Global Collapse Research Articles

Global sustainability targets: Planetary boundary, global catastrophic risk, and disaster risk reduction considerations

The effects of the crossing Planetary Boundaries and Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR) events on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) efforts, international development targets, and any future international development target iterations are not well understood. However, the crossing of Planetary Boundaries, and GCR events could have significant and adverse effects on the global development gains, capability building, resilience, and adaptability that has been achieved as a result of decades of international development work.A background to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework, GCR, and Planetary Boundaries is first presented. This is followed by an analysis of the possible futures that the world could take considering the aforementioned items. The scenario analysis develops and explores futures for humanity and the Earth for different levels of GCR, and different extents to which the Planetary Boundaries may or may not have been passed. Through this, distinct scenarios are developed: Earth Under Uncertainty, Global Collapse, Stable Earth, and Earth Under Threat. The implementation and success of international targets is inhibited to varying degrees across these possible futures. Furthermore, it is evident that without direct action, the first and last aforementioned scenarios are on a pathway towards that of the Global Collapse scenario.Reactive and preventive policy suggestions are formulated from the scenario analysis, with a recommendation that both types should be developed, adopted, and implemented. Prioritisation should be to preventive policy as there is a lower resource cost. To ensure DRR continues and can be further developed, the Planetary Boundaries, and GCR considerations, should be integrated into both the international development goals and accompanying frameworks that follow on post-2030 from the SDGs, and Sendai Framework.

A Multiscale Picture of the Magnetic Field and Gravity from a Large-scale Filamentary Envelope to Core-accreting Dust Lanes in the High-mass Star-forming Region W51

We present 230 GHz continuum polarization observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array at a resolution of 0.″1 (∼540 au) in the high-mass star-forming regions W51 e2 and e8. These observations resolve a network of core-connecting dust lanes, marking a departure from earlier coarser, more spherical continuum structures. At the same time, the cores do not appear to fragment further. Polarized dust emission is clearly detected. The inferred magnetic field orientations are prevailingly parallel to dust lanes. This key structural feature is analyzed together with the local gravitational vector field. The direction of local gravity is found to typically align with dust lanes. With these findings, we derive a stability criterion that defines a maximum magnetic field strength that can be overcome by an observed magnetic field–gravity configuration. Equivalently, this defines a minimum field strength that can stabilize dust lanes against a radial collapse. We find that the detected dust lanes in W51 e2 and e8 are stable, hence possibly making them a fundamental component in the accretion onto central sources, providing support for massive star formation models without the need of large accretion disks. When comparing to coarser resolutions, covering the scales of envelope, global, and local collapse, we find recurring similarities in the magnetic field structures and their corresponding gravitational vector fields. These self-similar structures point at a multiscale collapse-within-collapse scenario until finally the scale of core-accreting dust lanes is reached where gravity is entraining the magnetic field and aligning it with the dust lanes.

The effects of foreign direct investment and trade openness on economic growth amid crises in Asian economies

Purpose ― The main objective is to examine the effects of foreign direct investment and trade openness on economic growth (SDG-8.1) about economic growth amid crises in 30 Asian economies. Design/methodology/approach ― The effects of FDI and trade openness on economic growth in the Asian region are examined using the fixed-effects model, panel corrected standard errors (PCSE), and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations. The study also measures the long-run effects of the estimates and the granger causality tests. Findings ― The findings revealed that both FDI and trade openness contribute to boosting economic growth in Asian economies, and the effect is also persistent in the long run. We also find that the Asian and global financial collapse shocks in 1997-1998 and 2008-2009, respectively, adversely affected the region's economic growth. Additionally, the economic growths of some Asian countries are below the targeted level set in SDG-8.1. Practical implications ― The Asian countries should adopt appropriate policy measures for encouraging the inflow of FDI and cross-border trade of goods and services as it is evident that the inflow of FDI and open trade will improve local human capital and technological capabilities of the industries, which will ultimately help to enhance stable economic growth. Originality/value ― This study is unique in accompanying the Asian financial crisis and world recession in studying the effects of FDI and trade openness on SDG-8.1 in Asian economies.

