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Albert Pinto Profile picture
@70sBachchan
May 18, 2020 • 69 tweets • 46 min read • Read on X
Paper:"Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic".
Nature isn't staying at home. Pandemic is test of govts’ ability to manage catastrophes.
Already, a Cat 5 cyclone is hurtling into West Bengal, Atlantic hurricane season is severe...ht @GhoshAmitav nature.com/articles/s4155… Image
#CycloneAmphan is now a Category 5 storm. It intensified quickly over the hotter than usual Bay of Bengal and is on track to Kolkota & Odisha in two days. Indian Govt plans evacuation of a million ppl from coasts! realearth.ssec.wisc.edu/?products=HIMA…
hindustantimes.com/india-news/cyc…
Bay of Bengal cyclones fifty years ago would routinely kill upwards of 100,000 people. Both Bangladesh & Orissa govts were forced to take it seriously by democratic movements. Good institutions arose from rubble.
Water is the most destructive force of a hurricane. #CycloneAmphan surge is forecast upto 6m (20 feet) in low-lying deltas. Indian & Bangladeshi govts have learnt from past disasters & are doing the most important thing: get people out of harms way.
2020 is also predicted to be one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons on record (20±4 named storms). Very warm tropical Atlantic waters plus possible La Nina. Storm Arthur is on its way 2 weeks before start of season. ht @MichaelEMann @penn_state essc.psu.edu/essc_web/resea… ImageImage
Must be one of the largest evacuations ever! 13,000 ‌cyclone‌ ‌shelters‌ ‌readied‌ in Bangladesh to keep ~5 million people safe when Amphan hits tomm.‌ 1000s more in India. Women, elderly,‌kids given priority. And Corona? SD & masks dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/202…
re.ssec.wisc.edu/s/k1q0Qu
#CycloneAmphan will landfall today W Bengal – Bangladesh border after the countries evacuated many million ppl. INCOIS surge forecast for Sunderbans deltas ranges from <1m to 4m. As @profadamsobel points out, Hurricane Sandy surge in NYC was ~2.5m. incois.gov.in/WEBSITE_FILES/… Image
India & Bangladesh,w many intl partners, built 1000s of cyclone shelters. This time, some were doubling as quarantine. This time, some were refugee camps from Syrian war & Rohingya expulsion. This time, the cyclone fed off a Bay of Bengal, hotter than ever thethirdpole.net/2020/05/19/sup… Image
Cyclone that hit India in 1970, killed ~500,000 ppl; In 1999 ~30,000. More modernisation => fatalities in 100s. How? Satellites, Met skill, evacuations, hardened shelters, sharing w B'desh,Myanmar.
Problems, Cyclones OR/AND Corona, can be solved w effort.
Five million people are without power. Heavy damage to aquaculture & farms in Bangladesh's Sundarbans. 1000s of houses have been washed away.
"The impact of Amphan is worse than coronavirus" - West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/c…
When the locusts explode 2 months later, these horrific floods will be why. The causal chain: 2018-19 Wetter in E Africa as Indian Ocean Dipole was at max--> more vegetation --> Locust change lifecycle to 'gregarious' swarms--> extend further into E Africa media.ifrc.org/ifrc/press-rel…
Pandemic is moving fast on viral timescales so containing it sucks up all oxygen.

If Bangladesh & India hadn't evacuated few million ppl into shelters, cyclone would killed more in a day than virus (~400K). Countries must prepare⬇️nature.com/articles/s4155…
nytimes.com/2020/05/23/cli…
Bangladesh & India have done a great job learning from disasters of Bay of Bengal cyclones (That 1970 Bhola cyclone set off B'desh liberation mvmt).

But sadly Mumbai & West coast is terribly prepared for intensifying Arabian Sea cyclones ht @GhoshAmitav scroll.in/article/947660…
Heatwaves are an extraordinary silent killer. We've gotten good at preventing deaths from 'charismatic megafauna' of climate extremes - hurricanes, floods. 2003 European Heatwaves led to 70,000 ppl suddenly dying.
Must prepare now for 2020.@EricKlinenberg
1000s of workers in Iran, Pakistan & India are battling the locusts, using vehicle-mounted sprayers, pesticides and drones in the searing desert heat. UN FAO estimates without effort & pesticide supplies, swarms become 400 times bigger in June-July. chinadialogue.net/article/show/s… ImageImage
me: Heatwaves are worse than Corona (red). 70,000 died 2003 Europe (yellow).

