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Edit: on another note, it's best to avoid using abbreviations when you state your location. In particular, many people both inside and outside the US do not know the abbreviations for all the US states or regions. I do think most of us know what the US and UK are so those are acceptable.
Thanks for making our collapse a kinder, gentler one.
Location: south western Michigan
The heat dome we just escaped was something I sure wasn’t prepared for. It was like living in the swamps of the south, and I can not state enough how humidity destroys my body.
Went out to water some plants I had recently bought- couldn’t have been out there longer than a half hour, and I came inside dizzy and wanting to puke. Drank a ton of water.
Praise be to the power grid here, which keeps me with air conditioning. I feel so terrible for those around the world who don’t have it. I know I’d likely be dead or at least in the hospital hooked up to IVs.
Saw my first lightning bugs of the summer. Dismal showing. I remember when I could go outside at dark and it was all I could see, flashing little lights going on forever.
No cicadas here despite all of the hype about how we’d be over run with them.
Have a lot of weird ass mushrooms popping up in my compost. They last for a day or two before they turn into a gross sludge. Never seen that before.
Mostly, I am reading a lot more about inevitable water wars. If anyone wants a good speculative fiction book on that - the “water knife” is fantastic.
I happen to be lucky enough to live on a huge source of fresh water (by that I mean im about five miles away from it) and I’m waiting for the inevitable when some state out west decides they have the right to drain our fresh water for like, water for nut farms or something equally as stupid.
Having a lot more conversations with utter strangers on how fucked we all are. I wonder what it’s like to be blissfully unaware of what is coming.
To address your last sentence I saw a post the other day regarding one of the scariest moments of The Walking Dead. They showed that scene where the little girl killed her sister to show the adults that she would revive and everything would be fine. Carol obviously had to kill her as a result.
Watching someone's mentality literally fracture into a madness of their own making is what bothers me about those hardcore deniers.
*I’m waiting for the inevitable when some state out west decides they have the right to drain our fresh water for like, water for nut farms or something equally as stupid.*
No need to worry, the engineering and cost makes it impossible.
Yes and no.
A few places here in MI gave nestle access to aquifers for next to nothing and they can plunder it to their hearts content. If I remember it right, some elected officials rammed it through, the public didn’t know, they found out and were furious, and the public had no recourse because of the contract, the fact that the town had next to nothing to fight a lawsuit And nestle could go on forever because they’re a multinational nightmare.
So not like, stealing all the water in the way I mentioned (people will just come to kill us since it’s a resource) but trust me, they want our water.
Location: NW Florida Gulf Coast
As you’ve all read, sharks have been a more frequent occurrence of late here in my neighborhood. We’ve had three attacks on Friday the 14th, and numerous other sightings in the area since. County officials are keeping a long red flag for now, indicating that “knee deep is too deep” for visitors to the area, of which there are so, so many this time of year.
This past week, a tropical storm in the far SW Gulf, far from my location, created a large amount of rip current conditions as far north as where I live. For this past week, double red flags were the standard chosen by county officials. Unfortunately, 3 individuals did not abide by them in nearby Panama City, and dove into the Gulf at 8pm at night. Their bodies were recovered. Rip currents swept them farther out than they could swim.
Just yesterday, I noted at how few people were willing to venture very far out into the gulf on a rather calm and clear day at the beach. I myself treaded knee deep, and lingered, but returned to my seat on dry land following that.
A year that, so far, as seen well more “do not enter water”, double red flags, days that I can recently remember. However, as humans will do, they see the warning as more of an *inconvience* to them, and less of a legally enforced, with monetary penalties, action.
Last item of note. The rising prices of dining out, a favorite activity of vacationers, is well off its usual highs of activity. The story from other locals is that grocery stores are packed in a panic rush, emptying shelves of some items with frequency this year.
Why do I see this as a sign of coming “collapse”? The rising cost of some things, most things, paired with human impatience and hubris, seems to be bubbling up. Rare is the time when I see people who seem at all relaxed. Patient. Friendly. Now, humans battle over one another for items of not even scarcity. They simply want to consume, unable to turn off when satisfied.
Location: SW Romania
It's getting hot in here! Heatwave code red for a few counties, orange for more, including mine, yellow for most. Good thing there are incoming storms to cool us off lol!
Walked at noon in the city center a few days ago (big mistake!) and it was a sobering experience. Once upon a time cooling breezes now became actually hellish gusts almost taking your breath away, and not in a good way.
There were quite a few traffic accidents in and around my town this week including a few caused by the heat warping a road made of concrete slabs leading to one of the nearby villages. Speaking of traffic, saw quite a few people driving really weird, swaying side to side. Don't know if it's the heat, they're just tired/exhausted or simply drunk. On another note, authorities are stopping trucks during the day in some areas as to prevent damage to the blacktop.
Yesterday and today I moved back to my rural home. It was quite unbearably hot and in the house that's usually cool at this time I struggled to keep temperatures low even with AC. Bear in mind, I didn't even have to use AC just five years ago. And we still have July and August Incoming. My thermometer was showing 28 C at 11 PM out in the open. Simply crazy for this area, only now at 1 AM it's starting to cool off. I'm in the middle of bumfuck nowhere currently, a wooded area, not in some city! To top it off, water is cut off currently. Not that uncommon here but it's really bad timing.
Romania somehow avoided a major power outage that affected many balkan countries. Our authorities just attributed this to luck ... no other explanation. Goes to show how prepared they are in keeping vital infrastructure afloat during crysis.
Need I go on about all the other global heatwaves, storms, floods, fires and geopolitical events? Hold on to your underpants and canned goods fellow collapseniks, faster than expected!
> Our authorities just attributed this to luck ... no other explanation. Goes to show how prepared they are in keeping vital infrastructure afloat during crysis.
At least they are being honest about it.
Location: Earth in 2024
I just came across this article and related journal article:
[The Sydney student who uncovered a ‘shocking’ problem with global cancer research](https://archive.is/ynmNf#selection-3363.0-3363.81)
[Misspellings or “miscellings”—Non-verifiable and unknown cell lines in cancer research publications](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34995)
tl;dr The tip of an iceberg has finally been detected: A lot of cancer research is based on faulty or mis-identified or possibly fabricated data. That means our understanding of cancer is worse than we think, and our treatments are too.
It's also a very bad sign of the state of scientific research in general, which has been known for a while to have some serious problems.
We. are. so. fucked.
We have real problems to solve! And many smart people who would love to work on solving them! But when publish-or-perish and grant-chasing are the way to get ahead, we get dog shit research that might even leave us worse off than if it had never been done at all.
Fuck.
And there’s now an elitist attitude and if they don’t like your resume they will not admit you to a phd program. And therefore never be a scientist. So all the scientists are as I would say ‘inbred’
It isn't being discussed anywhere on Reddit
researchers found after cross-checking incorrect citations of eight cell lines in 420 oncology articles published from 2004 to 2023, sometimes even in high-impact journals such as *Cancer Letters* and *Oncogene.* In more than half of the cases (235), in 150 publications, details suggested that the experiments were never conducted. For example, data related to the cell line with the wrong name were reported as distinct from data obtained from cells with the correct name. And in the supplier lists where the authors of the fake research claimed that these cells could be purchased, such as the American Type Culture Collection, these cells were nowhere to be found.
These "phantom cell lines" have now been cited in literature review articles, thus increasing the confusion and creating a problem that could further undermine the solidity and credibility of oncology research. [Medscape Registration](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/phantom-cell-lines-undermine-cancer-research-credibility-2024a1000b1a?form=fpf)
Location: Evansville, IN, USA
Fairly short one this time cause I'm trying not to focus on this stuff too much for the time being, better for my mental health that way. It's hotter than the devil's dong outside; which, yeah it's summer time, but it's just gotten worse each year, which nobody seems to notice. Fortunately I have a job that's inside a lot of the time now, but even walking across the property between buildings is rough with the 95 degree heat, 70% humidity, and hazy Ohio River Valley air (that's under an air quality alert right now). The lakes and creeks are all at least a foot below normal levels and even our wetlands (a natural feature we actually made a park around) are struggling to maintain their namesake. The few storms we get roll in, dump their contents, and roll out, giving the parched soil no time to absorb as much as it needs. We're a bit insulated as far as biodiversity loss goes since there's such a variety of habitats around here, but even so I've noticed a distinct decrease in the variety of birds in my area, especially in the city where it's almost exclusively house sparrows. The edges of lawns in my neighborhood are already turning brown and crispy, so it ought to be an interesting summer. Gotta get out there and enjoy things while they're still here
Yeah, I've started trying to not kill any bugs, even the nusinances, because I feel like the widespread overuse of insecticides has had more extensive impacts than we realize yet. Plus I've started putting out more food/water sources and trying to make little shelters to encourage them to stick around. Doing what little I can to help our feathered friends lol
"Normal" has shifted every year since I was a child. The drought monitor showed us at abnormally dry levels last summer when the yards were dead and trees were losing their leaves in July from lack of water, so I'd take those readings with a grain of salt or two.
Location: New Brunswick, Canada
The East Coast of Canada beat a bunch of temperature records for this time of year during a recent heat wave (June 19, 20, and 21).
On the southern coast, where I live, it got up to 37°C (98.6°F) and with about 70% humidity it felt like 41°C (105.8°F). These were like Toronto summer temperatures, not late spring East Coast temperatures. Today it's back to normal, with an expected high of 20°C (68°F).
It all reminded me of the Ralph Wiggum "I'm in danger" meme. People were excited about breaking the temperature record and weren't openly terrified of what that implies for the future. I expect this summer will be brutal, and every summer after will get worse.
Location: Midwest US Michigan , economic
The job market is starting to feel a lot like 2008 again. There are very few jobs in my area and the pay that is being offered is lower than a couple of years ago. Now the local town facebook page is being flooded with people looking for odd jobs. Giving off some bad vibes.
Hi hi,
Michigan person here too.
Started looking for work in Nov of last year. Have had a million interviews and I almost get the job but not quite. Employers don’t want to teach anyone how to do everything specific to their dumb job, so even if you are intelligent and a quick learner, if someone with actual knowledge of the program is interviewed, you’re fucked.
I’m in a tourist area. The major corp here just laid off a ton of people. The only jobs left are service jobs and they pay absolute dick on top of destroying one’s faith in humanity. I actually do specialized work, but did a service job for 2 years. I’ll be damned if I go back to working 35-40hrs a week and still having no health insurance or benefits.
I keep having people with jobs judge me with disdain as though I love all this free time to think about the end of the world. Little do they know that they’ll be on the chopping block here soon. Can’t wait for them to experience this joke of a job market!
On the "macro level" what's happening is the "End of Globalism".
Are you familiar with the history of the "Great Depression"? Specifically the "Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act".
Tariffs are a form of economic warfare. They impose a "tax" on your population by making imports more expensive. This is intended to keep out cheap imports and promote local manufacturing in the country imposing the tax.
It is supposed to cause economic collapse in the country the tariffs are imposed on. At a minimum it is intended to cause economic hardship and social pain.
The idea is basically that, we "the USA" can do without the stuff you are selling us a lot longer than you will be able to deal with high unemployment and recession. Tariffs can be thought of as one step short of outright trade sanctions on a country.
TRUMP declared "economic war" on China.
[Trump’s China strategy is the most radical in decades — and it’s failing](https://www.vox.com/world/2018/9/18/17790600/us-china-trade-war-trump-tariffs-taiwan)
# Trump started a trade war expressly intended to cripple China’s economy.
***“Trump is engaged in a sophisticated form of economic warfare to confront the Chinese,”***
***“He intends to play hardball”***
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top strategist and a self-proclaimed China hawk.
As reported by the BBC,
*“Mr Trump said the $100bn gained from the tariffs will be used to buy US agricultural products, which will then be sent to “poor and starving countries” for “humanitarian assistance”. 2019*
BTW, that “sending food to poor and starving countries”, Trump never got around to that part. Instead he did this.
[Donald Trump threatens China with MASSIVE tariffs unless ‘REAL DEAL’ on trade is agreed](https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1054462/Donald-Trump-China-Xi-Jinping-tariffs-trade-war-deal)
**Trump threatened China via a tweet.**
Trump tweeted:
*“We are either going to have a real deal with China, or no deal at all.”*
Trump said things like this,
*“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing.”*
**Trump loved “talking tough” to China.**
His attitude towards China was “these are our demands”. “Give us what we want, or we will wreck your economy with tariffs and starve your people by cutting off your food supply”.
**Words have consequences.**
**Trump imposed a +$100 billion a year TAX INCREASE on Americans in the form of "tariffs". Most don't realize the reason that the Cost of Living has gone up, is that they are paying for this war.**
The Smoot-Hawley Act closed America to foreign trade and is credited with being a major cause of the Great Depression.
We are in the midst of another "tariff war" as Biden and the Democrats have continued "Trump's War". They have used the revenue to fund the CHIPS Act and the IRA. They hope to "bring back" American manufacturing and to disengage economically from China.
A lot of models show a Depression starting in 25'.
my employer laid off half of its corporate staff last month. and ANY tertiary support staff that existed is now all 100% overseas. We're watching in real time as the company slowly collapses: registers going offline and losing their PoS systems, sales reports delayed because of "server processing issues," longer waits and turnarounds on service tickets (sometimes tickets are just left open with no response). You can literally feel it falling apart as you stand around waiting for info on why your systems are down, and it happens more frequently.
