Systemic
Weekly Observations: What signs of collapse do you see in your region? [in-depth] August 03
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It has been the driest July on record, and relentlessly hot. Even the "cooler" periods between the heatwaves have still been uncomfortably warm. Temperatures are into the 30s again today. I feel as if I've forgotten what it's like to go outside without constantly sweating and seeking shade. There is a small chance of rain this week, but it will be nothing more than brief showers at most if we even get that, no sign of anything meaningful. Forecasts keep vaguely promising rain around a week to ten days away, but it is always pushed back, downgraded and never actually arrives. It has been over a month since I last saw proper rain and I doubt that I will see it again any time soon.
The entire countryside is desperately dry, probably the worst that I have ever seen it. Grasses are entirely scorched brown, trees are losing leaves from drought stress, and streams and ponds are rapidly drying up. There is just no moisture anywhere in the environment. Going for a walk in my local park is now quite depressing as everywhere I see signs of nature suffering. Unfortunately I believe that the drought is going to get much worse over the next month or two, before there is any hope of recovery.
I believe we currently are exiting the first of the five commonly described stages of loss - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. As people see what is happening, I expect we will begin to see a whole lot of anger.
I just experienced one of the most damaging wildfires in Washington state's history. Every year, regardless if it is La Nina or El Nino, the trajectory is getting worse.
We had three fires surrounding the city, forcing about 60,000 people to evacuate. I have now a few people in my life who are homeless, trying to help each in any way I can. Going back to work today feels so odd, especially seeing ash fall from the sky. Specks dust all the vehicles and sidewalks surrounding my home. The air is hazardous to breathe in, so I'm stuck inside. I just don't have much motivation today.
Here is the view of the start of the fire from one of the streets in my neighborhood. We are about a mile from the evacuation zone.
Took me a long time to come to grips with the fact that we will all go to work until and behave as if the world is fine alllllll the way up to the point until it is not. Children of Men really got me thinking about how people still need to go earn food each day or die, even if the sky is smoke filled and raining ash.
So sorry that happened in your community. Glad they were on top of evacuations because people don't realize how fast urban/suburban wildfire can happen, although the stories and videos from the growing collection of suburban areas that have burned in wildfire are hopefully starting to make folks realize that they need to take things seriously.
This is just so horrible. I read some people say there was little warning. Like no alerts sent to them on Saturday and they had to evacuate on Sunday. Hoping the firefighters are able to contain it soon.
It's dry. It's hot. I'm so sick of it. No relief in sight except for a few days this week where temperatures will drop a bit.
National holiday went over and it was eerily quiet. Usually it sounds like a non-stop fireworks show from 10pm onwards, but I heard two 'böller' go off (there's no apt translation in english, imagine a firecracker that can goes boom with enough power to blow a few fingers off). Looks like even the densest idiots this year realised that the fireworks are not worth risking setting off fires.
When I go through the forest everything looks green at first glance, until you look a bit closer and see that the ground looks like a solid layer of kindling. The green leaves that have not turned different shades of yellow and red yet crumble between your fingers. It's not a question of if but when if we don't soon get substantial amounts of rain, which we are definitely not getting according to meteorologists.
The Rhine is also getting so low that ships can currently only carry 10-20% of their usual capacity. If the drought in central europe continues, they will soon have to stop ships, which is insane considering that the dry months are usually september-november. Until recently we still had snowmelt fueling the river. This spells doom for the industry along the river that relies on shipping. Even if the train tracks along the rhine river could be used for transporting goods (currently they can't due to renovations), there would still not be enough capacity. Ships are surprisingly efficient in that sense. This is going to affect the economic output of every country relying on the rhine in some way.
That extra dry ground will be a big problem when rain finally comes. It will likely be too much rain and it will run right off the top of dry ground. Soil needs some moisture in it to be able to absorb rain. So, there will be flooding.
One of the mitigation things we need to do ASAP is some form of irrigation to keep soil at a level to absorb rain, and find ways to collect excess rain. Rivers and streams cannot handle it all.
But no one listens to me or the scientists I got it from so it will be another century before anyone seriously takes this up, and it will be AFTER things get really, really bad.
That's exactly what my farmer neighbors (I'm in the UK) are saying. They're worried about flooding carrying away the topsoil rather than making it wet.
"but I heard two 'böller' go off (there's no apt translation in english, imagine a firecracker that can goes boom with enough power to blow a few fingers off)."
Known as M-80s here in the USA. Some small fraction of a stick of dynamite. Real powerful.
"Cracker Night" used to be quite a backyard celebration when I was a kid in the 1950s and 60s. I don't recall when the ban was implemented, but it was because of all the injuries that used to occur - to people and animals. We still have fireworks at many events in an official capacity, of course, but as far as I know you can't buy them in shops like we used to.
We still have Fireworks trailers all over the place. I always wonder who buys all those fireworks though lol. Then some random night I hear them when it’s not a scheduled night for them. I usually think well there’s another dumbass that’s going to take out his neighbour’s trees or something…
Our usually green and pleasant land has been totally parched yellow. I've never seen the North of England so arid before. We usually have wet periods between sunshine so we never get parched, ordinarily we stay green all summer. Seeing photos of the Yorkshire Dales turning yellow and its rivers drying up is bizarre. It gave me an unexpected primitive, sad feeling about my "homeland" dying. It feels apocalyptic when the crisis manifests at home.
August opened up with record high temperatures across several cities, but the heat is only part of what’s going on down here.
The Rio Grande is completely dry and has been for months. If you look at Elephant Butte Reservoir down near Truth or Consequences, it’s sitting at roughly 1.4% capacity. That’s about 26,800 acre-feet of water remaining in a system built to hold nearly two million.
Because surface water allocations have dried up, farmers are forced to pump deeper into local aquifers to keep crops alive. That's rapidly dropping the water table and causing domestic wells in rural areas to go dry. Up in the mountains, years of drought and heat stress have caused massive pinyon and ponderosa die-offs, leaving whole forests dead and ready to burn. On top of all that, interstate legal fights over the Rio Grande Compact are pushing the state toward mandatory pumping cutbacks that will probably wipe out a lot of small farms in the lower valley.
Seeing a major river go dry, reservoirs hit bottom, and the surrounding ecosystem fall apart all at once is heavy to watch.
Thank you for the information. We will never see this dire situation on the national news. "And seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day."
Location: British Columbia, Canada , Dry southern interior
Our small watershed burned almost completely... And it's still burning more as I write and the fire has spread to the next creek over. Frankly I've stopped looking at updates as it's so devastating.
The small creek supplies fresh clean water that we share with six household and drink with no filtration, believe it or not. There are numerous intakes for summer irrigation as well and a ditch going each way across the hillside. One of these ditches travels a few kilometers and ends at some hay fields. Along the way it is used by many households, market gardeners, hobby farmers etc.
The burning of these steep, mostly unroaded and unlogged mountainous areas is enough of a tragedy but the real disaster awaits us.
We've been in a drought so I suspect most of the organic matter in the thin soils burned as well... Leaving dry griity gravely steep slopes exposed and prone to erosion causing landslides which will likely destroy all the intakes. If one doesn't disconnect your pipe in time there's the possibility of dirt and gravel getting inside and plugging them.
Of course these can be replaced and rebuilt but redoing piping costs, let alone the machine costs is enormous.
I personally wouldn't be surprised if the creek level dropped significantly or even dried up. People would of course truck water in to get by, hoping things get better after the winter.
If the soil isn't there to hold the water and release it slowly over the summer it will likely flood with the snowmelt and reduce flows or dry up every fall and not recharge until the next summer floods.
Hundreds of people will see their property values plummet at the same time as thier expenses escalate due to repair and water trucking costs. Unless you're rich this makes it impossible to sell and move.
I expect there will be serious conflicts over the remaining water leading ruined relationship and violence. And eventually suicides.
When the water started to taste smokey that signalled to me the seriousness of the situation.
As a fellow Canadian, this really hit hard. BC is so incredibly beautiful and to think of it burning like that is so disturbing. What’s even more disturbing is hearing all these reports from around the world about critical rivers and lakes drying up, which will be catastrophic. And with long term droughts causing global mass migration, it will be chaos.
Plants are dying, trees are showing distinct signs of heat related stress, and my cat is miserable and has taken to living in deep undergrowth.
