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CLIMATE 4 November 2025 - The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already at its weakest in over 1,600 years and is 70% likely to shut down by 2050 under high emissions (25% under low). This system, which transports heat toward Europe, is being disrupted as global warming and meltwater from Greenland reduce the water's density, inhibiting the circulation's engine. A complete shutdown of the AMOC (possible within decades) would cause an extreme climate crisis by triggering a sudden cooling of 5°C to 15°C in Europe, accelerating sea level rise up to 70 cms along the North American East Coast, and causing severe global weather chaos, including catastrophic droughts in the tropics. While cooling Europe it would accelerate global warming in other regions by reducing the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide. See: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64268-3

DISASTERS 4 November 2025 - News on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, detailed the catastrophic and record-breaking retreat of the relatively small Hektoria Glacier, which lost nearly 50% of its ice mass in just two months due to its underlying flat bedrock plain. This unprecedented speed acts as a critical alarm for the much larger Thwaites Glacier—or the "Doomsday Glacier"—which is vulnerable to the same rapid disintegration mechanism. The immediate contribution of Hektoria's loss to sea level rise is minor, but its significance lies in its warning to Thwaites. If the entire Thwaites Glacier were to collapse, it could directly raise global sea levels by approximately 65 centimeters (25 inches). More critically, the loss of Thwaites could destabilize the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, potentially raising sea levels by 3.3 to over 5 meters in the long term. See: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01802-4

DISASTERS 5 November 2025 - Hurricane Melissa, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, made catastrophic landfall in the Caribbean as a Category 5 storm in Jamaica on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, before hitting Cuba as a Category 3 the following day and causing severe flooding in Haiti. 6 million people affected, the confirmed death toll stands at over 100 people, with Haiti most affected due to flooding. Cuba's massive evacuation of over 735,000 people helped prevent major loss of life. International effort is now underway, with the UN, WFP, IFRC, and national governments coordinating Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, emergency food and water distribution, and the provision of over $24 million in relief and humanitarian funding. See: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/11/1166261

DISASTERS 31 July 2025 - More than 100 earthquakes of high magnitude (majority > 4), have hit Russia in the past 24 hours as of 3 am AEST, with tsunamis up to four metres and a volcanic eruption of Klyuchevskoy. Of the 568 earthquakes in the past 24 hours, 110 have been in Russia. Tsunami warnings, alerts and/or evacuations are being issued by Chile, Easter Island, Colombia, Peru, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Galapagos Islands, Mexico, Japan, USA, Hawaii, Alaska; lifted for Japan, Philippines, Russia, Canada, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, Australia and New Zealand.

DISASTERS 30 June 2025 - Huge 8.8 earthquake struck near the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula at a shallow depth of under 20 kilometres. This prompted widespread tsunami warnings for Russia, Japan, the US coasts, Hawaii and multiple nations across the Pacific. 1-3 metre tsunami waves have already hit Russia, Japan and Hawaii, though warnings are still in place for more.  No fatalities reported as yet.

TECHNOLOGY 21 June 2025 - A new paper from Apple shows even the most sophisticated reasoning models fundamentally lack genuine cognitive abilities. They collapse at consistent computational complexity levels due to reliance on probabilistic pattern matching that merely imitates the look and feel of intelligence. This paper demolishes some of the AI hype and validates what prominent researchers like Meta's Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun have been arguing —that current AI systems are sophisticated pattern-matching machines rather than thinking entities. Essentially little more than sophisticated predictive text generators. https://ml-site.cdn-apple.com/papers/the-illusion-of-thinking.pdf

CLIMATE 8 July 2025 - 89 year-old eco warrior Prof David Suzuki has come out saying the war for the planet is lost. He is not a climate scientist but this is a big call from a titan of ecological advocacy and he is basing it most likely on recent news that humanity has now breached seven of the nine planetary boundaries tracked by the Stockholm Resilience Institute He said in an interview with iPolitics: “It’s too late.  We have failed to shift the narrative and we are still caught up in the same legal, economic and political systems.  For me, what we’ve got to do now is hunker down.” Source: https://www.ipolitics.ca/2025/07/02/its-too-late-david-suzuki-says-the-fight-against-climate-change-is-lost/

DISASTERS 8 July 2025 - 100 deaths now confirmed in Texas, at least 28 children. The Trump administration is blaming Biden for lack of emergency alerts before 4 am as 30 centimetres of rain fell. The areas affected are dense with summer camps and cover the townships below. Survivors describe it as a 'balck wall of death' with little emergency warning froma authorities. Questions are aimed at the Trump administration over budget cuts. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-08/texas-flooding-death-toll-rises/105505040

WAR 22 June 2025 - As it stands there is no requirement for AUKUS partners to consult before a major military action - such as Trump bombing Iran. This was called for on 6 Feb 2025 by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

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