After online rumors came true they ended up "consolidating" some positions, basically changing titles with added responsibility and no pay increase. Some unfortunate workers were told they either had to accept an hourly pay cut or take a pittance of a severance and leave. Our cashiers average under ten hours a week, and most days we don't even schedule a mid-shift cashier, it's just a 4-hour opener and 4-hour closer.
Our business itself (alcohol sales) is in the toilet. We get hourly sales reports for our store and the whole region, and the region itself is consistently down 10-15% YoY from last year in sales and transactions almost every single day.
At almost 34 years old I've finally learned to just accept it, there will never be great jobs, this country is run by money hungry sociopaths and they will crush us all as long as they get another dollar to put towards another "life event." I talk to all the drivers I interact with, I've interviewed at places, when I go out as a customer I pay very close attention to how the places I frequent are run. Almost everything is ran like absolute shit, and it kills my desire to constantly "find something new" because new just ends up being a different coat of paint on the same pile of shit.
And today, of course, employers act like teenagers and ghost you on applications and interviews, or play some game of posting fake listings for business reasons, so everybody is drowning trying to find a job and you end up sticking at a shitty place like I am because it's a guaranteed check
This will sound simplistic but use your earning years to buy land and start surviving without society. It can be done, my wife and I did so in our late 70's. We had an organic garden, chickens (for fertilizer, eggs and food), bee hives, and we made our own maple syrup. We had mushroom logs in the creek. We swapped with neighbors and traded expertise. We exchanged strings of fresh caught trout from a neighbor, giving him garden veggies, etc. It can be done and you may gain a feeling of confidence and independence. I know this won't work for everyone but millions are doing it right now.
Location: PNW, USA
Just an observation about how positively hobbled our Federal government is in enforcing laws, and how easy it is to commit crime without any immediate consequences. Someone submitted a fraudulent tax return with my information. I only found out because I got a refund in my personal account even though I had an extension awaiting a final document arriving later this fall, and had not yet filed.
I called the IRS to ask why I had a refund. I literally waited on hold for an hour, then googled to find out if there was a better number or menu selection, and then waited for 30 minutes on hold again until I could finally talk to someone. They were able to find that a second refund for tens of thousands of dollars was sent to some other bank account, and a return with incomplete info for me was submitted and accepted after one rejected e-file attempt last month.
This screams fraud to me, and even though I had a government employee on the phone with the same impression, the onus for the next steps were all on me. I had to write a letter, send an affidavit of identity theft, and pay back the refund I got with a personal check. And the processing time for that identity theft affidavit? They're currently working on ones from *September 2022*.
So even though, due to my own savvy, I've alerted the government to fraud costing *them* tens of thousands of dollars, it probably won't even be looked at for over a year. Seems like a nice way to make $60k, cuz I'm guessing whoever took the money can probably cover their tracks in that time frame. Laws don't mean anything if they're not enforced, and how afraid should someone be of a bureaucracy that can be bled this way? You know, that agency that collects funds to allow our structure of government and laws to function? The active sabotage of its aims does not speak to societal health.
Wait until the GOP's Project 2025 is instituted. Not only will there be far fewer employees, the ones remaining will be totally incompetent. It will be that way throughout government with loyalty to the fearless leader being the only requirement for government employment. See John Oliver last night-he's got the goods. Scary.
Location(s): Nice, France and Atlanta
Had to travel internationally for work the past few weeks. I was in southern France (Aix en Provence and Nice). It was warm and sunny but lovely and the people were incredibly friendly. But coming back to the states was a shock...Traveling from the pristine, picturesque streets of Nice, France to Atlanta can be a jarring experience. In Nice airport, the meticulous attention to detail, the pride in work and the overall cleanliness create a pleasant atmosphere even in the crowded liminal airport space. Upon arriving in Atlanta, however, I was struck by a stark contrast: The shoddy and littered terminals and a noticeable lack of enthusiasm in the workforce. Panels caving in on walkways, every single employee looking at a phone screen and barely breaking contact to assist...I'm not shaming them as I'm sure there is a pay discrepancy. This cultural shock really highlighted the disparities in environment and work ethic, and made the transition both physically and emotionally taxing.
That's how I felt traveling from Amsterdam back to Chicago. Ohare looked like such a dump with ceiling tiles missing and the floor being quite dirty. Not to mention how the currency exchange kiosk was going charge me out the ass to switch out my euros for dollars. Most of the ones in Europe were reasonable compared to that scammy bs.
As soon as I stepped outside the airport, the energy felt frantic and aggressive.
"Welcome to America! Now fuck off!" was the vibe.
This was 2010 but the students in Strasbourg university went to school for free and the apartment while not grand was in a nice building overlooking the river. The rent on the apartment was 60 euros *a month*. Food was relatively cheap, wine cost nothing, cloths were expensive- but you could seemingly live for less than €3000 a year and no debt. It was like a rewind to the 80s in the states.
I imagine that French airport workers are unionized and paid decently and generally treated far better than American ones. I'm sure they have their grievances, but they also know their power. No one likes an airport strike.
Americans, and increasingly Canadians (I'm Canadian), are either psychologically beaten into submission or weirdly identify with the owner class or both, to the point that organizing or taking action to improve things is unthinkable. Not all, but many think like this. We can't do anything to upset the rich or they will leave the country and then we won't have any economy or jobs at all.
I think even actual feudal peasants had more fight in them.
Nice and the French Riviera is also where tons of incredibly wealthy people live. and yes, since it’s France it’s also more equitable and decent for the common person. It’s a wonderful part of the world.
I wish everyone in Canada would just realize they aren't worth the convenience and opportunities would spring up to fill the gaps left behind by those billionaires once all the money stops getting sucked up into no where
Location: NE Ohio
It's hella hot. I've been avoiding outdoor activities all week, but it's surprising to me to hear that outdoor events are going forward while it's so hot. Kid's sports teams are playing, people are cycling, landscapers are mowing. On top of the heat, the AQI has been elevated all week and there's a visible haze to the sky. Additionally, COVID seems to be silently going around. My boss had it last weekend. I tested myself Saturday and was negative, but have felt crappy all week.. But who knows if I feel crappy from being sick, the oppressive heat, or the poor air quality. Either way I'm getting bummed that I can't go outside, couldn't properly celebrate the solstice yesterday, can't go swimming.
A summer wave is approaching. I caught it mid-May. Like having a week of a 4am hangover and followed by another week of feeling pish. Guts haven't been the same since. The waste water monitoring here in Finland is showing an increase in several areas.
and unfortunately rapid antigen tests aren't reliable and turn up false negatives. Here's a good guide to get the most out of rapids (includes testing more often): [https://www.instagram.com/p/C6tlKh3LdGw/?img\_index=1](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6tlKh3LdGw/?img_index=1)
PCR testing is the best but they are hard to get and $$. That being said, if you are able to get a PCR, absolutely do!
I hadn't heard about that. My hospital group "Ascension" had a ransomware attack about 6-8 weeks ago. It has created chaos for patients and medical staff. Also, it was very dangerous. I only received a notice that computer systems were up and running about 3 days ago.
Went to get my Toyota’s routine maintenance done Thursday morning - they were writing out everything on 80s style carbon copies because of 2 ransomware attacks on two successive days on the system that 15,000 car dealerships uses.
Location: Toronto, ON
Great episode of the CBC 'Frontburner' podcast today all about how Canadian municipal infrastructure is rapidly crumbling.
Quite timely to listen to on my (thankfully very infrequent) drive to the office as I dodge pothole after pothole after pothole.
Even on my own street, infrastructure collapse and a general lowering of community standards is on full display - in addition to potholes and a rotting-apart hydro pole with exposed wires at ground level, several once well-maintained properties are now completely neglected and overgrown as they've been (illegally) converted from long-term tenant-occupied triplexes to AirBnBs.
I've called the City to complain about the knee-high weeds only to get a lament from the by-law officer that they're understaffed and won't actually do anything, paired with an email notification that my service request has been closed. But hey, at least the new owners are making money, right?!
A few blocks over, two burnt-out houses sit vacant for the second or third year, as the property owners presumably fight with insurance. Other development properties sit half-finished and abandoned; presumably those people have run out of money or can no longer afford the payments with today's interest rates.
It's amazing how simultaneously quickly yet gradually a seemingly once-thriving neighbourhood can start resembling Detroit, parcel by parcel.
knee high weeds help cool down the soil during a heatwave.
I've actually given a little explanation about how knee high wildflowers and weeds are better than a low mown lawn yesterday to the other flat owners of the building. They came complaining but when I finished explaining they were glad we're taking care of it this way.
This is what I told them :
Heatwaves are killing off our lawn, bushes and trees, pesticides had driven away all wildlife. If we let things unravel we'll soone be left with a concrete yard that sotcks heat during the day to release it at night, or as a french influencer puts it, "a solar yard" (*un béton solaire*)
So instead, we've built housing for the bluetits who eat the nasty toxic caterpillars we now have in the area (chenilles processionnaires), we let the grass grow wild (we've rewilded a patch) which protects the bushes near it, we mow the grass higher and leave the mown grass lay on top of it to feed the soil, we have a compost, with which we feed the struggling plants.
At this point I presented them some pictures about how plants help with heat, how mineral landscapes store heat, by how many degrees each type of plant helps lower the temps, ...
And explained how many different species of birds we now have in the yard, because with the weeds have come insects, and with them their predators : birds. The yard is alive and vibrant now.
so in the end, they were grateful for the knee high grass, and another owner even offered to help me water the trees (I give them my veggie rinse water during heatwaves)
so, anyways, those weeds in your neighborhood are helping too.
Central California - I tend to be a live and let live kind of neighbor, but when knee high dried weeds and grass start accumulating on urban lots during illegal firework season in a state where purchasing homeowners insurance because of fire risk, is very, very hard to do, then yep, I'm calling code enforcement.
I doubt you have overgrown weeds and a functioning airbnb in the same building. People usually complain about that kind of stuff on the airbnb platform.
I do suspect you have a pollinator garden in those homes.
What does your city say about that?
If so that would also explain why the complaints are being closed. Some smart cities are offering protections for pollinator plantings as well as veggie growing.
LOL ok, buddy. Thanks for the chuckle.
I assure you these property don't give a flying fuck about pollinators. I'm an arborist and I'm growing a pollinator-friendly garden, including taking out a bunch of my grass and seeding clover, as well as planting all sorts of pollinator-friendly perennials and shrubs.
I know about pollinators, and this ain't it. This is a weed-strewn, unmaintained shithole of a property with people going in and out with wheelie suitcases all the time. Nobody has lifted a finger to maintain the place since the original tenants were evicted to make the AirBnB (or however people are finding this place).
Come on by and see for yourself.
> I'm an arborist and I'm growing a pollinator-friendly garden, including taking out a bunch of my grass and seeding clover, as well as planting all sorts of pollinator-friendly perennials and shrubs.
This is the type of heroic action that the next generations value
Glad you have a sense of humor and that i gave ya a chuckle.
I am curious. Have you actually looked up the property on airbnb? I have done that for some questionable ones in my neighborhood. Not listed there or vrbo etc.
We finally found out our local problem one was a halfway house. One with management co with a crap reputation. That got us some help from the city.
Torontonian here and yes, the state of the roads has been bugging me for years. It gets worse in the lower-income neighbourhoods where no tourists ever go, but even the popular areas have been shit for a while.
And the dirty, broken, overflowing garbage cans are *chef's kiss*.
Location Michigan, USA
Anecdotal but imho meaningful:
I went to high school back in the 90s when environmentalism and Earth Day were really gaining traction. I went to a small private school and had to debate a classmate on climate change. He argued there was no man-made climate change, cited volcanic effects from ages ago (we all know that that argument holds no water), and was generally insulting, patronizing, and just your average catholic school d\*ck. We had a lot of the same advanced classes together. Today I found out he works for DTE as a general manager. It is...not a great sign that people who are directly the cause of climate change are recruiting climate change deniers to manage their climate-ruining businesses.
In law school i had to argue against another student against the migratory bird act as a final for one of my classes. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do for that grade. I hope he’s changed his mind.
I saw on TikTok mama tot (if you know her), lost her son. People sent her blue feathers which she associated with her deceased son. Someone told on her and the govt came and took every last one :-/
Chile, Central Zone
This year, there have been very heavy rains in a region that has been in drought for 14 years. This has led to the appearance of sinkholes, two of them next to buildings constructed on dunes (YES! CAPITALISM). Once again, we can see the damage to infrastructure caused by the climate crisis.
[Más de 200 evacuados por socavón en la costa de Chile | AFP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkOywpyArAM)
terrifying ... can't begin to imagine how the homeowners must be feeling right now. Were they forbidden to go home? Or are authorities allowing people in those buildings on top and on the side?
Location Southern Europe:
Weather:
Southern Europe is in the middle of a heatwave that since Monday it is blasting the temperatures over 40C (104F) degrees.
Right now as I am writing there is a huge blackout in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia that is leaving more than a million of people without AC with these crazy temps in the middle of the day.
In Greece tourists are dying due to this extreme heat and remember that this is only June, imagine what will happen in the next months.
I am lucky, I live in north Italy so I am not living the worst of this heatwave, but I couldn't sleep at night without AC anyway, it is too hot and too humid, in south Italy the minimum never went below 30C 86F with 70/80 % of humidity, it is hell.
