putting increasing pressure on European waterways and that substantial infrastructure investment will be needed to keep the Rhine operating as a critical transportation artery.

But the economic importance of waterways extends far beyond shipping.

Rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are also critical components of the energy, industrial, agricultural, municipal, and ecological systems that support modern economies.

When water levels fall or water temperatures rise, power plants can be affected directly. Thermoelectric and nuclear power plants rely heavily on water for cooling. If river flows become too low, or water temperatures become too high, operators may be forced to reduce generation or temporarily shut down units because sufficient cooling capacity is no longer available or because thermal discharge limits are exceeded.

That creates an economic chain reaction:

Lower river flows or higher water temperatures
↓
Reduced cooling capacity
↓
Reduced power generation
↓
Tighter electricity supplies
↓
Higher electricity prices and grid stress
↓
Higher operating costs for industry and consumers

The same waterways that transport fuel, raw materials, agricultural products, chemicals, and manufactured goods can therefore also be essential to producing the electricity needed to move and manufacture those goods.

Water is simultaneously a transportation system, cooling system, industrial input, agricultural resource, and ecological asset.

When that system becomes unstable, multiple economic sectors can be affected at the same time.

Low water levels can also restrict the movement of coal, oil, natural gas, grain, chemicals, construction materials, and other bulk commodities. Barges may have to reduce their loads or make more trips to transport the same volume of goods. In some cases, alternative transportation by rail or truck becomes necessary, increasing fuel consumption, congestion, labor costs, and emissions.

Flooding creates the opposite problem.

Excess water can damage ports, locks, bridges, rail connections, roads, warehouses, industrial facilities, and electrical infrastructure. A waterway can therefore become economically disruptive at both extremes—too little water and too much water.

Agriculture is similarly exposed. Rivers and reservoirs provide irrigation, livestock water, and municipal supplies. Persistent drought can reduce agricultural output while increasing competition among farmers, cities, industry, ecosystems, and energy producers for increasingly scarce water.

There is also a less visible economic cost: water temperature itself is becoming an economic variable.

Warmer rivers can reduce their ability to absorb additional heat from industrial processes and power-plant cooling systems. At the same time, warmer water can stress aquatic ecosystems, fisheries, and drinking-water systems, creating additional regulatory, treatment, and ecological costs.

This produces a broader economic concept that is often missed in conventional disaster accounting:

Waterway disruption is not a single-sector problem. It is a systems problem.

The Rhine and Danube are not simply waterways. They are components of Europe’s economic infrastructure. They connect ports, factories, power plants, farms, cities, mines, warehouses, rail networks, and consumers. When climate conditions interfere with their operation, the economic consequences propagate through the system. A river does not have to disappear to create an economic crisis. It only has to become less reliable. And reliability is one of the most valuable—and often least visible—assets in a modern economy.

The Economic Toll of Extreme Weather

Global extreme weather and natural disasters are generating enormous economic losses. Recent estimates from the International Chamber of Commerce, insurers including Swiss Re, and disaster-loss tracking organizations show that severe convective storms, wildfires, floods, and other extreme events are producing annual losses measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The first half of 2026 alone has already produced approximately $100 billion in global economic losses, while the cumulative economic toll over the past decade has reached roughly $2 trillion, according to recent assessments.

And the year is not over.

The second half of the year normally includes the peak of the North Atlantic hurricane season, creating the potential for another substantial wave of losses.

The Major Economic Drivers

Escalating annual losses.
Global disaster losses continue to accumulate at extraordinary levels. The combined economic losses from 2022 and 2023 alone have been estimated at roughly $451 billion.

The concentration of U.S. losses.
The United States remains a major source of global insured catastrophe losses. By June 2026, the country had already experienced 12 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, with estimated losses totaling approximately $31.9 billion.

Severe convective storms.
Hail, tornadoes, straight-line winds, and other severe thunderstorms have become an increasingly persistent source of financial losses. The United States recorded a record 21 billion-dollar severe-convective-storm events in 2025.

Extreme heat and productivity.
The economic damage from climate change is not limited to destroyed buildings and infrastructure. Heat reduces worker productivity, particularly in construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and outdoor occupations. Global heat-related productivity losses have been estimated at roughly 1% of world GDP annually—around $1 trillion.

The long-term U.S. bill.
U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters have generated cumulative damages exceeding $3 trillion since systematic tracking began in 1980.