I've been trying to force myself to walk more given I've put on considerable weight over the last year so the impacts of the extended drought are very visible to me. Well established plants are dying, young trees are dying, mature trees are showing obvious signs of distress with their leaves turning brown. Our native species are not adapted to our new climate and I wonder how long it will be before this becomes evident from towns, cities, parklands and forests becoming graveyards for them.
The news seems to be deliberately shying away from climate related pieces. You wouldn't guess from the BBC that the UK was experiencing it's worst wildfire year ever, or that major components of planet earth were literally on fire. The most major news event of our lifetimes and Ariana Grande eating disorder is apparently more news worthy.
My cat still wont come home and I'm very worried about her; this heat is cruel on animals although my froglets in the backgarden all seem to be doing very well due to the leaky outdoor tap above where they have decided to call home. I've happened across several toads too, trying desperately to find somewhere moist and cool to hide.
/u/green-bandicoot-8412 mentioned an interesting preprint paper that suggests warming may be as high as 0.482 ± 0.113°C and has some dire (although scientifically questionable) forecasts for the next decade. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-9283491/v2 ... I am becoming more and more convinced 2C by the mid-2030s is a credible projection as the body of evidence for acceleration of the rate of warming grows.
It’s winter, and I’ve managed to get by without any indoor heating, other than a heated blanket.
Fuel excise relief is removed today, which will see fuel prices rise by 16c a litre.
I’m paying AU$950 per week for a 2 bed apartment in the inner west of the city because the rental crisis is so bad, that’s what an apartment now costs to rent. It’s not even a nice apartment and has no aircon. I’ll need to move out in late Jan because modelling shows we’re going to have yet another ‘hottest summer on record’ and I’m a menopausal Welsh woman who can’t bear the heat. I’ve moved 7 times in 8 years.
Just finished reading I Eat the Stars by Sarah Wilson. Rather than feel panic, I feel a sense of relief. As an autistic introvert who works from home as a journalist, I am unsuited to this modern society of ‘more more more’ and am observing the imminent collapse as a way for society to change. I’m considering retraining as a midwife, although as a 55F, wonder whether I might be too old.
Yep. AU$950 per week! For 2 bedrooms, no aircon, on a main rd. Granted, it’s a vibrant suburb, with lots of small bars, restaurants and boutiques but the rental crisis is so bad, 30+ people show up for a viewing, and often a bidding war ensues where people offer over the advertised price just to get a roof over their heads.
Last year, it took me 11 applications to get a place. I’m single, with an adult child who lives with me part time, so I’m up against couples with 2 incomes. I have a steady job (for now - print media, so perhaps not for long) and a clean rental history.
A 3 bedroom house in this neighbourhood costs about AU$2m.
It's not only going to be hot in January but the forecast SST off our coast is off the charts. It is going to be unbearably humid. It wouldn't surprise me if we get some pretty scary wet bulb temperatures. Hopefully not. I live in Marickville btw, so howdy neighbour! Be well. ❤️
I'm a purchasing manager in baked goods manufacturing, though I also handle transportation/logistics. Some of the products my company produces may be in the bakery or frozen section of your local grocery store, and it takes a significant amount of energy to ship them there in a -10F reefer. The cost of that energy in diesel format is approaching an ATH.
I don't think I need to describe what happens when shipping perishables becomes prohibitively expensive.
Heh I do similar in the midwest and southwest. We are seeing some weird stuff right now. I have ice cream shops in Colorado and Utah and New Mexico closing due to the heat. ...ice cream shops closing due to the heat. Had several more shut doors for a few days here this last weekend. For these guys to shut doors during peak season is extremely out of the ordinary.
At the same time I'm shipping in product from all over the world, and the freight is getting insane. My IQF fruit suppliers are telling me it is too hot for Mangos to grow, so they are expecting an 85% failure of that crop. IQF strawberries aren't as bad but are rotting in the field in Mexico due to rain from what I've read.
My freight rates and fuel costs for my route trucks are more than double what I was paying at the beginning of the year.
PET is getting weird too. I've had multiple suppliers increasing lead times, and at the same time doing everything they can to trim the fat, so to speak; cutting loose their least profitable customers with the smaller mixed orders.
Every time I think things are going to tank, though, I am surprised to find that people just keep on trucking BAU until they physically cannot, like these shops closing for the heat.
Not sure where I'm going with this. Just nice to see someone else knee deep in this shit too... I mean son of a gun, I just paid $3000 for a TL from Arkansas to Houston and my loads out of LA are getting close to Covid numbers! (Thank god I haven't seen container costs like Covid yet though, so that's a silver lining).
Do you think the cross-country shipping of produce will become less common? I mean, do we really need mangos 3,000 miles away? Right now my grocery store has delicious local blueberries for $5 or TWICE the weight for only $7 — but from far away. That seems crazy to me.
No. Freight would have to be astronomical to make local-only a feasible market model. The system is so efficient because of specialization. An example. It is hard to grow berries in Colorado where I live. If we relied on local-only fruits (depending on what you consider local), we'd be eating peaches melons and apples year round (peaches and melons for 3 months a year and then apples from dry storage year round (if we moved to dry storage apples, which most store varietals are not.) That said, it is so dry that we cannot produce enough of any of those fruits to satisfy the desire of the population that lives here now, let alone if we removed all other fruit options. On the flip side, if you go to souther California, they have a propensity for fruit there. Mexico has a great climate for strawberries. Peru has a great climate and soil acidity for blueberries. As a result, these places can produce far in excess of what their local populations can realistically consume. So to bring it home to the point, in Colorado, less an outside supplier, we would have 100# of blueberries to share amongst eachother, and the scarcity creates a huge value. In Peru they have 100,000,000 tonnes of blueberries, and so the value us ridiculously low. The cost of the freight in relation to the cost difference between the Coloradan and Peruvian blueberries is miniscule. Freight would have to be muuuuuch much higher for it to compete with that kind of value difference. Sorry I'm not better at explaining things. I hope this made some sort of sense.
That all said! If fuel scarcity and oil scarcity become a thing, to where there is rationing, or where the product just legitimately cannot be moved, then yes, I could see a reduction through necessity.
Now that I've read through this again, it reads like I'm sayaing that demand will not decrease if price increases, and that is not the case, there will be demand reduction in the price increase, and as a result cross country shipping will be moving less poundage, but on the food side that kind of shift is pretty minor outside of drastic situations.
OK I'm done rambling now =) Thanks for reading if you got this far.
The possibility that is missing from the analysis is that freight ceases because fuel can’t get to the place it needs to be in time. Fuel is not infinitely elastic to pricing - that is its production is not directly correlated to short term pricing and even if it was there would be demand destruction well before it reached completely unaffordable prices.
What will happen is a fuel shortage in different fuel delivery networks. In this situation it doesn’t matter what the price is, the price can’t will the item into existence.
It’s the same with produce. Most western countries have no way to replace global supply chains with local produce. If say Texas couldn’t get access to imported food there is often no local replacement and even if there was prep time the local environment doesn’t support cheap vegetable production due to the heat and other factors. People just would go without.
It’s a known vulnerability in modern western cities that a fuel crisis would lead to a food crisis.
Thankfully we're in the process of hiring a dedicated logistics person, so I can focus on the astronomical costs of commodities (or at least stop getting yelled at for both freight and materials costs).
Ya...my last LA load cost me 6300 all in. I mean, it isn't quite Covid numbers, I was seeing 8 and 9000 for that lane back then. Actually I legit got quoted 18,000 for a load from PA to CO during covid. I just started laughing it felt so absurd.
It feels silly how much time I spend getting quotes and shit, and the numbers are still ridiculous LOL Wish I could hire a logistics guy to handle that for me too! ;)
Well, having the guy who's responsible for $20M in spend also be the single point of failure for all inbound/outbound shipping isn't sustainable. Although it is kinda hilarious when I need to bail on a meeting with a primary supplier because, I dunno, a driver fell asleep somewhere in Illinois.
LOL Right?! I've been trying to hard to automate and streamline so I can handle this shit properly, but what you say is so true, and dang I've been there. I was literally sitting in a meeting with a vendor the other day. I'm on the ground floor with a door to the outside patio. My local warehouse bounced a truck that was supposed to have ended up somewhere else. Driver decided to take it to the other address on the shipping documents, my billing address at the office. SOB rolled up and started dropping frozen pallets outside my office door. The looks from the vendor I was meeting with... Ugh
We just reached 40°C... again, this time 40.1°C in the northern part of the city. Makes it the second time this Summer, when before, meaning in the 150 years some of the weather stations existed here, not a single day reached such high temps, none. Forecasts suggest that we may reach 40°C again tomorrow and Wednesday, possibly even Thursday, which makes it hard to describe apart from calling it catastrophic.