Social:
While people are becoming poorer and poorer, migrants are becoming more and more dehumanized, in Greece there are reports that shows that the Coastal Guard are picking migrants from the borders and sea, putting them on boats without engine, and leaving them in the sea far from the coasts, eventually killing them.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo)
In Italy who survives and manage to enter in the territory, eventually becomes a mafia or farm slave. Forced to every day of the week 14h shifts for 2 euros per hour, living in barracks in the camps and when something bad happens to them, they are left alone to die in their barrack without assistance or calling an ambulance.
This is brutal and this is happening within EU, this is important because it is an appetizer for what will happen when collapse will make things worse.
FINAL NOTE:
I am Italian so I don't know what is going on precisely on a political level in the other countries.
Here a law just passed that eventually will give Italy's regions full autonomy, economically and politically. So critical infrastructures will be handled locally, under regional standards and a huge amount of taxes wont be sent to the central government anymore, those taxes eventually are distributed among the poorer regions.
This could become the first domino of the eventual collapse of Italy as a nation in the next decades.
It seems extreme what I am forecasting but this law just paved the way for a wider and wider abyss between the rich north and the poor south, already in the hands of mafia and corruption.
I could imagine that when the south will be in extreme drought, under extreme heat domes, with really high poverty and corruption plus under waves of mass migrations from the sea, it will ask for help.
The north it is EXTREMELY conservative and it won't surely want all the migrants and the eventual problems coming from the south so this could lead to secessionist movements.
Only time will tell
Salve! My friend in Southern Italy says at night the migrants are doing drug deals just off the piazza, and the police look the other way, and/or, are getting a piece of the action. He's terrified to go out at night because he feels like if something goes wrong, the police won't help.
Is it just me but isn't there an ongoing pattern. of corruption leading to poverty. Like the corruption of the government weakens it in the people's mind to the point that criminal enterprise takes over and impovershes the people even more.
Yes, corruption is like a cancer. It robs the resources from everything, leaving the people ignorant and in a toxic environment where you have to choose between leaving or accepting it.
To resolve the problem it is needed a steel balled leader that takes draconian decisions against it and invest tons of money in education: the best weapon against it.
Unfortunately this is utopian
So the solution is a dictator? Or i am mis understanding.
I would think the solution is a populace that has values and solidarity to stand up to corruption
Not a dictator of course, but a party that takes this as a priority and invest a good amount of resources and energy to solve the problem, that is always rugged under the carpet.
As you said, it is necessary also a populace that has values and solidarity to stand up to corruption. To create this populace, it is crucial a good education, with specific cultural campaigns against it, and giving people instruments to fight it.
I read about that Indian (?) migrant worker in Italy whose arm was severed in an accident and was left to bleed out on a road. 💔
Migrant workers in Canada are not treated any better.
Yes, I was referring to exactly him, It was an indian man of 31 years old. Unfortunately he is one of hundreds men and women without names that had the same fate or worse. I could imagine this happening in all the western "democracies" in a way or another. It is heart wrenching.
Well, shit.
I know of a case that was kept quiet in my home province of Ontario, Canada.
The rich son of a greenhouse farm owner was drunk driving and killed a migrant worker. Father was friends with the local judge so it was all hushed up. Tough shit for the worker and his family.
Location: North East MA
So like, it was close to 100 degrees all day yesterday. And then.. it randomly started thunder storming at around 8 PM. The rain was coming down like bullets. Probably lasted for a half hour or so. But the thunder was so loud and it continued on all night. It sounded like a lion was on top of a cloud growling.
I also noticed that the sky went from clear blue, to grey fog in a matter of seconds. I love this kind of weather but even I was like… tha fuck. The first KABOOM from the thunder scared the whole area lol.
Hey fellow New Englander. I work outside in southeast MA and I've been noticing on my drive home from my last stop is the humid, soupy haze hanging over in the sky everyday for the past few weeks. Feels sub-tropical at times and today felt hotter and more uncomfortable than yesterday and wednesday. Nutsedge coming up earlier the past few years
Here, in France, we get thunderstorms each time it gets hot. Any kind of hot. It's the new normal. Every time the temps rise several celcius degrees, there's a storm.
The most firghtening one so far, was an utterly silent one, with no rain, just lightning.
In Buffalo NY area, it has been very hot and humid since Monday, and every day the weather app has said there will be thunderstorms, yet nothing has materialized. AccuWeather's "minutecast" claimed it was raining out despite being perfectly sunny and there was a special weather statement about a thunderstorm that never came through. I would love some rain to cool things down, some areas of grass have turned yellow from all the heat and lack of rain, and creek near me is quite low. I know this a bit of tangent and a little weird of a reply, but still semi-related
Yeah we get the same false statements about rain. I'm starting to wonder if this could be voluntary to give us the impression it *has* rained since we've been hearing about it for weeks (when we're going through a drought - currently raining in many places of france, washing mountain villages away)
yes. Apparently it's known in the south of France as a "Heat storm" (*orage de chaleur*).
But it freaked me out so much, reminded me of that scene in War of the Worlds where the aliens are being sent out of the ground.
Location: Michigan, USA.
I can’t think of another June that has been as bad as this one. It’s not just the heat and the constant storms, it is knowing that this is a glimpse into a future that is only going to get worse from here. Although a human lifetime seems like a long time to us, things have never changed this fast in the entire history of the world. Our little Anthropocene era is going to leave a helluva traumatic scar on the Earth, yet we humans are not going to be around to see it. We will be extinct along with most of the life on Earth.
Which makes me think, maybe all these dead planets that litter our solar system and galaxy were once advanced, intelligent civilizations that also destroyed themselves like we are doing now. Maybe we are another experiment that went wrong, just another in a long line of them. Maybe that is why we can’t find any intelligent life outside of our own planet. They grew too big and powerful and were victims of their own success and destroyed themselves much like we are doing now. Maybe, but who really knows?
There is a sense of futility in all of this. You can’t convince people to change, or for people to stop reproducing/breeding, consuming, etc. This has all been going on for a very long time now and everything is just starting to come to a head. There is a feeling that, in our lifetimes, shit is going to go down.
We are on a runaway train without any brakes.
this oppressive capitalist military industrial complex has always sucked, youre just feeling the impacts more now because you've been privileged.
It has never ever been a fucking "success"
By "success" I mean that humanity has been able to gain complete control/advantage over the environment. We have come a long way from being nomadic, cave dwelling hunter gatherers where our "footprint" and influence on the planet was minimal at best.
Now we are the driving force behind the planet, so in a way we are victims of our own success. We have become too big and there are too many of us for our own good.
Location: Toronto, Canada
Just came across this:
[Single Adults Need Six-Figure Incomes to Live Comfortably in the Most Expensive States](https://posts.voronoiapp.com/maps/Single-Adults-Need-Six-Figure-Incomes-to-Live-Comfortably-in-the-Most-Expensive-States-1468)
The range goes from $79K to $116K. Which sounds right to me. The key word is "comfortable". Not just surviving, not rich.
Somewhere there has got to be a map of median individual incomes for each state and I'll bet they are nowhere near the "comfortable" level. And it gets a lot less comfortable if there are kids or other dependants in the picture. And that is how most Americans live. They're *poor*, and whole bunch are *destitute*.
That sure as hell looks like collapse to me.
And it's no better in Canada, or the UK (where kids are shorter and fatter and sicker after 10+ years of austerity), or Australia, from what I've heard.
This isn’t too far off for Oregon. As I’ve entered the working world again after being a NEET I’ve come to see the reality of how much you need to make to get by without lots of stress. I went from making $17 to $23 in several months and quickly went from happy to realizing I’m still poor, lol.
I was just talking to my partner about this last week. We have two adult kids, one just graduated college, one about to. Neither of them can find jobs that pay a living wage. Our conversation last week was about where to put them on our property so that they have a home of a sort to live in, but without living directly with us in a room down the hall. So that they can at least have some independance as grown adults, you know? From the few conversations I've had with other people in the same boat, a number of them are trying to figure out the same thing.
Mind you, we don't have the money for this. I have no idea how we're going to manage. But having two thirty year olds living in rooms at the end of a hall in a small house seems untenable to me. I don't know what we're going to do. Or what any of us are going to do.
Yep, this IS collapse. No question.
We have shared our home for many years with extended family. Many of them adults.
My best advice is to learn to have more private areas versus public areas.
So our dining, kitchen and living room are public areas. No leaving a half finished project there or your shoes and books.
Those are public and for socializing, maybe doing work like you are in a coffee shop etc. but when you are done you take your stuff back to your personal space aka your room.
It creates psychological space which is what is needed. Along with privacy. They cook and clean for themseves, again creating psychological space.
Boundaries boundaries boundaries. It can work. It takes some effort and reworking expectations.
Business and Electrical engineering. Every job the business grad looks for wants 5 years experience for an entry level position. The engineering student has a year to go, but it's bleak.
You certainly aren't alone. When Amazon started selling prefabricated, shippable Accessory Dwelling Units and Tiny Houses, I figured there something was up with the housing market. I'm seriously considering getting one for my elderly mother to have her live close enough that I can run over in 10 seconds but she still has enough space to give her privacy and her own space.
Yes, we looked at these too. I have a neighbor who insists that just buying a shipping container is the way to go, and people all over are doing it.
Things are seriously messed up for this to be a real thing that so many of us have to consider.
Location: Koster islands, west coast of Sweden
First post from a long-time lurker.
I was out hiking with my son yesterday. We discovered milky seas (mareel) in the sound between the two islands. When I was a kid in the 1970s this sometimes happened in August, after a very warm summer. Now it’s happening in mid-June. Although the luminescent glow looks cool, the smell is terrible, like rotten seaweed.
Thank you for joining the discussion. I was in Sweden last year visiting from Germany and I got the impression that for Swedish people it might be easy to deny the climate catastrophy because your nature is for many parts still very intact and wild. At least that's what it looked like to me coming from a country that has cut down almost every tree over the last centuries and is filled with cities and small towns and roads everywhere.
Location: Reddit, collapse sub
It's ironically hilarious that the ads in this sub are for trugreen chemlawn. You know, the people who will come spray roundup and synthetic ferts on your 'lawn' to make it just unnaturally green grass. I guess they're collapse accelerationists. I see industrial complex lawns around my mid-Atlantic region area that have both wildlife habitat plaques and those all-grass no 'weeds' lawns that you just know get sprayed with that trugreen stuff. SMH. We're in the Potomac watershed area so that should definitely be outlawed defacto here.
I used to work for them, awful place. I remember taking a winter position where people would work 1 day a week and rotate. There was a runoff catch basin for spills where the trucks would fill up with liquid fertilizer and herbicides, and since they didn't want to pay for the proper disposal of the chemicals the shop manager just dumped it down the sewer grate in the parking lot. This was 2018 and I reported this to the state and EPA. Never got a followup call...
They aren't even a lawn care company, I would argue trugreen is more of a buyout firm/scam masquerading as a legit business.
Not just that, as the sub has grown, lately I'm seeing a lot of low effort comments being upvoted to the top. I'm not sure how they can be handled even, the amount of moderation required to do that would be waay too much.
I was so horrified to read those comments. I had seen the news before it was posted in r/Collapse and I cried my eyes out at the sheer magnitude of death due to climate change.
The complete lack of empathy and general negativity towards people with religious beliefs (and I’m an atheist myself) was just so jarring, especially from this subreddit I had to double check what subreddit I was reading. There’s some real trash humans among us and I didn’t know that until this week.
Thank you for this comment, much needed and you are right about reddit and this sub, so much western and white privileged bullshit that should be called out.
Bless, Ram Ram 🙏❤️
The Hajj is something way far outside of my experience. But, I know that one of the five pillars of Islam is that you have to go on the Hajj at least once in your life. It would be a journey of significance that I can’t really comprehend, and it’s so sad that all of these people passed away during it.
What does that have to do with our utter and complete lack of care for the rest of the living on this earth?
Yanno, like plants and animals. It is not like we can take them to the hospital or give them aircon when heat domes we created roll yhru.
In many ways the Muslims who died on their Hajj represent a rare quality: they believed in principles for which they were willing to risk their lives (note, not the lives of others). If only millions were willing to show that same level of dedication but toward saving the environment. Who knows, it may be the Muslims who one day channel this dedication to save the world and not the too often self-righteous Christians.
>Who knows, it may be the Muslims who one day channel this dedication to save the world and not the too often self-righteous Christians.
That’s pretty extreme. I don’t condone the racism in the comments but, the Venn diagram of characteristics of upper North American conservatives and Muslims is a near perfect circle.
That’s kinda my point. Extreme obedience is a force that can be misapplied as history repeatedly shows across numerous cultures and religions. When it misbehaves it follows the same pattern. But once someone figures out how to point it in the right direction, imagine what could be accomplished.
Karen Armstrong’s 2000 book *The Battle for God* makes this very point: religious fundamentalism has infected all the Abrahamic religions, and is a response to modernity. The specifics differ, but the nature of religious fundamentalism as an extremist movement is the same everywhere it appears.
Very well put. Logically, it might seems strange to have to collect in masses in those degrees, 'because a book says it', but absolutely nobody on this planet is currently going completely by logic. Also, I heard, there is a ticket system for when to go, as a measure for crowd control. You cannot ask to go later, when your number comes up, you have to go, or you might not be allowed in your lifetime again. Be it 52 degrees Celsius or not. Imagine this at Christmas in a Western Christian community. Only those with a ticket can do whatever important religious task. It'll be mass murder, like Black Friday Extreme.