my inner Taleb: IMBECILE! A pandemic is a multiplicative contagion with UNCERTAINTY and the distribution of deaths is FAT-TAILED. Millions would have died without early action!
blog.insee.fr/statistiques-s… Image
World really needs to pay more attention to the great environmentalist Sunita Narain. Right on urgency of climate action. Right on locusts attacking breadbaskets of India & Pakistan. Her warning from 27th Jan.
Burn this image into your mind. Kids in a shelter in Bangladesh, uncertain & afraid, of corona and cyclones.
Climate justice means building a world in which they can not just survive, but thrive. We must remake this Doomsday Machine. 15/n ft.com/content/10d8f5… Image
Mumbai hasn't seen a cyclone since records began in 1891. Many dynamics -- millions living in low-lying slums, a city politically captured by regulation flouting real estate builders, and pandemic -- combine in this dangerous moment mausam.imd.gov.in/imd_latest/con… livemint.com/mint-lounge/fe…
Mumbai, Bangladesh, Bengal have shown a fine example of Pandemic + disaster preparedness. Accurate predictions, helping ppl to shelters & then protecting from virus is key. npr.org/sections/healt…
Polar amplification. A hot and dry spring in Siberia and NE Asia means melting permafrost & a major wildfire season. Last few years have seen major Russian fires, In 2020, they have been smouldering in Siberia's peatlands all winter economist.com/science-and-te…
Nature isn't staying at home. Pandemic is test of govts’ ability to manage deadly catastrophes.

Intense heatwaves in Europe & Asia
Major wildfire season forecast in US & Russia
Atlantic hurricane season.
Locusts in E Africa & S Asia
all happening now. nature.com/articles/s4155… Image
Global Warming --> Global SWARMING
Govts in Asia & Africa are doing their utmost to prepare before swarms become 400 times bigger in July. Thread edition.cnn.com/interactive/20…
“You may feel, because of the pandemic, that you are living to some degree in 1918. The arctic temperatures of the past week suggest that at least part of the world is living, simultaneously, in 2098.”
@dwallacewells on climate mayhem & mortgages nymag.com/intelligencer/…
For the third year in a row, Europe is facing water woes as drought conditions intensify. Forecasts are of low summer precipitation & heatwaves that hurt crop yields, power plants & people. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146888/… Image
Heavy rains in upland Nepal are producing major floods in Bihar, Assam & Bangladesh. Total loss for words to describe heroism of Community health workers -- working for too little pay & govts not providing adequate PPE.
Image
Its only been 3 months since the paper "Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic" was published. 15 of the 16 hazards predicted have already happened. Accurate scientific forecasting saves lives if govts act on them. nature.com/articles/s4155… Image
Thread on how emergency/preparedness ppl have planned for predicable compound disasters for months now ht @SamLMontano
Cities along the Yangtze — China's longest river — have been flooded in past week with the worst flooding since 1998. Residents downstream of 3 Gorges dam in Wuhan & provinces of Anhui, Jiangxi received red alert today. 44 million ppl are being evacuated! asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Natura…
Homes of millions of families in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal & China are now flooded. Entire villages & towns along Asia's great rivers drowned, amid immense relief work & evacuations. nytimes.com/2020/07/15/wor…

We must rebuild this Doomsday machine.
"Its a difficult year for Wuhan. Coronavirus has just gone & we now have the floods."
Floods, have been moving east along the Yangtze, swollen by torrential downpours, and have now spread to 27 provinces. Parts of SE China received 6 feet (1800mm) of rain! Image
We don't have to imagine climate scenarios of 2070. We can see it happen before our eyes. We know enough to act now & cut fossilfuels before migration & extremes makes organised human civilization impossible. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Extreme rainfall events (in red, regions >3ft rain) led to deadly flooding in China, India, & Japan. In each, deluge triggered landslides in hills, then floods in low-lying cities along rivers & delta farms. In each, army deployed for relief efforts. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147006/… Image
"China’s over-reliance on dams, excessive construction in low-lying areas, land reclamation in wetlands.. & cities built with poor drainage systems have all exacerbated flood damage."