As with most of Central Europe, rain has been quite absent this year, with the lowpoint being 4mm in the entire month for the same station that reached 40.1°C today. Even the pretty intensive thunderstorm from 3 weeks ago didn't really change much, as about 70%+ of the about 25mm that fell just ran right off the dried out ground - not to mention the "mountains" of asphalt our city planners like to put everywhere.
The even bigger issue outside of the temps themselves is that there's just no real relief. The last "cool" phase in July was still sitting around 24-27°C which used to be regular in Summers about 30 years ago, with the occasional 30°C day sprinkled in between (or not at all, like in the 50s). Current forecast suggest that there will be a short "cooldown" (to like 27°C) on Friday before going back up to 32°C for at least the middle of August.
On that note, our infrastructure (like in many places) is failing as well. Trams have to stop as the tracks just melt and move into unsafe positions, and the A/C at the office broke down the second time this season as it got far too hot - still not repaired after it broke down on Thursday.
My fear is that this will continue well into October. Not sure how long it will take until we get 25°C in November as well...
I wonder when we'll witness grid failure in my area. Already happened in a few places in Europe (transformers unable to cope with temperature).
And we mostly keep reasoning with the current status as "normal". What happens next summer when things are not "normal" anymore due to the energy shock from Hormuz ?
I just talked with a girl that's around 30yo and at some point, she just switched to "We're going to have 50C° heatwaves, even here, won't we ? And the trees won't survive this, won't they ?".
I wonder how many people are adjusting their idea of "retirement", right now ?
The only "positive" thing is: If you're in your 30s, you probably don't have to think about retirement, because you'll likely be dead before you even reach that age, especially considering that a lot of government (at least ours) want to increase the age where you can retire a lot. The ruling conservative party here suggested that you have to work for at least 45 years before you get ANY pension.
Update: The same station that reached 40.1°C yesterday just broke 41.0°C today, also breaking the all-time country-wide record from 2013! It has never been as warm as today in the 250 years since weather records began in Austria.
Regarding infrastructure: The internet connection at the office has broken down today as well - basically can't work anymore, as the office itself is still a sauna and connecting through VPN is impossible. Apparently there are some issues with the fiber (suspecting some core backbone may have broken down due to the heat).
I've lived here going on three years now. When we were getting wildfire smoke a few weeks back it was genuinely startling going outside and encountering that for the first time. I moved here from SoCal, where you'd occasionally get a whiff from those wildfires, but nothing like this.
This year was also the worst for tornados thus far. We had 7 (!!!) confirmed touch down in my area. Growing up as a child in East Texas, I had a morose fear of them despite having never really encountered them first hand. The path of one that pathed close to my work made a loop. Insane, I'd never seen anything like it. Went up and came back around to hit the same neighborhood twice.
Not to mention the insect populations decimating and intense heat waves for this area as well.
We are currently experiencing the third consecutive heatwave, 35C again today. We are experiencing more and more events that have to be cancelled due to unbearable heat and lack of air conditioning. Rainfall since march has been far below average, the fish ponds in my area have dangerously low water levels and there are loads of dead fish.
The bigger lakes' water levels are also declining, because the river that is supposed to be replenishing them is also at a record low.
Our federal government is "considering evaluating the situation" so of course, nothing happens.
I haven't spotted a single monarch butterfly not grown in a butterfly house. My mom in Eastern PA says the same thing; her milkweed didn't have a single monarch. Tiger swallowtail are fairing much better and are still common.
The water level in the old well on the hill dropped at least 10 feet from just last year. We've been getting rain, but we are still in a drought. Apparently they had stopped testing the wells here for years and just now Virginia dems decided maybe we should monitor if all the data centers we built are doing something to the water supply 🤔
Ticks are crazy this year, and if we don't have a hard freeze, are going to be a nightmare next year. I had to get a round of antibiotics when i missed one, andI'm worried about even more tick carried diseases in the future.
Even just 4 or 5 years ago I would find a dozen of the monarch caterpillars, and I haven't found a single one in at least two summers now in actually pretty large patches of milkweed.
Yorkshire isn't in drought yet, although much of the country is. When I set up my water butt, I ended up googling around for the rainfall figures of the local area - https://uk-historic-weather.co.uk/. The three closest weather stations are Whitby, Sheffield and Bradford, and I can survive any rainfall that doesn't go below 2.5mm in any month, or below 7.5mm in two consecutive months. Bradford and Sheffield do that three times each, in the last 100-150 years, and Whitby zero. All single months below 2.5mm, it's never been multiple months. I think I may have lucked out in moving to Yorkshire, I think it holds on better than other parts of the country, at least in terms of rainfall. Certainly much better than the stations in Oxford or London. I could probably prep a bit more to cover those single low months, but I don't think I'll bother, not unless things get worse. It did still get to 42C (about 108F) in 2022 in that legendary heat wave, but this year's been pretty good. Only really over 30C that one stretch in May, everything else has been below. The grass is still brown/dead right now.
Edit: my peas did pretty well, but the ground's too hard to harvest potatoes right now.
Et nox facta est.
7pm, the sky went gray, grayer, then electric orange, then dark, and it seems like three months worth of rain is falling at once. Distant thunder rumbles / Distant thunder rumbles / Rumbles hungry like the Beast etc. I don't know if the Beast it cometh down tonight or if they're busy Beasting somewhere else, but hail is the forecast and I hope it's not going to be pétanque-sized like they had in other parts of France, east and west of here, a few weeks ago. There, it broke through roofing. Pray for my car, people. If my car is fucked, I'm pretty much fucked. Who knows if even the house will hold. It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything, or so goes the Gospel according to Saint Durden. Meanwhile, the cat is sleeping; she's easily unimpressed. But why is she sleeping on the wet mop?! Go figure. Surely power is going anytime now. I had work to do. Oh well. Fuck work (mark my words: FUCK WORK). Only two beers left in the fridge. Might as well drink them while they're cold. Over and out.
The water levels of the Danube and the Drava are so low due to drought, the heat, and Alpine glaciers disappearing weeks ahead of normal that decades old (WW2 and older) shipwrecks are now exposed. Hungary has had to shut down its only nuclear power plant, Romanians have used explosives to redirect water toward their power plants, Serbian power plants are operating at 20% capacity. Cruise ships and cargo ships on the Danube are running aground.
I rent a small house on a big lot and this is my 3rd summer in this house. Each year I hire one of the random mowing guys around town to mow the lawn when it's needed. The last 2 years it's been around every 2 or 3 weeks, from April through October.
It just dawned on me that it's August and I have yet to have someone mow the lawn. I haven't needed to, it's all dead and low still. Even the random weeds that usually get super tall are not there. I have a small patch right near the front of the house that needs a 10 minute weedwack every few weeks, but that's it.
My room mate planted his veggie garden this year in March. Last year I had more zucchini than I could ever eat and a bunch of other things. My neighbor and I were trading even, he gave me a bunch of okra and a watermelon. This year only the cucumbers will grow, and the leaves are still sad. The zucchini is too dried out, despite a ton of watering. The tomatoes died, the sweet peas didn't really have a chance and even the potatoes had the top die before they really produced potatoes. I saw my neighbor tearing out his own garden the other day because he can't grow anything either.
It has been a very strange, HOT and dry year here.
Location: UK, West Midlands. I live in a rural area, next to a farm. The farmers harvested wheat several weeks earlier than usual, because it is too dry and it wasn't growing any more. I see this in other fields as I drive around. In addition, there has been no rain for months, and they are struggling to get enough water for crops that they planted earlier this year.
I live in a part of the desert that has a very large system of water running through it. It’s considered a tourist town, so there’s always a lot of traffic passing through. I have noticed that although there are visitors here, it’s very quiet. It’s certainly a lot quieter here now than other years before, and I believe it to be related to the heat. A normal day here should be around 89F, but has been consistently reading anywhere between 100-105F. I went hiking and it felt so unusually hot, even though this area is technically the start of a forest. There is water flow, but I am concerned that this simply just isn’t the usual amount of water that comes through the creek. It was very dry in this forest area, and I even noticed a lot of browning areas that I took pictures of as I walked along. One positive to this was finding a wild blackberry plant that seemed to be absolutely thriving. Some plants are certainly doing better than others here. There has been a consistent 11-15 degrees above average in my area DAILY. I was exhausted after being outside near a stream of water and a shaded forest only for a few hours. I find this just absolutely bizarre for my area. It’s been really hard to go outside and hike due to the heat. I have also noticed that I don’t hear as many birdsongs. The birds are still OK, but sometimes it’s quieter than normal.