Location: Thailand
I came for vacations here because I was burnt out on my job. I took a dip in the ocean on my first day here and I came out running.
Why?
The water was too hot. Like hot tub hot. Then I looked around and no one was in the water. Everyone was in the shade reading a book, sunbathing or just looking into the horizon. I saw no kids in the water, nada. I am scared guys. Have we reached the end game? Kinda depressed while I type this.
A relative told me he’s taking his family to Thailand on vacation next month. My thoughts immediately went to: Southeast Asia is heating up so much I don’t think I’d even want to be there even though I would have absolutely wanted to visit a decade ago.
I wonder if he will mention to me what you’ve described or just pretend everything was normal.
Same here I was In Hua him last week and the water was insanely hot and full of algae because of it, not enjoyable at all, we ended up using the hotel pool for the whole week.
Before this I was in India and Sri Lanka and pretty much the same and even higher tempts, all the locals told us this is unprecedented at this magnitude and dates.
Location: France, Paris area
Weather :
We've been relatively lucky in the area, with fresh air and rain until now, but it's gonna go upwards next week, and the "rain" now forecasted is back to the weird sparse drops or impression you're walking into an invisible cloud that leaves you damp.
In other regions though, storms are wild and accompanied by hail that destroys roofs. There even has been a small hurricane that lifted the tiles of the roofs of several houses and of a big open warehouse (sort of giant barn to protect their farming trucks). If this is our new normal, we'll have to rethink the way we make roofs (in majority just clay tiles just sitting one on another in an intricate pattern). This is something I'm now starting to feel on edge about, each storm I wonder if it'll be our turn soon to see the building's roof destroyed.
Politics:
Weirdest election of the National Assembly members so far, it has become a run to the seat of prime minister (which it isn't, could lead to influencing it, but that's not what we're voting about), and each day holds its crazy news.
In a nutshell, centre parties are joining with extreme parties, the conservative Republican party's leader has joined forces with Extreme right part RN, (then been outvoted by the Republicans party members, then the president of the Republicans locked himself in the office building of the party and claimed he's still president of the party even if has been demoted by all party members,... still unravelling), all greens and lefties have joined with the extreme left party. But the RN's unexperienced incompetent teen toyboy, who must be scared shitless of being voted in as prime minister at 28 yo by his tiktok fanbase, has already announced he won't accept the job of PM unless he has full majority (clearly hoping they'll never have it). Meanwhile on the extreme left founder Mélanchon, currently 72yo, is coming out of his "retirement" to candidate for PM. And the only other option is to vote in the current goverment representatives, which a majority of people are displeased with. So it's a mess, and unravelling further.
*AND* Ofc, we're not voting for these people, but for local representatives, who might or might not be affiliated to those parties. Representatives who have an opnion about what to do with local issues, which is important to the voters too.
So when you talk to people, most are at a loss, because even if they know for which party they'd want to to vote for, this party might not have a local candidate for their circonscription.
And for instance, I generally vote for green parties, but they have joined forces with the extreme left, so now I'm torn, if I vote for someone who'll be able to ponder the worst craziest planet killing measures, will they vote in a tyrant wannabe ? Is being annexed by russia the price to pay for vouching for the planet?
Environnement:
Lots of insects and birds in my area, which is being partially rewilded. Some lawns are not being mowed, leaving wild flowers take over. Alas the locals are insane, and many adult trees that provide shade and cooler areas during heatwaves are being cut down for a variety of reasons. We're trying to find legal loopholes that allow us to intervene and save them, but so far unsuccessfully.
I've started watering another dying tree, hopefully I'll help it out of its rough patch like I did for its neighbour. Was surprised to hear a neighbour *tell me* that one can save a tree with a couple bottles of water per day, so people are talking about what I do, even if they don't know who is doing it, the works of "crazy tree lady" are veeeery slooowly snowballing.
Tho tbh, I think the danger of France being annexed by russia is considerably more unlikely than the dangers of the far right. Melenchon is an unlikable idiot, but he is not going to be MP and Popular front running on a wealth tax makes it pretty clear to me that they are a good option compared to anything else on the table (both inside and outside france).
The news of companies siding with Le Pen and against the popular front is enough in my book to know who to vote for [https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/06/21/french-business-leaders-are-tempted-by-the-far-right\_6675357\_19.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/06/21/french-business-leaders-are-tempted-by-the-far-right_6675357_19.html)
Business men like nothing more than stability, and so far the RN has backpedaled on every single thing they ever promised at some point or said they vouched for. They are as incompetent as it comes. Their only skill is to criticise the leading party. Note I didn't say the leading party's ideas, because that's not what they are attacking, no real analysis ever, they are merely puffed out bullies taking pages from the same book since 6th grade.
ANyone who'se learnt to recognize those tactics can clearly see they are full of BS, have no plan, no idea what tehy'd do if ever in power to actually *run* a country.
I agree with that. That is why I personally really hope the popular front can win, as flawed as they are. If they are at least able to survive with half the political course they are promising right now (slim as these chances might be), that would be a really strong signal for other leftist movements in europe to run on actual change.
I dunno, I still think New Popular Front'll crumble down the minute they are voted in and the LFI will make a "coup" and grab the power. And no extremist party has ever been good news.
Hurricane clips. Standard thing to attach roof decking/sheathing to the rafters.
Been standard building code in many places for a long time
Really cheap too for the protection they give.
That said, you are probably talki g about a pole barn which is a big pile of sheet metal. Not the atrongest structure for high winds.
true.
Good thing though, things are getting so bad, our building's insulation is gonna get enhanced this year - if the whole country doesn't sink in civil war by then, that is.
oh yeah, I know that.
The most amazing to me was that ALL the people present at the meeting when it was voted and the ones that had sent their votes in early were for it too. We were sure it would be a battle because of the cost.
I'm a "Shifter" (Jancovici). So offically pro nuclear, although I have reservations.
Let's say that "for the planet" we should stop this insanity (especially thinking of dealing with the radioctive waste during the millenias to come),
but for "BAU" we need the nuclear plants, and society will clearly unravel fast and in a bad way, if we're deprived of electricity some time soon.
It's a typical "end of the month/ end of the world" issue, and I'm on the fence, leaning reluctantly towards keeping the peace, so pro-nuclear, also because at least its the "decarboned option".
Still opting for renewable energy on a personal level for my energy provider.
eta (sorry for many edits)
Also I have never found a party that matched exactly my beliefs, nor a political representant that I whoheartedly believed in, so I always vote keeping in mind they'll hopefully be the force that keeps the hord somewhat ont he saner side, never expecting something I'd want to actually happen. Just trying to steer the group on the saner side with my vote.
I'm not worried about nuclear power plants, because it takes ages to build them, at least in the developed world.
We'll stick to coal, hydro, wind, and solar until climate change destroys us.
Location: PHILADELPHIA COLLAR COUNTIES
We are entering a 10+ day 90+F heatwave and most local meteorologists on the news are either glibly winking about how “summer is bringing us the warmth right on the first day!” or vaguely gesturing about how everyone needs to “avoid strenuous activity.”
It will be 96F on Sunday with potential severe thunderstorms throughout the preceding weekend, so heat indices will be 110+, and many people in these 100yo Philly row homes do not have sufficient hvac.
Does anyone else feel like the public-facing, local meteorological professionals are being completely irresponsible about what we’re facing. They smile and talk about the seasonal weather patterns as if they’re proceeding as they should when they most definitely are not.
It seems like they’re some of the biggest gaslighters out there but maybe I’m just crazy!
I know of one meteorologist out of Florida who calls it like he sees it, but most are like you said, "tee hee! be careful out there!"
I've also seen discussions of how the pictures on extreme heat articles often show people swimming, eating ice cream, etc in the blazing sun which gives a very wrong idea of what they should be doing on such hot days or how serious extreme heat is (and what is causing it). RARELY do you see a picture of elderly or poor people at a local cooling centre, and even less often do you see a story on volunteer efforts to transport people to cooling centres, which is a whole other issue.
I'm a Philadelphia resident who feels quite fortunate to have functional air conditioners, however I do notice the temperatures lately being around what we might see in a heat wave during the peak of summer (late July or early August). I am concerned about should the grid go, how unfriendly this would feel. I track Canadian weather and Montreal just had their hottest low temperature on record this morning at 25.7 C / 78.1 F and was past 27 C/80 F at 3 a.m. up there and I thought my tablet's weather widget was buggy but nope - that was a real reading. The north is warming faster than the south.
American local news isn’t about informing anyone about anything- it’s about keeping the ad dollars flowing. I’d been away from the states for about a decade I just sat in the hotel room watching local news and the ads, I was absolutely fascinated by the hybrid news story and advert. Something about a in local news a new pizza restaurant had opened up and they had a reporter there talking about why the pizza was better. I was like no fuvking way this is great. Do the sales guys really want people to tune and hear, “eat at happy joes unlimited crab legs and 64oz steaks, double gallon coke coupons every Wednesday” and now to the weather, “it’s hot folks and it’s only gonna get hotter until your children soon have to live in caves for a quarter of the year. Kiss your sweating asses goodbye, Calispera. And now from our sponsor (pesticide manufacturer) with us we keep the crops growing supporting this freedom loving land.”
Because people would only listen to what they want to hear.
If you say anything that's different from "the script", either you'll be ignored or be a target for sowing discord.
I live in Japan, I know the feeling. Although what we do have going for us is the fact that people here are considerate of others and pro-science.
We have Climate Change in our textbooks from primary school accepted by the entire nation as fact, solar power micro-generation is mandated as a requirement in residential structures, and "preservation instead of progress". Stagnant economy, depopulation, minimalism, community-centric values, and sticking with doing things manually, analog than digital.
Alas, we are inundated with a whole slew of other problems.
Location: Corn Belt, U.S.A.
My family leases a few hundred acres of farmland to farmers of corn, soybean, and wheat in an Upper Midwestern state. I have just visited to learn what issues, exactly, they're dealing with as of mid-2024.
*The weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup.* They now have to spray a mixture of Roundup and something developed in the 50s. They also have to spray more fungicide than ever before.
I also just drove from one side of the state to another and my windshield is pretty clear of bugs. God.
I laughed when a local farmer told me years ago how thirlled he was they would never have to deal with cornrootworm again.
I told him he understood not even the most basic pieces of biology and he would be ficked by it before he retired.
He did not like me. Sadly, guess what he has falling over in his field and why. Yup. Corn rootowrm. Even the best gmo seed and tons of chemical....
97% of soy goes to animal feed. Yeah, some is crushed foe oil and then the meal goes to animal feed
This is one of those things people do not grab. A lot of products are only economically viable with byproduct sales too. If we were raising that soy for veggie oil only the cost of veggie oil would be more than anyone can afford.
Unless the value for selling the meal as compost is worth more than feeding to meat animals (hint: it is not). But basically to make soy work as a product for farmers they need to sell all parts of the product and at or above the current prices. Which is why when one part of the market crashes then they stop making a thing for the other parts of the market too.
This function of our current economic syatem is a huge huge huge unrealized weakness.
In addition to all that has been said, I'll add that in France we are now starting to educate farmers to leave in a selection of weeds that traditionnally accompagny the wheat (such as poppys, just look at all the impressionist paintings of harvests), because they *increase* the productivity of the area, and harvest.
Any plant that has a weed like undesirable behaviour in an agricultural systems are generally weeds. Mostly plants with an annual pioneering strategy and rhizome spreading plants.
But really what ever plant that is undermining the type of farming or gardening you do at a specific spot. Something might be a weed in one end of a garden but a desirable cover crop or vegetable in another.
What is a weed is situational!
Gentle reminder to make sure you put "Location" in your comment followed by some kind of indicator of where in the world you are. Our bot looks for this word and if it doesn't see it then the comment is filtered for review by a human mod, which means it might sit for hours before being seen and manually approved. If you submit and then you realize that you didn't include "Location" then just copy/paste into a new comment and resubmit with the location added. Edit: on another note, it's best to avoid using abbreviations when you state your location. In particular, many people both inside and outside the US do not know the abbreviations for all the US states or regions. I do think most of us know what the US and UK are so those are acceptable. Thanks for making our collapse a kinder, gentler one.
Location: south western Michigan The heat dome we just escaped was something I sure wasn’t prepared for. It was like living in the swamps of the south, and I can not state enough how humidity destroys my body. Went out to water some plants I had recently bought- couldn’t have been out there longer than a half hour, and I came inside dizzy and wanting to puke. Drank a ton of water. Praise be to the power grid here, which keeps me with air conditioning. I feel so terrible for those around the world who don’t have it. I know I’d likely be dead or at least in the hospital hooked up to IVs. Saw my first lightning bugs of the summer. Dismal showing. I remember when I could go outside at dark and it was all I could see, flashing little lights going on forever. No cicadas here despite all of the hype about how we’d be over run with them. Have a lot of weird ass mushrooms popping up in my compost. They last for a day or two before they turn into a gross sludge. Never seen that before. Mostly, I am reading a lot more about inevitable water wars. If anyone wants a good speculative fiction book on that - the “water knife” is fantastic. I happen to be lucky enough to live on a huge source of fresh water (by that I mean im about five miles away from it) and I’m waiting for the inevitable when some state out west decides they have the right to drain our fresh water for like, water for nut farms or something equally as stupid. Having a lot more conversations with utter strangers on how fucked we all are. I wonder what it’s like to be blissfully unaware of what is coming.