True for practically all cities in Asia suffering this intense monsoon news.yahoo.com/man-cannot-win… ImageImageImageImage
Last hurricane that hit Hawaii was 1959. This one *just* missed all the islands. Whew! cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog…
Thousands died suddenly in European heatwaves in 2019 -hottest ever recorded. Heat especially dangerous for elderly ppl living alone (over 70,000 died in '03!).
21stC state capacity requires forecasts, cooling rooms & social care. climatecentre.org/downloads/file… Image
Heatwaves are extraordinarily lethal — more so as they are silent disasters unlike storms & floods. And they are profoundly unequal. Powerful @SominiSengupta photo essay w reporting from Greece, Nigeria, Guatemala, India & the US. #GeopoliticsOfGHGs nytimes.com/interactive/20…
The extreme Arctic circle heat, the raging wildfires, the warm ocean, the melt ponds, the oil spills on thawing permafrost, the disappearance of sea ice, the freaking mammoths would each indvdly be remarkable events. Together... nsidc.org/arcticseaicene… Image
July was driest summer of 60yrs in France. Fish in hot waters(lowO2) are being transferred by hand. EDF again curbing nuclear power for lack of cooling water. And unless vulnerable ppl are cooled in scorching Aug, more could die of heatstroke than of covid lefigaro.fr/sciences/la-fr… ImageImage
Europe bakes at 40C, Baghdad literally sizzles at over 50C for 4 days! We don't have to imagine climate of 2070. We can see it happen before our eyes. We know enough to act now & cut fossilfuels before extremes makes organised human civilization impossible
Burning fossil fuels loads the dice towards extremes. @GernotWagner on this summer's Climate Shocks that is throwing six (Eurasian heatwaves) after six (Asian floods) after six (Atlantic hurricane season). bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Image
Pandemic just sucks away oxygen from 2020's climate emergency. According to @save_children, 70 % FEWER ppl globally are discussing climate online compared to same period last year.
savethechildren.net/news/record-te…
"it is nevertheless disorienting to be living through it, watching extreme weather & natural disaster big enough to once define whole local generations become merely regrettably grim wallpaper".

@dwallacewells on twin Normalizations: Alarm & Apathy
nymag.com/intelligencer/… Image
'The effects of “severe” drought include stunted and browning crops, limited pasture yields, dust storms, reduced well water levels, & an increase in the number & severity of wildfires. Most of those areas had no sign of drought in the mid-summer of 2019' earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147118/…
10+ day long heatwave predicted in California & Western US states. Heat+humidity kills elderly ppl; This is as dangerous as the virus & requires cooling & social care. High chance of wildfires & electricity shutdowns as in 2019. weatherwest.com/archives/7427
56 Million ppl in US are on heat alerts! Like virus, Heatwaves are deadly, especially for elderly & poor ppl w/out cooling. It hits vulnerable in cities who live in more paved areas that are many degrees hotter than leafier ones epa.gov/sites/producti…
Asian floods worsen. More than 8 million displaced in India's poorest state Bihar. That a Hotter atmosphere holds more moisture is basic physics & stopping Carbon is basic rationality. Stick @writetopd's dispatch into gTranslate bbc.com/hindi/india-53…
👇.2019-20 is when millions 1st felt scale of climate crisis. And so experience denial&despair
Reject Surrender. We are a special generation whose collective actions can change possiblty of organised civilization for 100 generations belfercenter.org/sites/default/…
Image
2020 is year of monster Eurasian heatwaves & monster monsoons in India, Japan & China.

Cities and farms along the Ganga & Yangtze are now on their 4th/5th floods. In China, 1.2 million troops have been mobilised to fortify defenses & evacuate residents.
Fires in US West worsen. Many months of ordeal to go. They doubled in size on Thursday & nearly 2X again today. Some 175,000 ppl told to leave & authorities go door-to-door to make sure.

Stay at Home vs Leave your home isn't a choice when fires escalate. reuters.com/article/us-cal…
Analysis nature.com/articles/s4159… shows droughts in Europe of last 3 years unprecedented in 250yrs. Ppl in rich countries tend to think climate disasters are far away in space (Bangladesh!) & in time (2100!). Must act now.
ft.com/content/6b4601…
Image
Distancing Eg. from Macron in analogy bw Corona & Climate crisis. Roughly-we thought disasters happen in Asias & Africas so don't act. But when they hit home, we spring into action.
Ignores Paris was under water in 2018 & '03 EU heatwave killed ~70,000 ppl ft.com/content/3ea8d7… Image
It's not just procession of hurricanes ramping in hot Atlantic. Unusually hot W Pacific has typhoon #Bavi. It's expected to strike Korean Peninsula as the strongest tropical cyclone recorded. Evacuations from coasts & areas saturated in extreme rains begin koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20… Image
@NHC_Atlantic tracks #Laura to heart of US petrochemical complex in Texas (Galveston/Houston) & Louisiana. Oil prices go up in expectation of complex going offline and mandatory evacuations have begun. Read @RoyScranton's scenario. nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opi… Image
Such a tough decision - To evacuate or not evacuate Houston?