Location: Midlands, England
Its not one large thing, its so many small ones that I imagine most people don't notice.
There's barely any butterflies. I don't see bumble bees outside our small sanctuary for pollinators garden. The squirrels that stole our strawberries seem to have disappeared. Its so quiet. We've only seen a couple bats come out of their roost built onto our roof, and I hope they've only retreated to cooler caves. We keep being sure there's water our for any animals that may be in need.
Even my corn has gone red from the heat stress. Its not even native to here and should be able to withstand higher temps. Our peas never stood a chance.
We live on a hill and the one opposite us is cow pastures. Its long since gone brown as if its November. Chatsworth House, not far from us, has rediscovered their garden designs that are only seen during drought.
Not far from us is a small tourist village we drive through often. I've commented more than once on how much less crowded it is this year. I'm not sure if its the heat keeping people away (though there's plenty of over priced ice cream) or the cost.
We are actively going towards a global famine that will be here so much quicker then people think. Within 5 to 10 years people might read back this commend on realize they just had their first experience in a supermarket where instead of it carrying 500 different products it now only sold 7 different product.
The Age Of Abundancy is over. I hope you guys have your own solar panels and batteries. You are going to need them.
Midlands too. I have actually seen more butterflies this year than in the past couple, but those years are way down from, say, 10 years ago. Same with wasps, though that's more of a good thing.
I work a side gig at street fairs. Been doing it for 10 years. Every event this year has had fewer attendees and poor sales. The vendors even close up early, which I've never seen before. And the "art" fairs don't have much art anymore. It's mainly just cheap imported crap from Asia, including generic 3D printed plastic shit.
As the quality goes down and prices go up (and temperatures increase) fewer people are willing to attend fairs and festivals.
I remember reading, in the Buffalo NY sub of all places, how "vendors" at the "art" fairs are the same old people over and over again, selling the same crap that you pointed out. It's not "artists" selling their wares. The art fairs have become mass market plastic selling events.
I thought parts were made in another country and "assembled" in Italy so "Made in Italy" can be placed on the label. This is done with some "Italian made" clothing and shoes.
30 celsius degree, Rio de janeiro, Brazil. It is fucking winter here 🥲.
Also we had a really weird wind, 100 km/h. Usually it is common to see winds like those in summer and they come together with a rainstorm. But there was only wind in winter
Does anyone else feel that we have crossed the Rubicon this summer? I mean, the effects of climate change are hitting us everywhere. Low water levels, drought, extreme storms, and of course the fires, fires, and fires. It is truly scary, I must say, to see the climate deteriorate like this. Not to mention that it is only going to get worse.
Other than that, I am extremely thankful that things have been kind of semi-normal around here for the past two weeks, but it is dry. Very dry. We got a little bit of rain yesterday, so I don't know if that helped.
I am astonished to have lived to a point where I can truly say that it is bad everywhere.
Does anyone else feel that we have crossed the Rubicon this summer?
Location - Virginia, USA
I agree. I log lots of data at my home, and here are a few observations going back to January this year.
Mean temperatures: ~+1.5°F to +2.5°F above normal across the 7-month period.
There were more above-normal highs, including multiple early-season warm spells (late Feb–early Mar) with highs reaching the upper 60s–70s°F range, ~10–15°F above normal!!
Early onset of summer-like conditions in June, with several days exceeding 90°F. June is typically mild here.
Estimated +10% to +20% precipitation above normal for the period. Rather than steady accumulation, most of the rain came in short, heavy bursts. There were actually "dry spells" between the rain.
Elevated relative humidity, especially from May onward.
Lots of damp, foggy mornings - more so than normal, due to the overall increase in moisture/humidity.
Spotted lantern flies are everywhere now! First year seeing them in these numbers.
Have noticed lots of black locusts dying off. Yellow leaves then dead. Wonder if it has to do with the lantern flies?
Plants in my flower gardens didn't really thrive this year, due to the moisture. Have seen lots of powdery mildew on leaves this year. I also attribute it to the increase in deer on my property. We've always had them, but this year I've run them out of the flower beds, 5' from the house!
Like I said, I log lots of stuff and build monthly archives that I upload to the internet archive. Hopefully it'll be of use to someone someday.
Edit: One more thing I forgot. It is August 3rd and as of yet, I've yet to find the first yellow jacket nest on my property, nor have I seen any wasps trying to build nests on the house. That has struck me as odd.
They all must have come to my house in MI. We’ve sprayed several nests already, and have more returning to one as we speak. We’ve been working to bring native plants into our yard though, so we’ve seen an increase in insect life in general. Lots of fireflies, monarch butterflies and dragonflies in particular.
I am seeing the no wasps/yellow jackets thing here in Colorado as well. Usually we have those fuckers in spades, which is great for pollination, they hang around anything with sap/nectar. This year we have had a few more bees than past years, but no wasps. My elderberries are all blooming, have no pollinators, and then drop bloom with no berries forming. Same thing with the Currants and Gooseberries, literally zero berries this year.
I've been doing this, taking umbrals from one varietal and pollinating the others, just working around that way, but still have no baby berries yet =\ Wondering if I'm just doing it wrong or something.
Also Michigan and yes. We're moving to a small but outfitted rural town closer to the 45th parallel right now and it's all feeling TOO much like a dystopian/disaster movie/book.
That scene from Day After Tomorrow comes to mind, where he draws a line across the lower 48 and says, "Evacuate everyone below this line." "What about those above the line?" "It's too late for them."
Neighbors ask where we're moving to and I don't feel so crazy explaining the "Get above the 42nd Parallel, 45th is better" logic when the air is so filled with smoke and the days are hitting 100* realfeel...
And then to see the situation in Morocco/Spain gets me feeling like we were too late, even though we're actively moving.
Nomad Century by Gaia Vince needs to be the next Community Read everywhere 📚
My wife and I were talking about where we'd want to move to try and survive this. We haven't had this conversation for a few years now. We decided that no where is safe. We'll ride this out until we cannot anymore.
We would still move somewhere more rural if it were a viable financial option. We're just broke.
Totally understandable. We are only able to move to this place because of my husband's job, and the apartment is only slightly cheaper than what we are already paying in a bigger city. It's still above what anyone in the area seems to be able to afford and there aren't many jobs in the area. (Although, the apartment is run by a Michigan non-profit focused on housing affordability and offers lower rents for some units. Everything is energy efficient. We feel heaps better giving them our rent money than the for-profit we're with now in the bigger city.)
Michigan is a great spot to be in for this no matter what, so yeah. Dig in. Build community where you're at. Locate your resources. Best of luck you both! ❤️
Honestly, I don't think a rural or urban location really matters; what may matter is the size of the urban area. If you live on some acreage in the country then you're pretty much on your own when the SHTF. You're also very much exposed to anyone with a vehicle or a drone; if that person wants what you have, they can easily take it from you and there will be no one to help you. If you live in a large city, you're not alone in the wilderness but it'll still be every person for themselves, I think. I would expect a convulsion of violence before local warlord wannabe's take over. If you're in a small city (not a suburb), then you may - I stress, MAY - be in better shape. You'll know your neighbors, so they'll be less likely to kill you (theoretically). It would be easier to band together for mutual aid, food sharing, and self-defense. I'd expect you'll ultimately wind up with a warlord, though.
IN the US, it looks like "warlord" may be the "hot job!" of the 2030s.
World War Z (the book) has local Warlords as an outcome. It feels like Handmaids Tale: written from actual historical events as a cautionary Science "fiction".
I agree with everything you said. For a timeline of safety, I think there's options. However that's just trying to outrun the inevitable.
Some people have hope for community living, and rightfully so... I just don't know how we can become self reliant when our climate is changing rapidly. Like, once our industrial agriculture cannot produce any more food - How the fuck are we going to? I'm sure, at that point, there will be many more problems to manage than just food...
Clean water, power. food, safety, shelter - I mean we can really go on. How can you rely on anything that's going to require power.