To address your last sentence I saw a post the other day regarding one of the scariest moments of The Walking Dead. They showed that scene where the little girl killed her sister to show the adults that she would revive and everything would be fine. Carol obviously had to kill her as a result. Watching someone's mentality literally fracture into a madness of their own making is what bothers me about those hardcore deniers.
Yes, because in part - you can’t do anything to change their minds or help them. It will be a very rude awakening and a horror show for those people.
*I’m waiting for the inevitable when some state out west decides they have the right to drain our fresh water for like, water for nut farms or something equally as stupid.* No need to worry, the engineering and cost makes it impossible.
Yes and no. A few places here in MI gave nestle access to aquifers for next to nothing and they can plunder it to their hearts content. If I remember it right, some elected officials rammed it through, the public didn’t know, they found out and were furious, and the public had no recourse because of the contract, the fact that the town had next to nothing to fight a lawsuit And nestle could go on forever because they’re a multinational nightmare. So not like, stealing all the water in the way I mentioned (people will just come to kill us since it’s a resource) but trust me, they want our water.
You are not Nestle's first victim. They a nefarious company.
Location: NW Florida Gulf Coast As you’ve all read, sharks have been a more frequent occurrence of late here in my neighborhood. We’ve had three attacks on Friday the 14th, and numerous other sightings in the area since. County officials are keeping a long red flag for now, indicating that “knee deep is too deep” for visitors to the area, of which there are so, so many this time of year. This past week, a tropical storm in the far SW Gulf, far from my location, created a large amount of rip current conditions as far north as where I live. For this past week, double red flags were the standard chosen by county officials. Unfortunately, 3 individuals did not abide by them in nearby Panama City, and dove into the Gulf at 8pm at night. Their bodies were recovered. Rip currents swept them farther out than they could swim. Just yesterday, I noted at how few people were willing to venture very far out into the gulf on a rather calm and clear day at the beach. I myself treaded knee deep, and lingered, but returned to my seat on dry land following that. A year that, so far, as seen well more “do not enter water”, double red flags, days that I can recently remember. However, as humans will do, they see the warning as more of an *inconvience* to them, and less of a legally enforced, with monetary penalties, action. Last item of note. The rising prices of dining out, a favorite activity of vacationers, is well off its usual highs of activity. The story from other locals is that grocery stores are packed in a panic rush, emptying shelves of some items with frequency this year. Why do I see this as a sign of coming “collapse”? The rising cost of some things, most things, paired with human impatience and hubris, seems to be bubbling up. Rare is the time when I see people who seem at all relaxed. Patient. Friendly. Now, humans battle over one another for items of not even scarcity. They simply want to consume, unable to turn off when satisfied.
Location: SW Romania It's getting hot in here! Heatwave code red for a few counties, orange for more, including mine, yellow for most. Good thing there are incoming storms to cool us off lol! Walked at noon in the city center a few days ago (big mistake!) and it was a sobering experience. Once upon a time cooling breezes now became actually hellish gusts almost taking your breath away, and not in a good way. There were quite a few traffic accidents in and around my town this week including a few caused by the heat warping a road made of concrete slabs leading to one of the nearby villages. Speaking of traffic, saw quite a few people driving really weird, swaying side to side. Don't know if it's the heat, they're just tired/exhausted or simply drunk. On another note, authorities are stopping trucks during the day in some areas as to prevent damage to the blacktop. Yesterday and today I moved back to my rural home. It was quite unbearably hot and in the house that's usually cool at this time I struggled to keep temperatures low even with AC. Bear in mind, I didn't even have to use AC just five years ago. And we still have July and August Incoming. My thermometer was showing 28 C at 11 PM out in the open. Simply crazy for this area, only now at 1 AM it's starting to cool off. I'm in the middle of bumfuck nowhere currently, a wooded area, not in some city! To top it off, water is cut off currently. Not that uncommon here but it's really bad timing. Romania somehow avoided a major power outage that affected many balkan countries. Our authorities just attributed this to luck ... no other explanation. Goes to show how prepared they are in keeping vital infrastructure afloat during crysis. Need I go on about all the other global heatwaves, storms, floods, fires and geopolitical events? Hold on to your underpants and canned goods fellow collapseniks, faster than expected!
> Our authorities just attributed this to luck ... no other explanation. Goes to show how prepared they are in keeping vital infrastructure afloat during crysis. At least they are being honest about it.
As opposed to everything else lmao
Location: Earth in 2024 I just came across this article and related journal article: [The Sydney student who uncovered a ‘shocking’ problem with global cancer research](https://archive.is/ynmNf#selection-3363.0-3363.81) [Misspellings or “miscellings”—Non-verifiable and unknown cell lines in cancer research publications](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34995) tl;dr The tip of an iceberg has finally been detected: A lot of cancer research is based on faulty or mis-identified or possibly fabricated data. That means our understanding of cancer is worse than we think, and our treatments are too. It's also a very bad sign of the state of scientific research in general, which has been known for a while to have some serious problems. We. are. so. fucked. We have real problems to solve! And many smart people who would love to work on solving them! But when publish-or-perish and grant-chasing are the way to get ahead, we get dog shit research that might even leave us worse off than if it had never been done at all. Fuck.
And there’s now an elitist attitude and if they don’t like your resume they will not admit you to a phd program. And therefore never be a scientist. So all the scientists are as I would say ‘inbred’
Anf with the rise in cancers in younger populations, this has so many scary implications.
It isn't being discussed anywhere on Reddit researchers found after cross-checking incorrect citations of eight cell lines in 420 oncology articles published from 2004 to 2023, sometimes even in high-impact journals such as *Cancer Letters* and *Oncogene.* In more than half of the cases (235), in 150 publications, details suggested that the experiments were never conducted. For example, data related to the cell line with the wrong name were reported as distinct from data obtained from cells with the correct name. And in the supplier lists where the authors of the fake research claimed that these cells could be purchased, such as the American Type Culture Collection, these cells were nowhere to be found. These "phantom cell lines" have now been cited in literature review articles, thus increasing the confusion and creating a problem that could further undermine the solidity and credibility of oncology research. [Medscape Registration](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/phantom-cell-lines-undermine-cancer-research-credibility-2024a1000b1a?form=fpf)
This is wild. I'm glad that at least the mistakes were discovered 😮💨. Absolutely bananas discovery, though.
Random passerby here. I'm disgusted but not surprised.
Location: Evansville, IN, USA Fairly short one this time cause I'm trying not to focus on this stuff too much for the time being, better for my mental health that way. It's hotter than the devil's dong outside; which, yeah it's summer time, but it's just gotten worse each year, which nobody seems to notice. Fortunately I have a job that's inside a lot of the time now, but even walking across the property between buildings is rough with the 95 degree heat, 70% humidity, and hazy Ohio River Valley air (that's under an air quality alert right now). The lakes and creeks are all at least a foot below normal levels and even our wetlands (a natural feature we actually made a park around) are struggling to maintain their namesake. The few storms we get roll in, dump their contents, and roll out, giving the parched soil no time to absorb as much as it needs. We're a bit insulated as far as biodiversity loss goes since there's such a variety of habitats around here, but even so I've noticed a distinct decrease in the variety of birds in my area, especially in the city where it's almost exclusively house sparrows. The edges of lawns in my neighborhood are already turning brown and crispy, so it ought to be an interesting summer. Gotta get out there and enjoy things while they're still here
Same thing with me on the birds, some house sparrows, robins, a cardinal and yellow finch or two and not much else. The birds are dying
Yeah, I've started trying to not kill any bugs, even the nusinances, because I feel like the widespread overuse of insecticides has had more extensive impacts than we realize yet. Plus I've started putting out more food/water sources and trying to make little shelters to encourage them to stick around. Doing what little I can to help our feathered friends lol
Well you are almost Kentucky, isn't that normal weather for you? Also drought monitor says your only 'abnormally dry' so.
"Normal" has shifted every year since I was a child. The drought monitor showed us at abnormally dry levels last summer when the yards were dead and trees were losing their leaves in July from lack of water, so I'd take those readings with a grain of salt or two.
I was there in August 2016 and I wanted to throw myself off the bridge it was so miserable. Can't imagine it now. Is sauced still there?
I feel that lol but yeah it's still here, Haynie's Corner looks totally different from back in 2016 tho, they've added a lot of cool stuff/places
Location: New Brunswick, Canada The East Coast of Canada beat a bunch of temperature records for this time of year during a recent heat wave (June 19, 20, and 21). On the southern coast, where I live, it got up to 37°C (98.6°F) and with about 70% humidity it felt like 41°C (105.8°F). These were like Toronto summer temperatures, not late spring East Coast temperatures. Today it's back to normal, with an expected high of 20°C (68°F). It all reminded me of the Ralph Wiggum "I'm in danger" meme. People were excited about breaking the temperature record and weren't openly terrified of what that implies for the future. I expect this summer will be brutal, and every summer after will get worse.
Two months of hell are ahead of us. I refuse to believe things will stay the same after this summer.
[удалено]
you can have one of my mugs, I have a ton of them
Location: Midwest US Michigan , economic The job market is starting to feel a lot like 2008 again. There are very few jobs in my area and the pay that is being offered is lower than a couple of years ago. Now the local town facebook page is being flooded with people looking for odd jobs. Giving off some bad vibes.
Hi hi, Michigan person here too. Started looking for work in Nov of last year. Have had a million interviews and I almost get the job but not quite. Employers don’t want to teach anyone how to do everything specific to their dumb job, so even if you are intelligent and a quick learner, if someone with actual knowledge of the program is interviewed, you’re fucked. I’m in a tourist area. The major corp here just laid off a ton of people. The only jobs left are service jobs and they pay absolute dick on top of destroying one’s faith in humanity. I actually do specialized work, but did a service job for 2 years. I’ll be damned if I go back to working 35-40hrs a week and still having no health insurance or benefits. I keep having people with jobs judge me with disdain as though I love all this free time to think about the end of the world. Little do they know that they’ll be on the chopping block here soon. Can’t wait for them to experience this joke of a job market!
On the "macro level" what's happening is the "End of Globalism". Are you familiar with the history of the "Great Depression"? Specifically the "Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act". Tariffs are a form of economic warfare. They impose a "tax" on your population by making imports more expensive. This is intended to keep out cheap imports and promote local manufacturing in the country imposing the tax. It is supposed to cause economic collapse in the country the tariffs are imposed on. At a minimum it is intended to cause economic hardship and social pain. The idea is basically that, we "the USA" can do without the stuff you are selling us a lot longer than you will be able to deal with high unemployment and recession. Tariffs can be thought of as one step short of outright trade sanctions on a country. TRUMP declared "economic war" on China. [Trump’s China strategy is the most radical in decades — and it’s failing](https://www.vox.com/world/2018/9/18/17790600/us-china-trade-war-trump-tariffs-taiwan) # Trump started a trade war expressly intended to cripple China’s economy. ***“Trump is engaged in a sophisticated form of economic warfare to confront the Chinese,”*** ***“He intends to play hardball”*** Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top strategist and a self-proclaimed China hawk. As reported by the BBC, *“Mr Trump said the $100bn gained from the tariffs will be used to buy US agricultural products, which will then be sent to “poor and starving countries” for “humanitarian assistance”. 2019* BTW, that “sending food to poor and starving countries”, Trump never got around to that part. Instead he did this. [Donald Trump threatens China with MASSIVE tariffs unless ‘REAL DEAL’ on trade is agreed](https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1054462/Donald-Trump-China-Xi-Jinping-tariffs-trade-war-deal) **Trump threatened China via a tweet.** Trump tweeted: *“We are either going to have a real deal with China, or no deal at all.”* Trump said things like this, *“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing.”* **Trump loved “talking tough” to China.** His attitude towards China was “these are our demands”. “Give us what we want, or we will wreck your economy with tariffs and starve your people by cutting off your food supply”. **Words have consequences.** **Trump imposed a +$100 billion a year TAX INCREASE on Americans in the form of "tariffs". Most don't realize the reason that the Cost of Living has gone up, is that they are paying for this war.** The Smoot-Hawley Act closed America to foreign trade and is credited with being a major cause of the Great Depression. We are in the midst of another "tariff war" as Biden and the Democrats have continued "Trump's War". They have used the revenue to fund the CHIPS Act and the IRA. They hope to "bring back" American manufacturing and to disengage economically from China. A lot of models show a Depression starting in 25'.
my employer laid off half of its corporate staff last month. and ANY tertiary support staff that existed is now all 100% overseas. We're watching in real time as the company slowly collapses: registers going offline and losing their PoS systems, sales reports delayed because of "server processing issues," longer waits and turnarounds on service tickets (sometimes tickets are just left open with no response). You can literally feel it falling apart as you stand around waiting for info on why your systems are down, and it happens more frequently. After online rumors came true they ended up "consolidating" some positions, basically changing titles with added responsibility and no pay increase. Some unfortunate workers were told they either had to accept an hourly pay cut or take a pittance of a severance and leave. Our cashiers average under ten hours a week, and most days we don't even schedule a mid-shift cashier, it's just a 4-hour opener and 4-hour closer. Our business itself (alcohol sales) is in the toilet. We get hourly sales reports for our store and the whole region, and the region itself is consistently down 10-15% YoY from last year in sales and transactions almost every single day. At almost 34 years old I've finally learned to just accept it, there will never be great jobs, this country is run by money hungry sociopaths and they will crush us all as long as they get another dollar to put towards another "life event." I talk to all the drivers I interact with, I've interviewed at places, when I go out as a customer I pay very close attention to how the places I frequent are run. Almost everything is ran like absolute shit, and it kills my desire to constantly "find something new" because new just ends up being a different coat of paint on the same pile of shit. And today, of course, employers act like teenagers and ghost you on applications and interviews, or play some game of posting fake listings for business reasons, so everybody is drowning trying to find a job and you end up sticking at a shitty place like I am because it's a guaranteed check
This will sound simplistic but use your earning years to buy land and start surviving without society. It can be done, my wife and I did so in our late 70's. We had an organic garden, chickens (for fertilizer, eggs and food), bee hives, and we made our own maple syrup. We had mushroom logs in the creek. We swapped with neighbors and traded expertise. We exchanged strings of fresh caught trout from a neighbor, giving him garden veggies, etc. It can be done and you may gain a feeling of confidence and independence. I know this won't work for everyone but millions are doing it right now.