The Fate of Mosque in Post-pandemic Period: Youth’s Perspective

This paper offers valuable insights to complement efforts to improve youth engagement in mosque in the post-pandemic period. Given the paucity of research on recent changes in mosque activities, this paper sought to examine youths' understanding of mosque function and their engagement in mosque after the mosque reopened during the Movement Control Order (MCO). This study also aims to identify the factors that hinder youth engagement in the mosque and possible initiatives that could attract them to the mosque. A self-administered online survey was distributed exclusively through a nationwide online platform and targeted young respondents between the ages of 15 and 30 in Malaysia. A total of 594 usable responses were received and analysed using descriptive analysis and a chi-square test for independence. Both male and female youth showed a strong understanding of the role of the mosque, but results showed a significant decrease in youth engagement when the mosque reopened during the MCO. In addition to the perception that the mosque only needs to be attended during Friday prayers and Muslim festival days, lack of activities to suit youth tastes was cited as one of the main reasons for low youth participation in the mosque. Basic religious classes, outdoor and community activities were cited as favorable initiatives that could attract young people to the mosque. This is the first large-scale study of Muslim youth engagement in mosque after the global collapse of Covid-19, and and further research could focus on developing an effective online communication model that could enhance the influence and role of the mosque in a community.

Ductile Tearing or Plastic Collapse?

Abstract Ductile fracture is characterized by a large amount of deformation. Two mechanisms may lead to ductile failure: local tearing may appear in front of a stress concentration region like a crack front or large geometry changes in a weak part of the structure can induce global collapse of the structure. For large cracks such as those considered in Leak Before Break studies, tearing analyses and net-section collapse criteria have been used. The present paper examines the link between these two mechanisms for a through-wall cracked pipe under bending and concludes that the transition from ductile tearing to collapse depends not only on material properties but also on geometrical parameters. The reference stress approach is a promising approach for predicting the transition, provided the transferability issue of j-resistance curve has been solved.

Star cluster formation in clouds with externally driven turbulence

ABSTRACT Star clusters are known to be formed in turbulent molecular clouds. How turbulence is driven in molecular clouds and what effect this has on star formation is still unclear. We compare a simulation setup with turbulent driving everywhere in a periodic box with a setup where turbulence is only driven around the outside of the box. We analyse the resulting gas distribution, kinematics, and the population of stars that are formed from the cloud. Both setups successfully produce a turbulent velocity field with a power-law structure function, the externally driven cloud has a more central, monolithic, clump, while the fully driven cloud has many smaller, more dispersed, clumps. The star formation follows the cloud morphology producing large clusters, with high star-forming efficiency in the externally driven simulations and sparse individual star formation with much lower star formation efficiency in the fully driven case. We conclude that the externally driven method, which resembles a Global Hierarchical Collapse (GHC) scenario, produces star clusters that more closely match with observations.

Book Review: The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

Book Review: The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

The Matter Wave Is Space-Time Wave

This paper aims to point out that a wave function is a description of a quantum spatiotemporal ‎entanglement and the ‎‎transformation between time and space. In any quantum mechanical ‎representation, the real part of the wave function ‎‎represents the space wave and the imaginary ‎part represents the time wave, and they are the space-time itself. Time wave is ‎‎not limited by ‎space and dominates the nonlocality and integrity of a quantum. Matter wave is a four-‎dimensional space-time ‎‎wave, and the basic unit of vacuum is a four-dimensional space-time ‎element stationary relative to the observer. The essence ‎‎of quantum measurement or interaction is ‎that a conjugate condensation equivalent to that determined by inner product ‎‎operation occurs ‎between Space-time waves. Particle property is only the localization effect of quantum global ‎collapse when ‎‎quantum position measurement or equivalent interaction is made.‎

Fighting Science with Science: Counter-Expertise Production in Anti-Shale Gas Mobilizations in France and Poland

Between the second half of the 2000s and the first half of the 2010s, the prospect of shale gas extraction in Europe at first prompted fervent political support, then met with local and national opposition, and was finally rendered moot by a global collapse in the oil price. In the Europe-wide protests against shale gas and the main technique employed to extract it, hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), counter-expertise played a crucial role. This kind of expertise is one of the main elements of “energy citizenship,” a concept recently developed in the field of energy humanities which describes the empowerment of citizens in decision-making processes related to energy issues. This paper provides a socio-historical analysis of the co-production of counter-expertise and energy citizenship in the two European countries endowed with the largest shale gas reserves: Poland and France. In my analysis, concerns over the disruption of the food-water-energy nexus due to possible pollution emerge as particularly important. I argue that the exchange of information between activist groups and NGOs, as well as between activist groups from distant European locations, allowed for the creation of a genuinely transnational and science-based anti-fracking movement.

Questioning ZnO, Ag, and Ag/ZnO nanoparticles as antimicrobial agents for textiles: Do they guarantee total protection against bacteria and SARS-CoV-2?