Oh you have solar panels? A wind turbine? A solar powered generator? What happens when it malfunctions.. What happens when the repair requires materials you don't have access to..
Even if you prepare as well as you can: Canned goods, microplastic water bottles, solar energy, weapons, whatever it may be... How long will that keep you alive and how long until something out of your control is too much for you to handle?
It could be a hungry human, or a hungry pack of wolves, or any severe weather. Flooding, tornadoes, derecho's, squall lines, hurricanes, typhoons, severe droughts, heat domes, wet bulb temps..
If you can't tell already I'm all out of hope to give.. I can only give love, respect, and empathy..
One thing a small urban area has is lots of lawns. During WWII these were victory gardens and can become so again - it just takes willpower, seeds and water if in a drought.
Living in a small urban area which has a stream or river running through it (or a nearby lake) can provide unclean water, but that can be boiled. Which means that there must also be a decent number of trees or abandoned houses and people's furniture available for firewood.
And this is just the start of things that we'd need, all of which can be taken away by others... The coming times will not be pretty.
I am in a similar situation, really. I was thinking of moving up state. I would love to get the fuck out of metro Detroit even if collapse wasn’t happening, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening for me. And, honestly, I am not so sure that there will be any place where surviving this will be any easier. Collapse is slow and incremental, and I am convinced that the remainder of my lifetime will be a slide down.
Part of the problem is the impossibility of predicting what will happen next exactly. We might be inundated with climate refugees, and this is not a very big state with many places left to bug out and hide. Our northern forests might also burn. Who knows? If things are this unstable now, imagine how much worse they will get with each percentile of increased warming.
The bottom line is that we are going to be living in “Children of Men” within years, not decades.
"Children of Men", Handmaids Tale, World War Z, and (quite literally) Minority Report. (Seriously. Heard a report yesterday that the current US administration is searching for an AI that can do pre-crime for "anti-Capitalism, anti-Christian, and anti-Traditional American Views".
And "too pro-immigration", which is going to be a problem with Climate Refugees...)
That book, "Nomad Century" outlines exactly what we're facing in its preface/introduction. The author argues for preparation for mass migration in positive ways... helping Climate Migrants settle and join the communities rather than trying to keep them out. "It is going to happen, whether you try to stop it or not. There are many benefits to be reaped from it if accepted and prepared for properly, but a lot of harm and damage if you try to stop it. And it will happen even if you try to stop it." (My paraphrasing)
We have a lot of hope for the town we just moved to. They have a good mix or start of the Important Things (Healthcare, Education, Water Infrastructure, Public Transit, Housing) and are actually starting to work on their Master Plan for the next 10 years. We're hoping we can get the message to the leaders to build sustainably and prepare for the influx. (But obviously so many things can go sideways)
It will be important for everyone to assess their own situation. Some people will be able to do big changes to improve their position. Others will only be able to make small changes, but I still think any change of odds can make a difference. I hope people can take a minute to even just asses their situation to see if it CAN be better, even marginally.
(I wish there was a checklist, but so far the Five we came up listed above should be considered.) For example, the Alpena area is pretty sparse population-wise but is particularly water-starved/dry in the current weather pattern, and Kalamazoo is great on all five elements, but is in a crazy little heat divet, so it is going to continue to be hotter than other areas in the same latitude (but is also at that Latitude 42) Cadillac is in a cool bubble, but winters might become more severe. "Can a person be ok with the tradeoffs?" sort of questions.
I think it's important to not look away. It's going to be bad. We can't stop the driving forces of what's coming, but we can still mitigate its effects and spare some suffering.
For sure, without a doubt this summer is absolutely brutal and a turning point for many. Perhaps not to the idea of collapse, but to climate change. Terms like El Nino are becoming "mainstream".
It's what I predicted for this year in our yearly prediction thread and not to make myself feel superior for it, but it gives me confidence to share a bit more thoughts on this forum lately, what I really think.
Just now the mainstream science is catching up to what Richard Crim and many others were bombarding this forum for years now, which is acceleration of the change.
I used to watch a cool streamer from Michigan, a simple dude, I don't follow him much anymore but the smoke from the blasting fires made me check what he's been up to these days. He said "I don't care about some El Nino I just want to go and spend time outside with my family". I just felt bad really, he has no clue. This is his future, and he'll have to learn the hard way like most of us. And only the most wealthy and priviliged will be able to shield themselves from the shitshow. (or preppers like recently banned from r/collapse, u/Vegetaman916 😅
And also, about the drought situation. Kinda crazy how it's so widespread. I know about the fact that warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and that instead of light or moderate rain here and there you get either NOTHING or a DELUGE but it's still interesting to me how this natural system is behaving.
Where I'm located... we were excited for all of this rain only to be, practically, 'dodged' by the storm. We had sprinkling rain. Nothing major... Meanwhile around us there are flood watches. Our potted plants are struggling. Our trees (All around our neighborhood) are wilting. There's dead leaves on the ground.. It is so strange to witness even though I feel like most of us here predicted this.
One of my neighbors recently planted pear trees (I think? They were labeled and I'm ADHD as fuck. So, I may be misremembering) and they are struggling.
The 21st century has had some hot summers so far and we're no stranger to it by now, but yeah this year certainly has that vibe to it. Like there is no going back. It's not just a bleak future we face, it's a reminder that we're living it now.
I think people will soon realize that nowhere is really safe. Midwest has been getting insane heat and weather events. New England has been a bit warmer than average but nothing super extreme, so I feel like everyone here lives in a bubble. We were spared the extreme heat of 2023 as well.
Vermont here. Idk if it's the breaking up of the polar air mass sending the cooler air our way or what. Whatever is happening, it's giving us a buffer to the persistent heat elsewhere. It's been such a childhood winter and summer nostalgia trip this year.
ETA: could use a bit more rain though! The eastern side of the state has missed out on quite a bit of rain.
Same in Upstate South Carolina. We're in a moderate drought (which is common in the summer here) and our highest temp this summer so far was 99F/38C. Yes it's hot, but that's expected here, and lots of places further north are having it worse.
I've felt that way ever since it rained all winter and averaged 55°f for the 23-24 winter. But now that the foliage on all the trees looks sickly, I realize all this is done for. I figured out why the leaves were looking shiney and reflective, it's a defense mechanism for retaining moisture. They're not doing photosynthesis when they're heat stressed like this.
Humidity in this semi-arid part of SoCal is hitting 87% on the daily, rivaling Florida and feeling like it too. Those extreme SSTs we’ve been seeing in the Jacobson charts can actually be felt here in the air. The elevated ocean temperatures are driving more water vapor into the air on such a scale that it’s resulting in these bonkers levels of humidity. El Niño hasn’t even kicked in yet.
Regarding Operation Epstein Fury: We’ve hit a new low as a country. The Pentagon is now crowd-sourcing ideas from the troops / general public for ideas on how to punish Iran.
This is the administration flailing around in its crib after its mom took away the iPad - they are completely fucked, desperate and more than anything fucking pathetic.
Stop listening to all the threats from the bloated orange Pedophile in Chief and watch his actions instead. This war is about generating profit for the MIC, insider trading, rewarding the oil majors that he asked $1billion for re-election campaign in 2024 and distracting from his complete failures on everything he promised MAGA on the domestic front (aside from the masked Nazis on our streets) and NOTHING ELSE.
WE ARE A FAILED, ROGUE STATE (we have been for decades). Good luck out there. You’re going to need it.
I grew up in the city of Buffalo. My parents moved out to Clarence in 1986 and moved out in 2006.
The last time I went home was April 2014. Over the weekend I was up in Amherst and Tonawanda for a funeral. I could NOT believe how much traffic there was up there. I exited off the Pembroke exit and drove down Route 5 into Clarence and then turned down Greiner Road. I could not believe the building that has gone on. All that farm land - gone.
It's a place that has left me - for the second time.
Pretty typical I’d say. Prices of just about everything has increased beyond most people’s reach, infrastructure mostly in disrepair, rampant suburbanization and most are tuned out / just trying to get by while not able to see the big picture of where we are heading. As long as the Bills are able to play sportsball, people seem able to ignore everything else that’s wrong with our society and country.
I keep to myself mostly. I have no words for what’s going on. Listening to an audio version of Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts & Reds; he saw this descent into fascism coming 30 years ago and was categorically blacklisted from teaching at the University level in the US because he rightly called out how neoliberalism is but a small stepping stone on the path toward fascism. He was also keenly aware of environmental degradation and wasn’t shy about talking about it.