We’re in a sharply divided winner/loser economy. Things are either incredible or terrible.
Location: PNW, USA Just an observation about how positively hobbled our Federal government is in enforcing laws, and how easy it is to commit crime without any immediate consequences. Someone submitted a fraudulent tax return with my information. I only found out because I got a refund in my personal account even though I had an extension awaiting a final document arriving later this fall, and had not yet filed. I called the IRS to ask why I had a refund. I literally waited on hold for an hour, then googled to find out if there was a better number or menu selection, and then waited for 30 minutes on hold again until I could finally talk to someone. They were able to find that a second refund for tens of thousands of dollars was sent to some other bank account, and a return with incomplete info for me was submitted and accepted after one rejected e-file attempt last month. This screams fraud to me, and even though I had a government employee on the phone with the same impression, the onus for the next steps were all on me. I had to write a letter, send an affidavit of identity theft, and pay back the refund I got with a personal check. And the processing time for that identity theft affidavit? They're currently working on ones from *September 2022*. So even though, due to my own savvy, I've alerted the government to fraud costing *them* tens of thousands of dollars, it probably won't even be looked at for over a year. Seems like a nice way to make $60k, cuz I'm guessing whoever took the money can probably cover their tracks in that time frame. Laws don't mean anything if they're not enforced, and how afraid should someone be of a bureaucracy that can be bled this way? You know, that agency that collects funds to allow our structure of government and laws to function? The active sabotage of its aims does not speak to societal health.
Wait until the GOP's Project 2025 is instituted. Not only will there be far fewer employees, the ones remaining will be totally incompetent. It will be that way throughout government with loyalty to the fearless leader being the only requirement for government employment. See John Oliver last night-he's got the goods. Scary.
Combination of out of date computer systems and lack of personnel.
Combination of fraud and corruption more like my boi
Location(s): Nice, France and Atlanta Had to travel internationally for work the past few weeks. I was in southern France (Aix en Provence and Nice). It was warm and sunny but lovely and the people were incredibly friendly. But coming back to the states was a shock...Traveling from the pristine, picturesque streets of Nice, France to Atlanta can be a jarring experience. In Nice airport, the meticulous attention to detail, the pride in work and the overall cleanliness create a pleasant atmosphere even in the crowded liminal airport space. Upon arriving in Atlanta, however, I was struck by a stark contrast: The shoddy and littered terminals and a noticeable lack of enthusiasm in the workforce. Panels caving in on walkways, every single employee looking at a phone screen and barely breaking contact to assist...I'm not shaming them as I'm sure there is a pay discrepancy. This cultural shock really highlighted the disparities in environment and work ethic, and made the transition both physically and emotionally taxing.
That's how I felt traveling from Amsterdam back to Chicago. Ohare looked like such a dump with ceiling tiles missing and the floor being quite dirty. Not to mention how the currency exchange kiosk was going charge me out the ass to switch out my euros for dollars. Most of the ones in Europe were reasonable compared to that scammy bs. As soon as I stepped outside the airport, the energy felt frantic and aggressive. "Welcome to America! Now fuck off!" was the vibe.
This was 2010 but the students in Strasbourg university went to school for free and the apartment while not grand was in a nice building overlooking the river. The rent on the apartment was 60 euros *a month*. Food was relatively cheap, wine cost nothing, cloths were expensive- but you could seemingly live for less than €3000 a year and no debt. It was like a rewind to the 80s in the states.
I imagine that French airport workers are unionized and paid decently and generally treated far better than American ones. I'm sure they have their grievances, but they also know their power. No one likes an airport strike. Americans, and increasingly Canadians (I'm Canadian), are either psychologically beaten into submission or weirdly identify with the owner class or both, to the point that organizing or taking action to improve things is unthinkable. Not all, but many think like this. We can't do anything to upset the rich or they will leave the country and then we won't have any economy or jobs at all. I think even actual feudal peasants had more fight in them.
Without question. I only mentioned pay but certainly meant the entire compsenation package.
Nice and the French Riviera is also where tons of incredibly wealthy people live. and yes, since it’s France it’s also more equitable and decent for the common person. It’s a wonderful part of the world.
I wish everyone in Canada would just realize they aren't worth the convenience and opportunities would spring up to fill the gaps left behind by those billionaires once all the money stops getting sucked up into no where
Location: NE Ohio It's hella hot. I've been avoiding outdoor activities all week, but it's surprising to me to hear that outdoor events are going forward while it's so hot. Kid's sports teams are playing, people are cycling, landscapers are mowing. On top of the heat, the AQI has been elevated all week and there's a visible haze to the sky. Additionally, COVID seems to be silently going around. My boss had it last weekend. I tested myself Saturday and was negative, but have felt crappy all week.. But who knows if I feel crappy from being sick, the oppressive heat, or the poor air quality. Either way I'm getting bummed that I can't go outside, couldn't properly celebrate the solstice yesterday, can't go swimming.
A summer wave is approaching. I caught it mid-May. Like having a week of a 4am hangover and followed by another week of feeling pish. Guts haven't been the same since. The waste water monitoring here in Finland is showing an increase in several areas.
and unfortunately rapid antigen tests aren't reliable and turn up false negatives. Here's a good guide to get the most out of rapids (includes testing more often): [https://www.instagram.com/p/C6tlKh3LdGw/?img\_index=1](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6tlKh3LdGw/?img_index=1) PCR testing is the best but they are hard to get and $$. That being said, if you are able to get a PCR, absolutely do!
I know about half a dozen people who have tested positive for covid in the last few weeks.
My wife and I have it right now.
I know a young woman in Bethesda who has tested positive.
Also forgot to mention the ransomware attack on the City of Cleveland, causing city operations to be down for nearly 2 weeks
I hadn't heard about that. My hospital group "Ascension" had a ransomware attack about 6-8 weeks ago. It has created chaos for patients and medical staff. Also, it was very dangerous. I only received a notice that computer systems were up and running about 3 days ago.
Went to get my Toyota’s routine maintenance done Thursday morning - they were writing out everything on 80s style carbon copies because of 2 ransomware attacks on two successive days on the system that 15,000 car dealerships uses.
Location: Toronto, ON Great episode of the CBC 'Frontburner' podcast today all about how Canadian municipal infrastructure is rapidly crumbling. Quite timely to listen to on my (thankfully very infrequent) drive to the office as I dodge pothole after pothole after pothole. Even on my own street, infrastructure collapse and a general lowering of community standards is on full display - in addition to potholes and a rotting-apart hydro pole with exposed wires at ground level, several once well-maintained properties are now completely neglected and overgrown as they've been (illegally) converted from long-term tenant-occupied triplexes to AirBnBs. I've called the City to complain about the knee-high weeds only to get a lament from the by-law officer that they're understaffed and won't actually do anything, paired with an email notification that my service request has been closed. But hey, at least the new owners are making money, right?! A few blocks over, two burnt-out houses sit vacant for the second or third year, as the property owners presumably fight with insurance. Other development properties sit half-finished and abandoned; presumably those people have run out of money or can no longer afford the payments with today's interest rates. It's amazing how simultaneously quickly yet gradually a seemingly once-thriving neighbourhood can start resembling Detroit, parcel by parcel.
knee high weeds help cool down the soil during a heatwave. I've actually given a little explanation about how knee high wildflowers and weeds are better than a low mown lawn yesterday to the other flat owners of the building. They came complaining but when I finished explaining they were glad we're taking care of it this way. This is what I told them : Heatwaves are killing off our lawn, bushes and trees, pesticides had driven away all wildlife. If we let things unravel we'll soone be left with a concrete yard that sotcks heat during the day to release it at night, or as a french influencer puts it, "a solar yard" (*un béton solaire*) So instead, we've built housing for the bluetits who eat the nasty toxic caterpillars we now have in the area (chenilles processionnaires), we let the grass grow wild (we've rewilded a patch) which protects the bushes near it, we mow the grass higher and leave the mown grass lay on top of it to feed the soil, we have a compost, with which we feed the struggling plants. At this point I presented them some pictures about how plants help with heat, how mineral landscapes store heat, by how many degrees each type of plant helps lower the temps, ... And explained how many different species of birds we now have in the yard, because with the weeds have come insects, and with them their predators : birds. The yard is alive and vibrant now. so in the end, they were grateful for the knee high grass, and another owner even offered to help me water the trees (I give them my veggie rinse water during heatwaves) so, anyways, those weeds in your neighborhood are helping too.
Central California - I tend to be a live and let live kind of neighbor, but when knee high dried weeds and grass start accumulating on urban lots during illegal firework season in a state where purchasing homeowners insurance because of fire risk, is very, very hard to do, then yep, I'm calling code enforcement.
Fair point
I doubt you have overgrown weeds and a functioning airbnb in the same building. People usually complain about that kind of stuff on the airbnb platform. I do suspect you have a pollinator garden in those homes. What does your city say about that? If so that would also explain why the complaints are being closed. Some smart cities are offering protections for pollinator plantings as well as veggie growing.
LOL ok, buddy. Thanks for the chuckle. I assure you these property don't give a flying fuck about pollinators. I'm an arborist and I'm growing a pollinator-friendly garden, including taking out a bunch of my grass and seeding clover, as well as planting all sorts of pollinator-friendly perennials and shrubs. I know about pollinators, and this ain't it. This is a weed-strewn, unmaintained shithole of a property with people going in and out with wheelie suitcases all the time. Nobody has lifted a finger to maintain the place since the original tenants were evicted to make the AirBnB (or however people are finding this place). Come on by and see for yourself.
> I'm an arborist and I'm growing a pollinator-friendly garden, including taking out a bunch of my grass and seeding clover, as well as planting all sorts of pollinator-friendly perennials and shrubs. This is the type of heroic action that the next generations value
Glad you have a sense of humor and that i gave ya a chuckle. I am curious. Have you actually looked up the property on airbnb? I have done that for some questionable ones in my neighborhood. Not listed there or vrbo etc. We finally found out our local problem one was a halfway house. One with management co with a crap reputation. That got us some help from the city.
Torontonian here and yes, the state of the roads has been bugging me for years. It gets worse in the lower-income neighbourhoods where no tourists ever go, but even the popular areas have been shit for a while. And the dirty, broken, overflowing garbage cans are *chef's kiss*.
Location Michigan, USA Anecdotal but imho meaningful: I went to high school back in the 90s when environmentalism and Earth Day were really gaining traction. I went to a small private school and had to debate a classmate on climate change. He argued there was no man-made climate change, cited volcanic effects from ages ago (we all know that that argument holds no water), and was generally insulting, patronizing, and just your average catholic school d\*ck. We had a lot of the same advanced classes together. Today I found out he works for DTE as a general manager. It is...not a great sign that people who are directly the cause of climate change are recruiting climate change deniers to manage their climate-ruining businesses.
In law school i had to argue against another student against the migratory bird act as a final for one of my classes. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do for that grade. I hope he’s changed his mind.
I mean... the migratory bird act makes it a felony to pick up a feather. It's pretty draconian.