The Trajectory Is the Story

Recent U.S. disaster statistics illustrate the increasing economic burden:

Year	Billion-Dollar Events	Estimated Damage	Major Loss Drivers
2025	23	~$115 billion	Severe storms, wildfires
2024	27	~$182.7 billion	Severe storms, tropical cyclones, extreme heat
2023	28	$145+ billion	Severe storms and other extreme events

The important point is not that every individual disaster can be attributed exclusively to climate change.

The economic signal emerges from the frequency, intensity, persistence, and cumulative cost of extreme conditions.

Climate change does not need to create every storm, flood, drought, or wildfire to transform the economics of risk. It only needs to increase the probability, severity, or duration of damaging events enough to alter the cost structure of society.

That is already happening.

“Demand Destruction” Is Our Friend

This brings us to one of the most powerful—and least appreciated—economic mechanisms in the energy transition:

Demand destruction.

The International Energy Agency has projected that global oil demand will decline more sharply than previously expected in 2026, forecasting a reduction of approximately 1.6 million barrels per day.

The significance extends beyond the number itself.

As an economist, I am less concerned with establishing a specific date by which the world must eliminate fossil fuels than I am with changing the economic forces that sustain fossil-fuel demand.

That distinction matters.

People do not necessarily change because someone wins an argument about climate science. They change because incentives change. Prices change. Risk changes. Availability changes. And eventually, behavior changes.

Money Moves People

I am unlikely to change the minds of the roughly 20% of Americans who are ideologically committed to policies that accelerate fossil-fuel dependence.

But that leaves the vast majority of the population. And economics can do much of the work. Integrated Climate Stewardship begins with reducing unnecessary consumption.

Consumerism drives energy demand, resource extraction, pollution, waste, and habitat destruction. Every unnecessary unit of consumption represents another demand for energy and materials somewhere in the global economy.

Consume less, and demand falls.

Demand falls, and the economic incentive to produce falls.

That is the mechanism.

The Economics of Personal Climate Stewardship

Today, only a small fraction of Americans appear to be pursuing a deliberately structured net-zero lifestyle through continuous behavioral reductions, efficiency improvements, and intentional balancing. But this does not mean the model cannot scale. The critical question is how climate stewardship is presented.

If reducing climate impact is framed exclusively as sacrifice, people resist. If it is framed as economic self-interest, the equation changes.

What happens when people discover that reducing unnecessary consumption can save them thousands of dollars a year?

What happens when energy efficiency lowers household expenses?

When smaller vehicles reduce fuel, maintenance, and insurance costs?

When reducing waste means buying fewer things that do not provide meaningful value?

When local production and durable goods become economically attractive?

When conservation becomes synonymous with financial resilience?

The behavior does not have to begin with ideology.

It can begin with a household budget.

Vote With Your Dollars

This is where the remaining majority of the population becomes economically important.

When millions of people begin making purchasing decisions based on cost, durability, efficiency, resilience, and environmental impact, they collectively alter demand.

When demand changes, markets respond. When fossil-fuel demand declines, the economic incentive to extract, refine, transport, and sell fossil fuels declines with it. This is fundamentally different from waiting for governments to impose every change from the top down. It is a bottom-up economic transition.

People do not have to agree about everything.

They do not have to become climate activists.

They do not even have to agree about climate policy.

They simply have to discover that some forms of consumption are no longer worth what they cost.

The Feedback Loop

The process can become self-reinforcing:

Lower unnecessary consumption
↓
Lower household costs
↓
Lower energy and resource demand
↓
Reduced fossil-fuel demand
↓
Lower economic incentive for fossil-fuel expansion
↓
Greater investment in alternatives and efficiency
↓
Further reductions in fossil-fuel demand

This is an economic feedback loop.

And unlike many climate-policy debates, it does not require everyone to agree on the destination before beginning the journey.

Demand Destruction Is the Transition

The transition away from fossil fuels is often described as a supply problem:

How quickly can we replace coal, oil, and natural gas?

But there is another side of the equation.

How quickly can we reduce the demand that makes fossil-fuel extraction profitable?

That may ultimately be the more powerful question.

We do not need to convince every person to become an environmentalist.

We need to make lower-carbon choices increasingly rational economic choices.

The climate crisis is already generating enormous costs. Insurance premiums are rising. Infrastructure is being stressed. Agricultural productivity is being disrupted. Heat is reducing labor capacity. Extreme weather is destroying capital. Supply chains are becoming more vulnerable.

These costs are not theoretical.

They are appearing on balance sheets, household budgets, insurance statements, government budgets, and corporate earnings reports.

The economic system is beginning to receive the bill.

And money moves people.

Demand destruction is not the enemy of the energy transition.

Demand destruction is the transition.