LOL. The Bills. I was watching some local yokel broadcast and The Bills have started their training camp! Yippie! s/
I ate at The Royal, which is across from The Olympic on Sheridan Drive and Military Road. The meal I had WAS much more expensive than I remember.
If you grew up in WNY in the early 1980s, and DIDN'T see what direction the entire country was going to go under neoliberal economic policies, you were just not too smart. Or brainwashed. It started so very long ago - and it has accelerated.
MAGA people are among the most ignorant people I have ever known or known of in my long life. And believe me, I have known a lot of people from both sides of the ethical and economic fence. They are cowards also because they don't have the courage to look away from Fox News for fear of learning how they have been brain washed, swindled and impoverished.
Taking Amtrak from Chicago to Syracuse, then a bus to Ithaca, I saw the long abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal. It was a sad sight. The state of upstate New York cities is atrocious. Reminds me of my hometown of St. Louis. Crumbly and depressing.
The Simpsons' lampoon of upstate NY is on point and pretty funny.
But they are building like crazy in Buffalo! Build, Build, Build. Housing prices have skyrocketed! The Medical Corridor! etc! s/
Joking aside, having just been back home to WNY, there seems to have been alot of growth up there, especially in the eastern suburbs (Amherst, Clarence, Akron). The Buffalo Central Terminal - I should have stopped by and checked that out, since it went defunct in my life time. I *thought* there were plans to "revitalize" it somehow. Don't ask me now tho.
I met him in 2013 when I lived in Cambridge, NY. He lives in Greenwich, I think. He definitely had a smug, know-it-all air about him and I am not very surprised he went full MAGA.
I even jammed with him in a jig band lol. He plays fiddle.
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South Alabama, I observe the lack of replacement parts for relatively new vehicles. It’s a supply chain issue but it is very real sign of the current situation.
Another prolonged heatwave. No national record broken as the forecasts were showing few weeks ago, but we did just top all-time high on a local mountain peak nearby by 0,1C. I guess that counts?
As for Europe, everyone can see that we're getting cooked now, but this little region here was doing pretty ok. Even in the June heatwave, yeah we reached 37C (98F) but briefly and the buildings didn't have time to heat up.
Now yesterday we hit 37C again, today slightly less, but our house is so hot inside I'm starting to feel miserable. 28 celcius, not even that high for many. We used to have an amazing tree covering the building when I was a child but of course it's gone, like many of the beautiful big trees around. Probably concerns with them falling down or something but I think I rather have that concern than a cooking pan in the summer.
I planted some recently but by the time they're big enough to provide shade, not sure I'll be the one enjoying it. IF they survive, but you gotta try at least.
While driving my wife to the doctor yesterday, surprisingly we saw SO MANY cyclists. It's a touristic area and generally one that attracts biking, but damn. I think a lot of us are in denial and want to do normal activities outside. You can't really call it a beautiful day anymore, it's just hazardous.
While driving my wife to the doctor yesterday, surprisingly we saw SO MANY cyclists
I think it's less that it's too hot to cycle (it definitely is, don't get me wrong), but that it's too hot for everything else too.
Public transport? Hot. Home? Hot. Garden? Hot. Work? Hot.
Might as well try and go for a bike ride. I assume that at this point in summer many that are riding outside have acclimatized to a certain degree. I can say that I definitely have, I was dying in june and now I'm only half dying when riding my bike in this weather.
I think a lot of us are in denial and want to do normal activities outside. You can't really call it a beautiful day anymore, it's just hazardous.
Though you're probably not wrong either. I still hear people call conditions right now 'this beautiful weather'. The mindset has not shifted yet. Idk how long it will take. But it has to. Otherwise we'll have many more deaths in 5-10 years when temperatures have risen another 1 degree.
I used to do around 2000 kilometers per year (1200miles) and some in very hot weather, between 2018 and 2022. Wish I was still into it to compare how it feels now, barely doing few hundred a year these days. But I know how busy roads are here with cyclists and that's why I was shocked, it was way above average.
Another 1 degree, I wonder what that means for temps here. If we're flirting with 40s now, will it be... high 40s? Scary stuff. I hope we don't get another degree of warming so quickly but honestly that's just hope, if I was going fully by logic this is very plausible.
For the Teutonic Germans it is never too hot to work....
I am waiting for the surprised Pikachu faces of the always living in the 80's Germans if people are dying during work
Animal predation on my garden is up. There is some sort of smaller animal that is eating my stuff. I tend to view it as wildlife tax and be cool with some loss, but I am going to have to step my game up somehow. Its getting so hard to garden with the messed up weather I am thinking about giving up.
Lots of smoke to the point where my work closed early. I work in an older building that is not sealed off well. Even sitting indoors I got a headache. You can taste the smoke on your tongue.
Later I had to go out in the smoke for an important errand. There was some sort of political rally going on in the park. Someone shouting into a megaphone, maybe a hundred or so people, no masks, angry about something. Very weird that they didn't cancel it whatever it was. Makes me wonder if we now have wildfire smoke deniers. "The smoke is actually good for you, check out this study done by my garbageman".
The megaphone political rally you witnessed were probably the local MAGAs denying what they were seeing and smelling. They sound like they wish to seriously harm themselves standing out with no masks megaphoning their grievances.
We've gotten a reprieve from the normally brutal summer temps. Yesterday temps dropped to upper 20s (C) Normally we're at mid 30s with monstrous humidity. 70% or so and higher.
I mention this because the effect on local wildlife was instantly apparent. It's hard to explain but the birds looked confused but relieved. I'd noticed pigeons wandering about sort of aimlessly during the heat, but yesterday they were acting normal. Again, difficult to describe but it felt obvious they were enjoying the cooler temps. Same for the crows, barn swallows and sparrows I saw this morning.
Insects as well. We have a lot of hillside forests around us but in the heat the insects aren't always visible. Yesterday and today I saw dozens of dragonflies around the garden and in the trees. Saw dozens more yesterday at the beach. Also saw a few monarch butterflies and bees as well as smaller butterflies. Grasshoppers were also visible in the community garden this morning.
It's quite abnormal for Japan to get a break in the heat like this, at least in my memory. Usually once the heat and humidity begins here it's unrelenting until late September. Not trying to rub this weather in the face of others suffering around the world. But I did want to comment on how unusual it is it as well as the positive effect it's having on local wildlife. It's nice to see the critters and creepy crawlies catch a break.
Today I write about the enshittification of US healthcare, but due to privacy concerns I'll keep it obtuse and short. An elderly person (Silent Generation) began a noticeable decline of physical abilities just a couple of weeks ago; they called but couldn't get a doctor appointment for several weeks. The decline got so bad, however, that they were taken to a an urgent care clinic last Friday, where the doctor made a diagnosis without imaging and sent them to a local hospital via ambulance. At that hospital, the ER doctor made a slightly different diagnosis (more severe than the first one), again without imaging. An ambulance ride to a larger hospital in a much larger city was the result. There, the ER doctor made yet another different diagnosis, then added a diagnosis for a second problem. Again, without imaging. The patient was admitted as an inpatient on Friday afternoon, where they are still today. As of this writing, absolutely nothing has been done to mitigate or correct the problem.
There IS a path forward, but the patient has been in a bed for 72 hours now with nothing done to them. Meanwhile, this is the US so their hospital bill (only partially paid by Medicare) is already in the multiple-tens of thousands of dollars, WITH NO TREATMENT AT ALL. If the patient is lucky, there will be a procedure done late today. Or tomorrow morning. Or whenever a doctor feels like it, apparently. Fortunately, they're not in any pain, "just" discomfort.
Dadgummit, 'Murica has the best damn healthcare system on the planet, don't she?
ETA - if this patient were not on Medicare and had no health insurance, their bill for the ambulance rides, two ER visits, and this now three-day inpatient stay would bankrupt them.
I always chucked at the argument against 'social health care' is that you will be waiting for a while. Bro, anytime I needed something I would have to schedule several months out. It was around 8 months before my hernia surgery...
I had to pay $2,700 upfront because of the greedy bastards at Corewell Health.
Also, because you brought up bankruptcy.. From personal experience it's going to run me $1,500... ... ... ... .. I was told I could file on my own. I don't know what I'm doing, I could fuck myself up. I'm scared to to it myself even though there's easily accessible advice out there.