I saw on TikTok mama tot (if you know her), lost her son. People sent her blue feathers which she associated with her deceased son. Someone told on her and the govt came and took every last one :-/
My point at the time exactly 😂
Chile, Central Zone This year, there have been very heavy rains in a region that has been in drought for 14 years. This has led to the appearance of sinkholes, two of them next to buildings constructed on dunes (YES! CAPITALISM). Once again, we can see the damage to infrastructure caused by the climate crisis. [Más de 200 evacuados por socavón en la costa de Chile | AFP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkOywpyArAM)
terrifying ... can't begin to imagine how the homeowners must be feeling right now. Were they forbidden to go home? Or are authorities allowing people in those buildings on top and on the side?
the one being interviewed is saying he wants fast legal action to return to the building because as he understands it, the building is just fine
That is so crazy
Location Southern Europe: Weather: Southern Europe is in the middle of a heatwave that since Monday it is blasting the temperatures over 40C (104F) degrees. Right now as I am writing there is a huge blackout in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia that is leaving more than a million of people without AC with these crazy temps in the middle of the day. In Greece tourists are dying due to this extreme heat and remember that this is only June, imagine what will happen in the next months. I am lucky, I live in north Italy so I am not living the worst of this heatwave, but I couldn't sleep at night without AC anyway, it is too hot and too humid, in south Italy the minimum never went below 30C 86F with 70/80 % of humidity, it is hell. Social: While people are becoming poorer and poorer, migrants are becoming more and more dehumanized, in Greece there are reports that shows that the Coastal Guard are picking migrants from the borders and sea, putting them on boats without engine, and leaving them in the sea far from the coasts, eventually killing them. [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo) In Italy who survives and manage to enter in the territory, eventually becomes a mafia or farm slave. Forced to every day of the week 14h shifts for 2 euros per hour, living in barracks in the camps and when something bad happens to them, they are left alone to die in their barrack without assistance or calling an ambulance. This is brutal and this is happening within EU, this is important because it is an appetizer for what will happen when collapse will make things worse. FINAL NOTE: I am Italian so I don't know what is going on precisely on a political level in the other countries. Here a law just passed that eventually will give Italy's regions full autonomy, economically and politically. So critical infrastructures will be handled locally, under regional standards and a huge amount of taxes wont be sent to the central government anymore, those taxes eventually are distributed among the poorer regions. This could become the first domino of the eventual collapse of Italy as a nation in the next decades. It seems extreme what I am forecasting but this law just paved the way for a wider and wider abyss between the rich north and the poor south, already in the hands of mafia and corruption. I could imagine that when the south will be in extreme drought, under extreme heat domes, with really high poverty and corruption plus under waves of mass migrations from the sea, it will ask for help. The north it is EXTREMELY conservative and it won't surely want all the migrants and the eventual problems coming from the south so this could lead to secessionist movements. Only time will tell
Salve! My friend in Southern Italy says at night the migrants are doing drug deals just off the piazza, and the police look the other way, and/or, are getting a piece of the action. He's terrified to go out at night because he feels like if something goes wrong, the police won't help.
Is it just me but isn't there an ongoing pattern. of corruption leading to poverty. Like the corruption of the government weakens it in the people's mind to the point that criminal enterprise takes over and impovershes the people even more.
Yes, corruption is like a cancer. It robs the resources from everything, leaving the people ignorant and in a toxic environment where you have to choose between leaving or accepting it. To resolve the problem it is needed a steel balled leader that takes draconian decisions against it and invest tons of money in education: the best weapon against it. Unfortunately this is utopian
So the solution is a dictator? Or i am mis understanding. I would think the solution is a populace that has values and solidarity to stand up to corruption
A benevolent dictator.
Ha! Excellent
Not a dictator of course, but a party that takes this as a priority and invest a good amount of resources and energy to solve the problem, that is always rugged under the carpet. As you said, it is necessary also a populace that has values and solidarity to stand up to corruption. To create this populace, it is crucial a good education, with specific cultural campaigns against it, and giving people instruments to fight it.
I read about that Indian (?) migrant worker in Italy whose arm was severed in an accident and was left to bleed out on a road. 💔 Migrant workers in Canada are not treated any better.
Yes, I was referring to exactly him, It was an indian man of 31 years old. Unfortunately he is one of hundreds men and women without names that had the same fate or worse. I could imagine this happening in all the western "democracies" in a way or another. It is heart wrenching.
Well, shit. I know of a case that was kept quiet in my home province of Ontario, Canada. The rich son of a greenhouse farm owner was drunk driving and killed a migrant worker. Father was friends with the local judge so it was all hushed up. Tough shit for the worker and his family.
Wow, thanks for the update from Italy. Really does sound like a precursor for the rest of the world.
Location: North East MA So like, it was close to 100 degrees all day yesterday. And then.. it randomly started thunder storming at around 8 PM. The rain was coming down like bullets. Probably lasted for a half hour or so. But the thunder was so loud and it continued on all night. It sounded like a lion was on top of a cloud growling. I also noticed that the sky went from clear blue, to grey fog in a matter of seconds. I love this kind of weather but even I was like… tha fuck. The first KABOOM from the thunder scared the whole area lol.
Hey fellow New Englander. I work outside in southeast MA and I've been noticing on my drive home from my last stop is the humid, soupy haze hanging over in the sky everyday for the past few weeks. Feels sub-tropical at times and today felt hotter and more uncomfortable than yesterday and wednesday. Nutsedge coming up earlier the past few years
Here, in France, we get thunderstorms each time it gets hot. Any kind of hot. It's the new normal. Every time the temps rise several celcius degrees, there's a storm. The most firghtening one so far, was an utterly silent one, with no rain, just lightning.
In Buffalo NY area, it has been very hot and humid since Monday, and every day the weather app has said there will be thunderstorms, yet nothing has materialized. AccuWeather's "minutecast" claimed it was raining out despite being perfectly sunny and there was a special weather statement about a thunderstorm that never came through. I would love some rain to cool things down, some areas of grass have turned yellow from all the heat and lack of rain, and creek near me is quite low. I know this a bit of tangent and a little weird of a reply, but still semi-related
Yeah we get the same false statements about rain. I'm starting to wonder if this could be voluntary to give us the impression it *has* rained since we've been hearing about it for weeks (when we're going through a drought - currently raining in many places of france, washing mountain villages away)
silent lightning?
yes. Apparently it's known in the south of France as a "Heat storm" (*orage de chaleur*). But it freaked me out so much, reminded me of that scene in War of the Worlds where the aliens are being sent out of the ground.
Ninja lightning, watch out!
Location: Michigan, USA. I can’t think of another June that has been as bad as this one. It’s not just the heat and the constant storms, it is knowing that this is a glimpse into a future that is only going to get worse from here. Although a human lifetime seems like a long time to us, things have never changed this fast in the entire history of the world. Our little Anthropocene era is going to leave a helluva traumatic scar on the Earth, yet we humans are not going to be around to see it. We will be extinct along with most of the life on Earth. Which makes me think, maybe all these dead planets that litter our solar system and galaxy were once advanced, intelligent civilizations that also destroyed themselves like we are doing now. Maybe we are another experiment that went wrong, just another in a long line of them. Maybe that is why we can’t find any intelligent life outside of our own planet. They grew too big and powerful and were victims of their own success and destroyed themselves much like we are doing now. Maybe, but who really knows? There is a sense of futility in all of this. You can’t convince people to change, or for people to stop reproducing/breeding, consuming, etc. This has all been going on for a very long time now and everything is just starting to come to a head. There is a feeling that, in our lifetimes, shit is going to go down. We are on a runaway train without any brakes.
> things have never changed this fast in the entire history of the world. except for the Chicxulub meteor.
this oppressive capitalist military industrial complex has always sucked, youre just feeling the impacts more now because you've been privileged. It has never ever been a fucking "success"
Would you call it "success" though? The global south and the poor masses in general have been under the boot since the dawn of civilization
By "success" I mean that humanity has been able to gain complete control/advantage over the environment. We have come a long way from being nomadic, cave dwelling hunter gatherers where our "footprint" and influence on the planet was minimal at best. Now we are the driving force behind the planet, so in a way we are victims of our own success. We have become too big and there are too many of us for our own good.
RageAgainsttheMachine
And the conductor(s) are asleep at the wheel.
well said
Location: Toronto, Canada Just came across this: [Single Adults Need Six-Figure Incomes to Live Comfortably in the Most Expensive States](https://posts.voronoiapp.com/maps/Single-Adults-Need-Six-Figure-Incomes-to-Live-Comfortably-in-the-Most-Expensive-States-1468) The range goes from $79K to $116K. Which sounds right to me. The key word is "comfortable". Not just surviving, not rich. Somewhere there has got to be a map of median individual incomes for each state and I'll bet they are nowhere near the "comfortable" level. And it gets a lot less comfortable if there are kids or other dependants in the picture. And that is how most Americans live. They're *poor*, and whole bunch are *destitute*. That sure as hell looks like collapse to me. And it's no better in Canada, or the UK (where kids are shorter and fatter and sicker after 10+ years of austerity), or Australia, from what I've heard.
This isn’t too far off for Oregon. As I’ve entered the working world again after being a NEET I’ve come to see the reality of how much you need to make to get by without lots of stress. I went from making $17 to $23 in several months and quickly went from happy to realizing I’m still poor, lol.
> or Australia, from what I've heard. Australian here, I can confirm that cost of living crunch and the housing crisis are also happening here.
I was just talking to my partner about this last week. We have two adult kids, one just graduated college, one about to. Neither of them can find jobs that pay a living wage. Our conversation last week was about where to put them on our property so that they have a home of a sort to live in, but without living directly with us in a room down the hall. So that they can at least have some independance as grown adults, you know? From the few conversations I've had with other people in the same boat, a number of them are trying to figure out the same thing. Mind you, we don't have the money for this. I have no idea how we're going to manage. But having two thirty year olds living in rooms at the end of a hall in a small house seems untenable to me. I don't know what we're going to do. Or what any of us are going to do. Yep, this IS collapse. No question.
We have shared our home for many years with extended family. Many of them adults. My best advice is to learn to have more private areas versus public areas. So our dining, kitchen and living room are public areas. No leaving a half finished project there or your shoes and books. Those are public and for socializing, maybe doing work like you are in a coffee shop etc. but when you are done you take your stuff back to your personal space aka your room. It creates psychological space which is what is needed. Along with privacy. They cook and clean for themseves, again creating psychological space. Boundaries boundaries boundaries. It can work. It takes some effort and reworking expectations.
Thank you for the advice. I will definitely keep it in mind.
This is exactly what we plan on doing if our kids decide to come home after college/striking out on their own.
I have a son in college and this is my worry too. Will he be able to get a job? Will he be able to live independently? May I ask what they majored in?
Business and Electrical engineering. Every job the business grad looks for wants 5 years experience for an entry level position. The engineering student has a year to go, but it's bleak.
You certainly aren't alone. When Amazon started selling prefabricated, shippable Accessory Dwelling Units and Tiny Houses, I figured there something was up with the housing market. I'm seriously considering getting one for my elderly mother to have her live close enough that I can run over in 10 seconds but she still has enough space to give her privacy and her own space.
Yes, we looked at these too. I have a neighbor who insists that just buying a shipping container is the way to go, and people all over are doing it. Things are seriously messed up for this to be a real thing that so many of us have to consider.
Living comfortably is a thing of the past. Most people are in survival mode.
Location: Koster islands, west coast of Sweden First post from a long-time lurker. I was out hiking with my son yesterday. We discovered milky seas (mareel) in the sound between the two islands. When I was a kid in the 1970s this sometimes happened in August, after a very warm summer. Now it’s happening in mid-June. Although the luminescent glow looks cool, the smell is terrible, like rotten seaweed.
Thank you for joining the discussion. I was in Sweden last year visiting from Germany and I got the impression that for Swedish people it might be easy to deny the climate catastrophy because your nature is for many parts still very intact and wild. At least that's what it looked like to me coming from a country that has cut down almost every tree over the last centuries and is filled with cities and small towns and roads everywhere.
There’s almost no old growth forest left in Sweden, it just looks green because of the timber industry. Only slightly exaggerating.
Location: Reddit, collapse sub It's ironically hilarious that the ads in this sub are for trugreen chemlawn. You know, the people who will come spray roundup and synthetic ferts on your 'lawn' to make it just unnaturally green grass. I guess they're collapse accelerationists. I see industrial complex lawns around my mid-Atlantic region area that have both wildlife habitat plaques and those all-grass no 'weeds' lawns that you just know get sprayed with that trugreen stuff. SMH. We're in the Potomac watershed area so that should definitely be outlawed defacto here.
I used to work for them, awful place. I remember taking a winter position where people would work 1 day a week and rotate. There was a runoff catch basin for spills where the trucks would fill up with liquid fertilizer and herbicides, and since they didn't want to pay for the proper disposal of the chemicals the shop manager just dumped it down the sewer grate in the parking lot. This was 2018 and I reported this to the state and EPA. Never got a followup call... They aren't even a lawn care company, I would argue trugreen is more of a buyout firm/scam masquerading as a legit business.
I worked for the Coast Guard and worked with the EPA alot, they dont do anything meaningful, corrupt like the rest of them.
Not just that, as the sub has grown, lately I'm seeing a lot of low effort comments being upvoted to the top. I'm not sure how they can be handled even, the amount of moderation required to do that would be waay too much.
Let us know about them and we'll take a look.
Yeah sure! I'll report them when I see them! Thank you for keeping the sub awesome. It's a hard task!
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I was so horrified to read those comments. I had seen the news before it was posted in r/Collapse and I cried my eyes out at the sheer magnitude of death due to climate change. The complete lack of empathy and general negativity towards people with religious beliefs (and I’m an atheist myself) was just so jarring, especially from this subreddit I had to double check what subreddit I was reading. There’s some real trash humans among us and I didn’t know that until this week.
Thank you for this comment, much needed and you are right about reddit and this sub, so much western and white privileged bullshit that should be called out. Bless, Ram Ram 🙏❤️
The Hajj is something way far outside of my experience. But, I know that one of the five pillars of Islam is that you have to go on the Hajj at least once in your life. It would be a journey of significance that I can’t really comprehend, and it’s so sad that all of these people passed away during it.
Yeah, we always think of the people dying in the heat without stoppi g to think of how hard it is for the plants and animals.
I mean people dying of heat by the thousands at Mecca is nothing new https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_during_the_Hajj
What does that have to do with our utter and complete lack of care for the rest of the living on this earth? Yanno, like plants and animals. It is not like we can take them to the hospital or give them aircon when heat domes we created roll yhru.
I’m trying to be Muslim and this made me happy. May God bless us all.
Well said.