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) occasioned global economic and health systems collapse. Also, it raised several concerns about using conventional cotton fabrics for manufacturing personal protective equipment without the antimicrobial capacity to inactivate viruses, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its variants. Therefore, developing antimicrobial cotton fibers is crucial to avoid new global pandemics or the transmission of dangerous pathogens that remain on surfaces for long periods, especially in hospitals and medical clinics. Herein, we developed antimicrobial cotton fabrics with Ag, ZnO, and Ag/ZnO nanoparticles and evaluated their bactericidal activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), photocatalytic activity, and antiviral activity against Delta SARS-CoV-2. Although the antimicrobial fabrics are effective against these bacteria, they only reduce part of the SARS-CoV-2 virions during the first 15 min of direct contact via damage only to biological structures on the viral surface particle while the viral RNA remains intact.

Documenting the short-tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) clades historically present in British Columbia, Canada, through ancient DNA analysis of archaeological specimens.

The short‐tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) is a threatened seabird whose present‐day range encompasses much of the North Pacific. Within this species, there are two genetic clades (Clades 1 and 2) that have distinctive morphologies and foraging ecologies. Due to a global population collapse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the frequency of these clades among the short‐tailed albatross population that historically foraged off British Columbia, Canada, is unclear. To document the species' historical genetic structure in British Columbia, we applied ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis to 51 archaeological short‐tailed albatross specimens from the Yuquot site (Borden site number: DjSp‐1) that span the past four millennia. We obtained a 141 bp cytochrome b sequence from 43 of the 51 (84.3%) analyzed specimens. Analyses of these sequences indicate 40 of the specimens belong to Clade 1, while 2 belong to Clade 2. We also identified a single specimen with a novel cytochrome b haplotype. Our results indicate that during the past four millennia most of the short‐tailed albatrosses foraging near Yuquot belonged to Clade 1, while individuals from other lineages made more limited use of the area. Comparisons with the results of previous aDNA analyses of archaeological albatrosses from Japanese sites suggest the distribution of Clades 1 and 2 differed. While both albatross clades foraged extensively in the Northwest Pacific, Clade 1 albatrosses appear to have foraged along the west coast of Vancouver Island to a greater extent. Due to their differing distributions, these clades may be exposed to different threats.

Methane Single Cell Protein: Potential to Secure a Global Protein Supply Against Catastrophic Food Shocks.

Global catastrophes such as a supervolcanic eruption, asteroid impact, or nuclear winter could cause global agricultural collapse due to reduced sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. The human civilization’s food production system is unprepared to respond to such events, but methane single cell protein (SCP) could be a key part of the solution. Current preparedness centers around food stockpiling, an excessively expensive solution given that an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario (ASRS) could hamper conventional agriculture for 5–10 years. Instead, it is more cost-effective to consider resilient food production techniques requiring little to no sunlight. This study analyses the potential of SCP produced from methane (natural gas and biogas) as a resilient food source for global catastrophic food shocks from ASRS. The following are quantified: global production potential of methane SCP, capital costs, material and energy requirements, ramp-up rates, and retail prices. In addition, potential bottlenecks for fast deployment are considered. While providing a more valuable, protein-rich product than its alternatives, the production capacity could be slower to ramp up. Based on 24/7 construction of facilities, 7%–11% of the global protein requirements could be fulfilled at the end of the first year. Despite significant remaining uncertainties, methane SCP shows significant potential to prevent global protein starvation during an ASRS at an affordable price—US$3–5/kg dry.

A steel hysteretic damper for seismic design and retrofit of precast portal frames

In this paper a steel hysteretic damper is proposed which can be installed at the beam-column joint of precast concrete structures and can greatly improve the seismic performance of these structures. The damper is made of a few steel plates with reduced sections placed in parallel, which yield under in-plane bending caused by joint rotation and dissipate energy induced by seismic activity. As less attention has been paid to seismic performance evaluation and design of precast portal frames, a procedure for design and performance estimation is established based on the available theoretical formulation and is verified by comparing their results with those obtained by analysis. The efficiency of the proposed damper is investigated by retrofitting a portal frame and evaluating its seismic performance before and after retrofit. The results show that the developed damper can significantly reduce the maximum interstory drift ratio and prevent the global collapse of the structure, which is of particular interest in practice. The hysteretic behavior and the energy dissipation capability of the frame are compared before and after the retrofit. It is observed that most of the seismic energy is dissipated by the dampers installed in the retrofitted frame, which protects the frame against seismic damage.