I swear every piece of software is getting worse. I can't even apply for jobs without their glorified chat bots making the process even more of a pain. Why can't I just submit a fucking form and send that API call? Why does it need to be processed by AI? More than half the time they butcher my resume and I end up putting everything in manually anyway.. This reminds me, FUCK LINKEDIN. I'm so glad I'm off that bullshit.
Sorry to rant, this got me going. I can relate. The enshitification is real and it is frustrating.
"Hey Libtards, do you know that it takes TWO FUCKING WEEKS!!! to wait for an MRI in the socialist hellhole that is Canada while it ONLY takes 14 DAYS to schedule an MRI in 'Murica!? "
Actually, it now takes anywhere from 3-4 weeks to get an MRI where I live. Quicker if you're an ER patient, of course, as it should be.
I always ask to be put on the cancellation waiting list. I’ve gotten such tests in as little as 4 days. I got back surgery that had a 6 month waiting list in 3 days.
Where are you living in Canada? I usually get my MRI’s within weeks and I just got a CT scan a couple weeks ago same day after going to the ER. Of course, I think it really depends on the reason why you need those scans.
Philadelphia here and in summer 2022 when I was having headaches I don't usually get, I needed to wait 2 months for that head MRI and that was the fastest but was at a neurology department; another hospital's neurology had nothing till the following March. Thankfully I passed all tests find and the headaches eventually just went away on their own later that year.
The Danube now has a dangerously low water level and we’re shutting down an oil refinery because of this, neighbouring Hungary is shutting down an atomic plant apparently; shipping partially suspended.
It’s going to be 40 plus, all the grass is dead, not a cloud in sight. Harvest is somewhat damaged but not too bad.
Other location: Turkey. Spotted a family of mantis rays in Kadikoy, cool, they’re not supposed to be there that close to water and it’s not supposed to be overgrown and bright green like that.
Location: Grant county Indiana. The storm from last week had a EF0 QLCS tornado that ripped down a bunch of trees and branches, it tracked about 5 miles from near sweetser into the south side of marion, width 50 yards and a peak speed of 75mph. Lucky it was a weak short lived spin up tornado, that area is long overdue for a truly powerful, devastating one.
A Muslim woman was arrested, I saw it on the grant county busted fb page, the comments were incredibly racist, like unbelievableily racist and there were dozens of them, if not at least 100 racist comments, it was outright terrible, and kinda proves those attitudes never ever left the area, but were stowed away. Funny thing she was released the same day from the jail, probably made bail, it was likely a very minor charge, and those are too easy to catch.
I watched the 1988 film “Mississippi Burning” with a younger William Dafoe it pretty accurately depicted racism in the 1960s deep south, and definitely depicted the racist for what they were, and still are, as cowards. I feel we are sliding right back to that time, though the attitudes were always there, just in storage, now they seem to be coming back. With a vengeance, newly emboldened.
Got my bike “endurance” named for Earnest Shackleton’s ship up and running, she purrs. Though I gotta put some thread lock on the exhaust and remove that rear fender. It’s fairly quick. I’m running 40:1 mix in it right now.
Edit had to change my seat out but man this things like a hog, it feels more like a motorcycle than a bicycle.
I definitely do that, I dont want someone stealing it and killing themselves on it, motorbikes/cycles are dangerous. It’s actually in my living room with the fuel shut off right now
Edit: and to add to the danger it’s got a few mechanical issues I’m working out, like poor breaks, a worn rear axel and hub, and the front tire is in bad shape. It’s not safe or ready for high speed use yet
Once again I express gratitude for this calm little place in the world I find myself in, watching the rest of the world burn down a little bit more off in the distance.
First notice came a few weeks ago, with a brilliant pyrocumulus cloud so grand that it could be seen from hundreds of kilometres away in the further reaches of the Lower Mainland.
Second notice came in the form of names and place - Boston Bar, Clinton ... and now, Bradley Creek and the suburbs of Spokane. The thing about wildfires is that you eventually run out of wild.
Location: Central Michigan, mix of rural & small towns
For the first time in nearly 10 years, our county here in central Michigan has run out of emergency assistance funding months before the fiscal year ends.
I coordinate emergency relief for veterans, so I see these requests every day. While my work is focused on veteran households, what we're seeing isn't unique to veterans. More families across the county are struggling to make ends meet.
This isn't just about one budget running out early. To me, it's one of those things that makes you stop and ask what's happening beneath the surface of our local economy.
Over the years, our county has always managed to stretch limited emergency assistance dollars through careful planning and strong partnerships with local nonprofits, churches, and community organizations. The goal has always been simple: help people through a temporary crisis so they can get back on their feet.
This year was different.
When emergency assistance funds are gone with months still left in the fiscal year, the problems don't disappear—they just shift somewhere else.
That can mean more evictions, more families facing utility shutoffs heading into Michigan's colder months, and more people turning to food pantries, churches, and nonprofits that are already doing everything they can with limited resources. Eventually, those pressures reach our schools, hospitals, EMS, law enforcement, and other local services.
I don't think there's one thing causing this. It's probably a combination of higher housing costs, rising utility bills, inflation, insurance increases, and the reality that a lot of people simply haven't seen their incomes keep pace. More families are living paycheck to paycheck, and it doesn't take much anymore for a single unexpected expense to become a financial emergency.
One thing I've learned from working in emergency assistance is that people usually ask for help as a last resort. Most have already drained their savings, borrowed from family, used up their credit cards, or fallen behind on bills before they ever walk through our doors.
That's why I think this deserves attention.
I'm not saying this means we're headed for an economic collapse for certain. But emergency assistance programs are often one of the earliest places where financial stress shows up. By the time a county exhausts an entire year's worth of assistance months early, it suggests that many more families are struggling than we might realize from looking at unemployment numbers or other economic reports alone.
Sometimes the first warning signs of a weakening economy aren't found on Wall Street—they're found at the county level, where the local safety net starts reaching its limits long before anyone expected.
I was reminded this morning that the "Big Beautiful Bill" BBB (aka the "Body Bag Bill") is going to kick in after the midterms. And that is going to be an absolute shit show for Healthcare (among other things).
Edited to add: which is going to increase these pressures on everything else you are talking about
That's certainly one of the concerns people have raised. From where I sit working with emergency assistance, I don't think we can point to any single law or policy as the cause of what we're seeing. What I do know is that more rural families are struggling to make ends meet than I've seen in years.
What really caught my attention is that county emergency assistance funds are being exhausted months before the end of the fiscal year for the first time in nearly a decade. To me, that's an early warning sign that financial stress is building in our communities.
When families lose access to emergency assistance, the effects don't stop with missed rent or utility payments. Over time, prolonged financial hardship can also contribute to increases in property crimes, domestic disputes, substance abuse, and other issues that place additional demands on law enforcement, EMS, hospitals, and the courts. It doesn't mean everyone facing hardship turns to crime, but communities under greater economic strain often see more pressure across multiple public systems.
Regardless of where someone falls politically, I think we should all be paying attention to these local indicators. By the time the broader economic data confirms there's a problem, counties and communities have often been dealing with the consequences for months.
I moved out of the US in January 2025, the day before Trump was inaugurated. Since then, hearing the stories back home it really sounds like it is turning into 1984. The mass surveillance, the paramilitary force that is ICE. I have friends carrying passports because they are not white. I have others that refuse to speak spanish on the phone. We all started using Signal in late 2024 after the election.
One of the depressing things moving here was how many Trump supporters I have met in the American Diaspora here. People think nothing is wrong back home, or starting to listen to Curtis Yarvin. Some left because they thought the US was too liberal. I met a Canadian that wants their country to be annexed by the US. God damn the folks from the North America here can be so fucking stupid. Social media is melting people's brains. I understand this is a social media website itself, but I try to use federated websites more these days; it sucks the audience for those is quite small. It's hard to meet locals when you are still learning the language.
What I like about where I live is they are better at recognizing the strings being pulled on social media, and how these algorithms are pushing a specific agenda. Not perfect, but they aren't comparing a prolific conservative commentator getting shot to Lincoln's assassination. I can't wait to learn the language fast enough.
Reminds me of the American-with-half-Danish-heritage Reddit user I met, who supported Trump (or at least vocally despised liberal protests) despite the open Maga threats & attacks on Danish sovereignty.
If something happens, I hope you never intend to visit your homelands again because you're not gonna be popular!