Risk of action (asking 2-5 million ppl in to leave in a day! clogged roads, covid, are there enough shelters, what if #HurricaneLaura tracks elsewhere)

& inaction (dangerous storm surge)
Image
30 Miles inland & up to 13 feet of storm surge! Reminder that water is most destructive force in a hurricane. And helping ppl out of harms way in densely populated coasts saves lives.

List of evacuation areas & shelters gov.texas.gov/hurricane #Laura
While all eyes are on #Laura in Gulf of Mexico, Typhoon #Bavi center stays away from Shanghai & Seoul. It's now forecast to go over Pyongyang. A humanitarian catastrophe for such a poor country. jma.go.jp/en/typh/2008.h…
August 26th, mise en Anthropo-scène:
Major fires in Amazon, Arctic & America.
Major hurricanes in Gulf of Mexico & Yellow Sea.
& oh, a virus born of destroying habitats.

Homo Sapiens high on carbon;the dragon of Eden @KenCaldeira
kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/car…
Soaked Korean peninsula cannot catch a break. On heels of #Bavi, comes #Maysak. Its expected to landfall on Thursday near Busan--S Korea's second biggest city & world's fifth largest port - as country's strongest recorded typhoon
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/08/typhoo…
Typhoon to Busan! #Maysak makes landfall. S Korea already battered by one of the wettest recorded monsoons tells thousands of ppl to evacuate homes for shelters as port city braces for impact. Another typhoon, #Haishen, in 4days. en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN202009…
Hurricanes that intensify rapidly over hot oceans is a signature of global warming. It makes coastal evacuations necessary because destructiveness (& storm surge) scales with *square* of wind speed. Huge difference bw 100 & 150mph. sciline.org/quick-facts/hu…
Talk of rapid intensification! #Haishen churned over the hot Pacific into a powerful Cat 4 hurricane (155 mph/250 km per hour). Japanese military evacuates thousands from Okinawa and Met agencies forecast landfall near Busan. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147246/… npr.org/2020/09/05/910…
#Haishen, strongest typhoon in S Korea and Japan in decades, makes landfall near port city of Busan. Japan's PM Abe calls for extreme caution and orders over 1.8 million ppl to evacuate theguardian.com/world/2020/sep…
Parts of California that are 10 miles from cold ocean are suffering 50°C heat! In 1957, the pioneering scientist Roger Revelle warned the US Congress that the continued burning of fossil fuels would turn California extremely hot & dry. ht @climatebrad Image
Nile is at its highest level in 100 years & demolished ~100,000 homes after torrential rains. Military evacuated dozens of villages but many displaced as Sudan declares state of emergency.

Organised civilization is impossible if we keep burning fossils aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/l…
In past week:
Over a million ppl in path of typhoon ordered to evacuate homes in Japan.

Over 500,000 ppl displaced as Nile flooded, destroying homes in Sudan.

Over 500,000 ppl forced to flee explosive fires in American West; 1 in Ten ppl in Oregon. ImageImageImage
September 11th, mise en Anthropo-scène:
Major fires in Amazon, Arctic & America.
Major floods on the Nile & Ganges.
& a virus born of destroying habitats whose toll approaches 1 million.

Homo Sapiens high on carbon — the dragon of Eden. ht @KenCaldeira kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/car… Image
At least 4 separate Billion dollar fossil-fueled disasters struck the US in August.

Hurricanes #Laura in Gulf coast, #Isaias on East coast , ongoing Western #CaliforniaFires and freak windstorm #derecho that destroyed midwest farms. ht @NOAASatellites nesdis.noaa.gov/content/least-…
Pakistan declared state of emergency in Feb as locusts ate orchards & cotton. Another S.o.E as terrible Asian monsoon destroys ~1 million acres & affects ~2 million ppl. Organised civilization impossible if we keep burning fossils. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147330/… Image

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More from @70sBachchan

Albert Pinto Profile picture
Jul 12
Latest @polycrisis dispatch is out. @kmac & I show just how deep the finance-ecology-geopolitics rabbit hole Hurricane Beryl goes. Sign up here:

buttondown.email/polycrisisdisp…
2/ Ecology: With super hot oceans, we are very worried about this Atlantic hurricane season. THIRTY storms are predicted plus minus 5, depending on el nino