Evolution of Seismic Reliability of Code-Conforming Italian Buildings

ABSTRACT It is well known that the seismic structural reliability is not explicitly controlled in design carried out according to seismic contemporary building codes; that is, those enforcing a simplified version of performance-based design. This is even more true for structures designed with obsolete seismic codes or without any seismic provisions at all, which constitute most of the building stock in countries such as Italy. Between 2019 and 2021, a large research project, RINTC – Rischio Implicito delle Norme Tecniche per le Costruzioni (i.e. implicit risk of existing buildings designed according to the Italian codes), has addressed, in a coherent manner, the inherent seismic structural reliability of existing Italian structures built according to evolving codes, which have now been superseded by multi-limit-state-based provisions. To this aim, five structural typologies of residential and industrial buildings have been considered, that is, reinforced concrete, pre-cast reinforced concrete, base-isolated reinforced concrete, masonry, and steel structures. The building design accounts for the evolution of codes within the last century or more. Structures are supposedly located at five sites in the country, representative of different seismic hazard, both currently and at the time of design. Nonlinear state-of-the-art three-dimensional numerical models for the considered structures have been analyzed via multi-stripe nonlinear dynamic analysis, the results of which, in turn, have been used to evaluate the annual failure rate as a measure of seismic reliability with respect to two performance levels defined within the project and named global collapse and usability-preventing damage. These rates, finally, allowed to appreciate the variation of seismic safety with the evolution of codes and to compare with that implied by current design. The results of the study allowed to conclude that the evolution of seismic codes clearly tends to enhance the seismic reliability with the largest average improvement attributable to the enforcement of the current code.

Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic as a challenge for pathology laboratories and pathologists in Egypt

Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 is a novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease. The WHO announced the disease as pandemic in March 2020. The pandemic has caused a global collapse of the health system, and all nations started efforts and actions to confront the corona crisis. Egypt, although it is a middle resource country, started early its measures to control the spread of COVID-19 and on January 24, 2021 announced its vaccine rollout, with priority to health workers. Health workers faced many difficulties and challenges during the pandemic with heavy workload and higher risk of coronavirus infection. Because of repeated exposures to potentially infectious patients and specimens, laboratory personnel, like other health-care physicians, are more susceptible to contract COVID-19. The knowledge of pathological lesions in lung tissues and other different organs may provide a more accurate therapeutic management of symptoms and complications in affected severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 patients. Histopathological laboratories must follow strict biosafety guidelines to ensure that the laboratory personnel are protected. This article aims to highlight the challenges faced in histopathology laboratories during the COVID-19 pandemic and introduce some recommendations for the future laboratory work in Egypt.

Urban Space and Everyday Adaptations

This paper addresses Jem Bendell’s concept of “deep adaptation” in the Anthropocene through the lens of everyday urban practices in contemporary Northern Europe. It proposes that this “deep adaptation” should be defined less in relation to a socio-ecological “collapse” and more through everyday occurrences in presentday urban environments.
 Entering into a critical conversation with Bendell’s conceptual “4 Rs” framework, the paper draws on primary data from several cities in Sweden and Germany to show how, in practice, resilience can be found in the “quiet activism” of leisure gardeners; how ingrained notions of restricted land use may be relinquished through “commoning” urban space; how novel constellations of co-living restores old ideas of intragenerational urban cohabitation; and, finally, how a path to reconciliation may be articulated through an ontological shift away from an anthropocentric urban planning, towards one that recognises other-thanhuman beings as legitimate dwellers in the urban landscape.
 Accounting for urbanities of enmeshed societal, ecological, and spatial trajectories, the paper reveals an inhibiting anthropocentrism in Bendell’s framework and ultimately points to how his “creatively constructed hope” for the future may be found, not in an impending global collapse, but in everyday adaptations and embodied acts that stretch far beyond the human.

A risk-based evaluation of direct displacement-based design

Recent seismic design approaches developed under the umbrella of performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) pursue pre-defined performance objectives in terms of structural response, economic losses, or casualties. The earlier PBEE methods were mainly concerned with the deterministic evaluation of performance at a single ground motion intensity level. This premise, however, provides little insight into the long-term risk-based performance of a structure, and limits the ability to make informed design decisions. Given the inherent sources of uncertainty in all aspects of seismic design, probability theory needs to be employed to enable reliable design solutions. However, applying a risk-oriented design approach is not currently feasible for most practitioners, making it essential to understand how the current deterministic applications of these intensity-based PBEE approaches perform in terms of risk. Specifically, the aim is to investigate the capability of the direct displacement-based design (DDBD) method in producing reliable, risk-consistent designs. A probabilistic PBEE assessment framework is applied as the benchmark to determine the risk of exceeding performance objectives for multiple DDBD-based reinforced-concrete-wall and dual reinforced-concrete-wall/steel-frame buildings located at three different sites. The significant variation in the achieved risk estimates related to the limit states of damage limitation, life safety and global collapse for the buildings considered, questions the ability of DDBD—or any other intensity-based design method that does not account for uncertainty—to offer risk consistency.