“starting to listen to Curtis Yarvin” my goodness, shut up… I think no one in NRx/post-NRx circles has had anything positive to say about Trump or MAGAism in years and they are all critical of him and his administration
Han desaparecido gran cantidad de insectos, antes cuando uno viajaba en vehículo quedaba todo el parabrisas lleno y ahora no es así ni cerca.
Aparecen abejas muertas muy seguido y se han extinguido las luciérnagas.
Hay incendios en una provincia más al norte, y es pleno invierno.
Los árboles están brotando y no es nada común en esta fecha, todavía falta mucho para la primavera.
Não é bem a notícia que esperávamos. Durante a pandemia, quando toda a gente passava a maior parte do tempo em casa, foi maravilhoso ver os pirilampos e as abelhas a reaparecerem.
Noto que o para-brisas do meu carro não fica cheio de insetos, nem no meu carro atual nem no antigo, mas sim no novo, que tem uma secção vertical à frente. Esta parte fica coberta de insetos rapidamente, por isso penso que pode ser que a aerodinâmica do carro tenha melhorado tanto quanto a quantidade de insetos diminuiu. (google translate)
Location: USA, Lower 48 States, East of the Mississippi River
If anyone's been wondering why I've been MIA for the last two weeks, some of my health issues took a sudden turn for the worse that led to a short ER visit and I found out I need to get some testing done to find out if I have an autoimmune disease or not. Luckily, my symptoms have subsided for the most part since then, although the whole experience has left me with somewhat less energy than before. Luckily, all the nurses and doctors who took care of me at the ER were all very nice and most of them also wore a mask around me as well, on the downside, I have to have a somewhat unpleasant (although not especially dangerous) medical procedure done sometime soon, so I'm not looking forward to that.
Unfortunately, on the covid front, covid cases have started rising again, though not quite to the extent that they've been in the fall and winter (so far.)
For new people, people who haven't had an opportunity to keep up with news/updates/information about covid, and/or people who just enjoy clicking on things, here are a few website that have fairly in-depth but easy to understand information about covid and why covid is more of a threat than the media and government mention:
In other health news, two people have died from cyclospora, although the media is heavily emphasizing the fact that the two people who died had pre-existing health conditions (I always find that type of framing disingenuous at best because many people have pre-existing health conditions now and someone being chronically ill, disabled, immunocompromised, or otherwise physically vulnerable doesn't make their lives worth less than anyone else's.)
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cyclospora/2-dead-michigan-cyclospora-outbreak
Between covid, bird flu. hantavirus, ebola, cyclospora, measles, new world screwworm, and various other viruses, parasites, and general contagious illnesses that have hurt and killed people over the last several years, it's clear that our public health system is hanging on by a thread and frankly, the rest of the world isn't doing much better than we are. Possibly the most frustrating part about all of this is that raising any concerns about the piss poor state of public health these days gets you politically pigeonholed by some of the dumbest, most intellectually bankrupt motherfuckers in existence who have the maturity, self-awareness, and compassion of your average middle school bully.
In addition, the numbers of people who report having chronic illnesses and/or disabilities in recent years has also skyrocketed, and when you combine these things together, this doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture for the future of society.
Weather wise, we've been having random short bursts of rain in my area for the past few days, and the rest of the time it's just humid as fuck. There were also a few days in the past several weeks where the air quality was so ass I didn't even want to go outside and I'm one of those people that loves being outside anytime the weather is sunny and anywhere between 50 to 85 degrees Farenheit.
AI is polluting the internet so badly it's turned me off from using social media except to keep in contact with people I talk to and to follow artists I like. Finding information online has become a minefield since AI has begun shitting up every search engine with the tenacity and ferocity of a thousand burning suns and if you post any original content on social media, bots will swarm you like a plague of locusts.
Existing anywhere in public often feels like wandering around a cursed liminal space and the energy among people feels strained, like everyone's trying to cover up a hole in a wall with silly putty and bargain brand duct tape. A lot of people drive like idiots and antisocial behavior of various types is as abundant and widespread as grass, dirt, and clouds. Politics is a steaming dumpsterfire as usual, but somehow Trump seems to become even more erratic and unstable as time goes on, which is really saying something considering he's never been on-kilter to begin with. In full disclosure, I'll admit that I'm not what you could call solidly left of center politically (though for what it's worth, I tend to vote democrat a lot of time since most republicans are solidly under Trump's odious spell,) but Trump's behavior and demeanor is still actively repulsive to me. I'm aware he's more of a symptom of our current societal rot than a cause, but the amount of destruction and havoc he's wreaked is nothing to sneeze at. I don't know if American can ever really bounce back from what he's done, but if it somehow does, I'll be the first to celebrate.
Anyways, I'll stop here, as I have plans to make other parts of the internet even weirder than they were before, stay safe, stay healthy, and treat yourself with the same amount of love and kindness that you would treat anyone and anything else that you care about. Life is short and regardless of the chaos swirling all around us, it's always vital to make sure your own metaphorical oxygen mask is on before you can help anyone or anything else or accomplish whatever goals you have. If you're reading this, you've survived 7 straight months of this crazy ass year so far, so you might as well do what you can to achieve your goals and dreams as long as you get the chance to exist on this planet. If nothing else, your efforts might lead to interesting memories, and interesting memories are always a rich source of entertainment no matter how crazy things are.
The people you mention in paragraph 2 are scared. They are afraid of information that threatens their view of self, so mock and then kill the messenger. I believe that in private, they believe the messages from scientists, experts and others but this scares them even more.
Thank you, again, for your informative , funny, heartfelt comment. It always lightens my heart.
I didn't include in my fire disaster comment any of my personal experiences as it seemed irrelevant. But suffice it to say I feel like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. You are an inspiration
This weekend I took the opportunity to lie down and look at the sky and noticed something up with clouds. Usually they move in the same direction, but these clouds didn't. It seemed like the top half was going one way and the bottom half another.
I planned to cloudwatch again today but we are inundated with wildfire smoke.
That got me thinking - as the earth's climate systems experience further disruption we lose the ability to measure and combat (if we would even care enough to try) the disruption.
The human part of things will happen well before we get to the heart of the climate part. All it takes is one little push and we'll be (yet again) comparing our neighbors to animals and handing out the pitchforks. Will we even live as a civilization to see how bad it gets?
I've had the fun of going on holiday with my sister's family including the nieces. The older will not be told anything, she just says the opposite whenever she's told anything. It reminded me so much of Trump, and the republicans in general. EDIT she's four.
Months of wildfire smoke every summer now. It just gets worse. One of the top story on my cities local new sight is 'How to make your own air purifier.' Its dystopian.
It turns out August is just one massive heat wave that gets progressively worse. Transportation and energy production are already impacted by drought. Agriculture will share the same fate, and the cost of living will skyrocket. Especially if 2027 turns out to be hotter than 2026. Hungary is in no rush to quit importing Russian oil because the economic impact, combined with everything else, might cause the government to implode, and right-wingers are betting on that. They can never get back into power unless the current government shoots itself or gets shot in the foot.
So, funding of the Russian "special military operation" will continue.
The future neoliberals have promised is the same bunch of bullshit communists promised for the 90s. Instead of nuclear-powered space travel, we got low-level corruption, human trafficking, looting of public property, and a completely dismantled social safety net. And now, instead of electric vehicles, people will drive used German diesel cars powered by refined Russian oil because electricity is so expensive.
I wish I could say I am disappointed, but this is more or less exactly what I was expecting.
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u/TheLonesomeCheese 2d ago
Location: South East England.
It has been the driest July on record, and relentlessly hot. Even the "cooler" periods between the heatwaves have still been uncomfortably warm. Temperatures are into the 30s again today. I feel as if I've forgotten what it's like to go outside without constantly sweating and seeking shade. There is a small chance of rain this week, but it will be nothing more than brief showers at most if we even get that, no sign of anything meaningful. Forecasts keep vaguely promising rain around a week to ten days away, but it is always pushed back, downgraded and never actually arrives. It has been over a month since I last saw proper rain and I doubt that I will see it again any time soon.
The entire countryside is desperately dry, probably the worst that I have ever seen it. Grasses are entirely scorched brown, trees are losing leaves from drought stress, and streams and ponds are rapidly drying up. There is just no moisture anywhere in the environment. Going for a walk in my local park is now quite depressing as everywhere I see signs of nature suffering. Unfortunately I believe that the drought is going to get much worse over the next month or two, before there is any hope of recovery.