Finance: Worry that coming devastation will shake insurance industry to the core just as 2004-5 did
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/globa…
Image
3/London, Zurich, Bermuda are home of reinsurance.
Insurance model rely on risks being 1 Uncorrelated 2 Calculable 3 Paid for by mkt returns elsewhere
But #globalwarming upends Insurance
It correlates risks (global!); creates catastrophic fat-tails; and crimps returns everywhere. Image
Read 4 tweets
Albert Pinto Profile picture
Jul 4
what reading one book by Brett Christophers does to a mf
‘while it is possible to prevent businesses from doing profitable things, it is impossible to make them do things they consider insufficiently profitable’. Why do all this 'market failure' nonsense
ft.com/content/b2b6fb…
Brett Chrisopher's work on Rentier Capitalism has been eyeopening. Asset Managers like Blackrock now run the roads we drive on; the pipes that supply our drinking water; the farmland that provides our food; electricity & heat. Nice profile

@ddhitchens
compactmag.com/article/how-as…
Under capitalism, profit expectations drive companies’ invstmt decisions. Building solar/wind & selling the electricity they generate, however, generally is not a very profitable business What sort of returns do investors earn, asks Brett Christophers time.com/6958606/climat…
Image
Read 9 tweets
Albert Pinto Profile picture
Jun 4
Yes, BJP still sets the terms in the Indian parliament. But it will not have the decisive electoral majority of 2019-2024 lok sabha where it ran bills with zero opposition or consultation. After this election it will have to respect India’s opposition and democracy
India's stock market slides. Their logic?
BJP not winning in a landslide -> forced to have a NDA coalition government that will inevitably have to be more pro-welfare
--> hence the BJP cannot do nakedly pro-rich liberal reforms --> Oops, sell sell sell

Image
Adani's reversal tells you everything.
"In 9yrs of Modi’s tenure, Adani’s wealth grew from $8bn to $137bn. In 2022 alone, he made $72bn, which is more than the combined earnings of the world’s next 9 billionaires" ht @AnnPettifor

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Image
Read 42 tweets
Albert Pinto Profile picture
Mar 30
1/ "What's happening in Guyana isn't just happening there. All over the globe, oil companies are racing to tap as many of the remaining fossil fuel reserves as they can"
@jeffgoodell :

Nice @WeAreDrilled @amywestervelt
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
stitcher.com/show/drilled

Image
2/ This is not a a story of Guyana’s PM lecturing western liberals over hypocrisy climate, oil & Amazonian forests.

But a geopolitical story of developing country elites working with western firms (Exxon) to sell to western markets (oil goes to europe)
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/offsh…
3/ "Guyana is now producing nearly as much oil as Venezuela -1 of the largest oil exporters since the 1920s & founder of OPEC

This amazing article on Exxon shows that the logic of imperial exploitation of natural resources is alive & kicking"-@GaraviniG
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/offsh…
Image
Read 7 tweets
Albert Pinto Profile picture
Oct 21, 2023
White House request to Congress for $106 billion in emergency funding for foreign aid.

A budget tells you more than words about actual priorities. Full breakdown in this PDF incl military aid to Ukraine, Israel, intl development (World bank) etc Thread whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…
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2/ UKRAINE: US so far has sent more than $75 billion to Ukraine. Of new $106B, Biden asks $61B for Ukraine.

~$50B military aid, loans for military gear, DOD stocks of weapons etc (Pg 4-27_
~$11.75B economic (pg 42)

New aid is opposed by GOP in House
whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…

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3/Reminder why Biden's request for emergency funding looks the way it does-$106B for ukraine,israel,border, humanitarian. US congressional politics when governed by Dem president+Dem senate+Republican house makes funding requests look like a dogs breakfast
Read 4 tweets
Albert Pinto Profile picture
Aug 16, 2023
“opposite responses of China and the U.S. have revealed that the two countries appear weak only because their strengths are asymmetric”

Key point from @BuddyYakov: US and China can mobilize their fiscal and productive capacity in a way that EU cannot.
noemamag.com/the-american-f…
deja vu Policy debates in US-EU-China

US, 2021:
Do more fiscal spending into the pockets of most vulnerable households and businesses!

EU, 2022:
Do more fiscal spending ....!

China, 2023:
Do more fiscal spending into the pocket of most vulnerable households and businesses
Thread on EU’s own goal
Read 6 tweets

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