Крах доллара: проектирование действий России в условиях глобального экономического коллапса

The world has been scared by the collapse of the dollar many times. So far, fears of a global economic collapse, associated with the fate of the dollar, have been greatly exaggerated. However, there are no significant guarantees that this will not happen under certain conditions. Variants of the Atlantic-planned collapse of the dollar with its replacement by a synthetic financial instrument o r digital currency, somehow similar to bitcoin, are possible. COVID-19 has further revealed this problem. Russia needs to abandon its illusions and to be ready to ensure the economic stability of political regime in a special period as manifestation of the world monetary and economic war of all against all at a certain stage of the catastrophe, while waiting for the main actors to agree on joint actions. At the same time, among our geopolitical competing partners, there are a lot of those who want by all means to solve their economic and other problems at the expense of Russia. Therefore, macroeconomic measures that Russia will have to take in case of a global dollar collapse are very likely to be more severe than the scenario that the authors formulated in this article.

A chance to “cure” local climate systems and reconcile humanity with Nature

Sustainable development becomes illusive when the observed reality demonstrates extraordinary oscillations beyond habitual seasonal patterns. Sound estimations on climate destabilizations and their negative consequences as well as attempts to return to desirable seasons remain endless disputable until the uncertainties and oddities of local climate dynamics remain unclear. Per se, the clarification requires a physical meaning of the so-called interannual variability. At the same time, valid evidence to such point can be achieved only if there is a dynamical system describing local climate dynamics in both weather and climate terms simultaneously. Nothing success to satisfy this requirement existed before the rule of modes was discovered in 2014 (Kolokolov & Monovskaya) by the processing of temperature observations under the hypothesis that a local climate system represents a solar energy converter obeyed the astronomic-based hysteresis control with double synchronization. After, this hypothesis was verified completely and developed into the regulatory theory of local climate dynamics to analyze nonlinear stationary and nonstationary processes taking into account regularities of bifurcation scenarios and regulatory responses. The paper focuses on the aspects of this theory connecting with seasonal evolution rapidly and individually developing in local climate due to anthropogenic destruction of ecosystem equilibrium. In other words, Nature is the Great Dictator demanding from men to obey undeviatingly physical laws, among which “controlled chaos” and “democratic reforms” are absent. In practical application, it means that local climate systems need urgently careful cure to slow down global ecosystem collapse and to get a chance to reconcile humanity with Nature. The paper seems to be interesting to responsible researchers and practitioners oriented to efficient work to hold back from the destructive-for-human-activities transition towards a novel global climate.

Simultaneous Evidence of Edge Collapse and Hub-filament Configurations: A Rare Case Study of a Giant Molecular Filament, G45.3+0.1

We study multiwavelength and multiscale data to investigate the kinematics of molecular gas associated with the star-forming complexes G045.49+00.04 (G45E) and G045.14+00.14 (G45W) in the Aquila constellation. An analysis of the FUGIN 13CO(1–0) line data unveils the presence of a giant molecular filament (GMF G45.3+0.1; length ∼75 pc, mass ∼1.1 × 106 M ⊙) having a coherent velocity structure at [53, 63] km s−1. The GMF G45.3+0.1 hosts G45E and G45W complexes at its opposite ends. We find large-scale velocity oscillations along GMF G45.3+0.1, which also reveals the linear velocity gradients of −0.064 and +0.032 km s−1 pc−1 at its edges. The photometric analysis of point-like sources shows the clustering of young stellar object (YSO) candidate sources at the filament’s edges where the presence of dense gas and H ii regions are also spatially observed. The Herschel continuum maps along with the CHIMPS 13CO(3–2) line data unravel the presence of parsec scale hub-filament systems (HFSs) in both sites, G45E and G45W. Our study suggests that the global collapse of GMF G45.3+0.1 is end dominated, with the addition to the signature of global nonisotropic collapse at the edges. Overall, GMF G45.3+0.1 is the first observational sample of filament where the edge-collapse and the hub-filament configurations are simultaneously investigated. These observations open the new possibility of massive star formation, including the formation of HFSs.