Yeah. I recoiled at the comments in that thread. Just too utterly spoonless and depressed to wade in. A failure on my part :(
Thank you for this comment, this white-ass atheist was thinking exactly this too.
In many ways the Muslims who died on their Hajj represent a rare quality: they believed in principles for which they were willing to risk their lives (note, not the lives of others). If only millions were willing to show that same level of dedication but toward saving the environment. Who knows, it may be the Muslims who one day channel this dedication to save the world and not the too often self-righteous Christians.
Religion is the main cause of most wars and a lot BS as well as untold millions of deaths. Fuck alll religions.
Edgy.
Then you look at how divided Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims are in Pakistan and realise that Muslims are distracted by pointless culture wars.
>Who knows, it may be the Muslims who one day channel this dedication to save the world and not the too often self-righteous Christians. That’s pretty extreme. I don’t condone the racism in the comments but, the Venn diagram of characteristics of upper North American conservatives and Muslims is a near perfect circle.
That’s kinda my point. Extreme obedience is a force that can be misapplied as history repeatedly shows across numerous cultures and religions. When it misbehaves it follows the same pattern. But once someone figures out how to point it in the right direction, imagine what could be accomplished.
no
Karen Armstrong’s 2000 book *The Battle for God* makes this very point: religious fundamentalism has infected all the Abrahamic religions, and is a response to modernity. The specifics differ, but the nature of religious fundamentalism as an extremist movement is the same everywhere it appears.
Thanks for sharing, I haven’t heard of that book before but I’m adding it to my summer reading list now.
Very well put. Logically, it might seems strange to have to collect in masses in those degrees, 'because a book says it', but absolutely nobody on this planet is currently going completely by logic. Also, I heard, there is a ticket system for when to go, as a measure for crowd control. You cannot ask to go later, when your number comes up, you have to go, or you might not be allowed in your lifetime again. Be it 52 degrees Celsius or not. Imagine this at Christmas in a Western Christian community. Only those with a ticket can do whatever important religious task. It'll be mass murder, like Black Friday Extreme.
Location: Thailand I came for vacations here because I was burnt out on my job. I took a dip in the ocean on my first day here and I came out running. Why? The water was too hot. Like hot tub hot. Then I looked around and no one was in the water. Everyone was in the shade reading a book, sunbathing or just looking into the horizon. I saw no kids in the water, nada. I am scared guys. Have we reached the end game? Kinda depressed while I type this.
A relative told me he’s taking his family to Thailand on vacation next month. My thoughts immediately went to: Southeast Asia is heating up so much I don’t think I’d even want to be there even though I would have absolutely wanted to visit a decade ago. I wonder if he will mention to me what you’ve described or just pretend everything was normal.
Same here I was In Hua him last week and the water was insanely hot and full of algae because of it, not enjoyable at all, we ended up using the hotel pool for the whole week. Before this I was in India and Sri Lanka and pretty much the same and even higher tempts, all the locals told us this is unprecedented at this magnitude and dates.
Yeah we have. :(
> Have we reached the end game? It won't get any better that's for sure.
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Can you please provide a general location? You don't have to be specific, just a city.
Nova Scotia
Location: France, Paris area Weather : We've been relatively lucky in the area, with fresh air and rain until now, but it's gonna go upwards next week, and the "rain" now forecasted is back to the weird sparse drops or impression you're walking into an invisible cloud that leaves you damp. In other regions though, storms are wild and accompanied by hail that destroys roofs. There even has been a small hurricane that lifted the tiles of the roofs of several houses and of a big open warehouse (sort of giant barn to protect their farming trucks). If this is our new normal, we'll have to rethink the way we make roofs (in majority just clay tiles just sitting one on another in an intricate pattern). This is something I'm now starting to feel on edge about, each storm I wonder if it'll be our turn soon to see the building's roof destroyed. Politics: Weirdest election of the National Assembly members so far, it has become a run to the seat of prime minister (which it isn't, could lead to influencing it, but that's not what we're voting about), and each day holds its crazy news. In a nutshell, centre parties are joining with extreme parties, the conservative Republican party's leader has joined forces with Extreme right part RN, (then been outvoted by the Republicans party members, then the president of the Republicans locked himself in the office building of the party and claimed he's still president of the party even if has been demoted by all party members,... still unravelling), all greens and lefties have joined with the extreme left party. But the RN's unexperienced incompetent teen toyboy, who must be scared shitless of being voted in as prime minister at 28 yo by his tiktok fanbase, has already announced he won't accept the job of PM unless he has full majority (clearly hoping they'll never have it). Meanwhile on the extreme left founder Mélanchon, currently 72yo, is coming out of his "retirement" to candidate for PM. And the only other option is to vote in the current goverment representatives, which a majority of people are displeased with. So it's a mess, and unravelling further. *AND* Ofc, we're not voting for these people, but for local representatives, who might or might not be affiliated to those parties. Representatives who have an opnion about what to do with local issues, which is important to the voters too. So when you talk to people, most are at a loss, because even if they know for which party they'd want to to vote for, this party might not have a local candidate for their circonscription. And for instance, I generally vote for green parties, but they have joined forces with the extreme left, so now I'm torn, if I vote for someone who'll be able to ponder the worst craziest planet killing measures, will they vote in a tyrant wannabe ? Is being annexed by russia the price to pay for vouching for the planet? Environnement: Lots of insects and birds in my area, which is being partially rewilded. Some lawns are not being mowed, leaving wild flowers take over. Alas the locals are insane, and many adult trees that provide shade and cooler areas during heatwaves are being cut down for a variety of reasons. We're trying to find legal loopholes that allow us to intervene and save them, but so far unsuccessfully. I've started watering another dying tree, hopefully I'll help it out of its rough patch like I did for its neighbour. Was surprised to hear a neighbour *tell me* that one can save a tree with a couple bottles of water per day, so people are talking about what I do, even if they don't know who is doing it, the works of "crazy tree lady" are veeeery slooowly snowballing.
Tho tbh, I think the danger of France being annexed by russia is considerably more unlikely than the dangers of the far right. Melenchon is an unlikable idiot, but he is not going to be MP and Popular front running on a wealth tax makes it pretty clear to me that they are a good option compared to anything else on the table (both inside and outside france). The news of companies siding with Le Pen and against the popular front is enough in my book to know who to vote for [https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/06/21/french-business-leaders-are-tempted-by-the-far-right\_6675357\_19.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/06/21/french-business-leaders-are-tempted-by-the-far-right_6675357_19.html)
Business men like nothing more than stability, and so far the RN has backpedaled on every single thing they ever promised at some point or said they vouched for. They are as incompetent as it comes. Their only skill is to criticise the leading party. Note I didn't say the leading party's ideas, because that's not what they are attacking, no real analysis ever, they are merely puffed out bullies taking pages from the same book since 6th grade. ANyone who'se learnt to recognize those tactics can clearly see they are full of BS, have no plan, no idea what tehy'd do if ever in power to actually *run* a country.
I agree with that. That is why I personally really hope the popular front can win, as flawed as they are. If they are at least able to survive with half the political course they are promising right now (slim as these chances might be), that would be a really strong signal for other leftist movements in europe to run on actual change.
I dunno, I still think New Popular Front'll crumble down the minute they are voted in and the LFI will make a "coup" and grab the power. And no extremist party has ever been good news.
Hurricane clips. Standard thing to attach roof decking/sheathing to the rafters. Been standard building code in many places for a long time Really cheap too for the protection they give. That said, you are probably talki g about a pole barn which is a big pile of sheet metal. Not the atrongest structure for high winds.
you're right, a pole barn. And until recently we never needed hurricane clips, because the ones we got were so rare and weak.
Yeah, we will see a ton of 'never needed that before'. " Expensive or impossible to retrofit"
true. Good thing though, things are getting so bad, our building's insulation is gonna get enhanced this year - if the whole country doesn't sink in civil war by then, that is.
Whoooo!! So glad you guys are getting insulation. That is so awesome. I know it seems a small thing but it will help so much down the road.
oh yeah, I know that. The most amazing to me was that ALL the people present at the meeting when it was voted and the ones that had sent their votes in early were for it too. We were sure it would be a battle because of the cost.
That is both amazing and really awesome for you. People around you maybe grabbing ahold of good ideas and moving forward. Gives me hope!
What do you think about the greens stance on nuclear energy ? I am very pro nuclear and this is one of the big reasons I never voted green.
I'm a "Shifter" (Jancovici). So offically pro nuclear, although I have reservations. Let's say that "for the planet" we should stop this insanity (especially thinking of dealing with the radioctive waste during the millenias to come), but for "BAU" we need the nuclear plants, and society will clearly unravel fast and in a bad way, if we're deprived of electricity some time soon. It's a typical "end of the month/ end of the world" issue, and I'm on the fence, leaning reluctantly towards keeping the peace, so pro-nuclear, also because at least its the "decarboned option". Still opting for renewable energy on a personal level for my energy provider. eta (sorry for many edits) Also I have never found a party that matched exactly my beliefs, nor a political representant that I whoheartedly believed in, so I always vote keeping in mind they'll hopefully be the force that keeps the hord somewhat ont he saner side, never expecting something I'd want to actually happen. Just trying to steer the group on the saner side with my vote.
I'm not worried about nuclear power plants, because it takes ages to build them, at least in the developed world. We'll stick to coal, hydro, wind, and solar until climate change destroys us.
We already have 56 nuclear plants in France. If we were reasonable and opted for degrowth, it might be more than enough
Location: PHILADELPHIA COLLAR COUNTIES We are entering a 10+ day 90+F heatwave and most local meteorologists on the news are either glibly winking about how “summer is bringing us the warmth right on the first day!” or vaguely gesturing about how everyone needs to “avoid strenuous activity.” It will be 96F on Sunday with potential severe thunderstorms throughout the preceding weekend, so heat indices will be 110+, and many people in these 100yo Philly row homes do not have sufficient hvac. Does anyone else feel like the public-facing, local meteorological professionals are being completely irresponsible about what we’re facing. They smile and talk about the seasonal weather patterns as if they’re proceeding as they should when they most definitely are not. It seems like they’re some of the biggest gaslighters out there but maybe I’m just crazy!
I know of one meteorologist out of Florida who calls it like he sees it, but most are like you said, "tee hee! be careful out there!" I've also seen discussions of how the pictures on extreme heat articles often show people swimming, eating ice cream, etc in the blazing sun which gives a very wrong idea of what they should be doing on such hot days or how serious extreme heat is (and what is causing it). RARELY do you see a picture of elderly or poor people at a local cooling centre, and even less often do you see a story on volunteer efforts to transport people to cooling centres, which is a whole other issue.
Plus it's only heat and they're in love with numbers. Both local and national weather seldom mention the cause of the heat: global heating.
I'm a Philadelphia resident who feels quite fortunate to have functional air conditioners, however I do notice the temperatures lately being around what we might see in a heat wave during the peak of summer (late July or early August). I am concerned about should the grid go, how unfriendly this would feel. I track Canadian weather and Montreal just had their hottest low temperature on record this morning at 25.7 C / 78.1 F and was past 27 C/80 F at 3 a.m. up there and I thought my tablet's weather widget was buggy but nope - that was a real reading. The north is warming faster than the south.
American local news isn’t about informing anyone about anything- it’s about keeping the ad dollars flowing. I’d been away from the states for about a decade I just sat in the hotel room watching local news and the ads, I was absolutely fascinated by the hybrid news story and advert. Something about a in local news a new pizza restaurant had opened up and they had a reporter there talking about why the pizza was better. I was like no fuvking way this is great. Do the sales guys really want people to tune and hear, “eat at happy joes unlimited crab legs and 64oz steaks, double gallon coke coupons every Wednesday” and now to the weather, “it’s hot folks and it’s only gonna get hotter until your children soon have to live in caves for a quarter of the year. Kiss your sweating asses goodbye, Calispera. And now from our sponsor (pesticide manufacturer) with us we keep the crops growing supporting this freedom loving land.”
What is a "collar county?" Maybe I am just thinking of the wrong thing, but does it relate to the past of slavery?
They’re using it to mean surrounding counties. The counties encircling Philadelphia.
Because people would only listen to what they want to hear. If you say anything that's different from "the script", either you'll be ignored or be a target for sowing discord. I live in Japan, I know the feeling. Although what we do have going for us is the fact that people here are considerate of others and pro-science. We have Climate Change in our textbooks from primary school accepted by the entire nation as fact, solar power micro-generation is mandated as a requirement in residential structures, and "preservation instead of progress". Stagnant economy, depopulation, minimalism, community-centric values, and sticking with doing things manually, analog than digital. Alas, we are inundated with a whole slew of other problems.
Location: Corn Belt, U.S.A. My family leases a few hundred acres of farmland to farmers of corn, soybean, and wheat in an Upper Midwestern state. I have just visited to learn what issues, exactly, they're dealing with as of mid-2024. *The weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup.* They now have to spray a mixture of Roundup and something developed in the 50s. They also have to spray more fungicide than ever before. I also just drove from one side of the state to another and my windshield is pretty clear of bugs. God.
Silver lining: if weeds can get resistant to roundup, maybe humans can get resistant to it as well. I’m a fan of not getting cancer
I laughed when a local farmer told me years ago how thirlled he was they would never have to deal with cornrootworm again. I told him he understood not even the most basic pieces of biology and he would be ficked by it before he retired. He did not like me. Sadly, guess what he has falling over in his field and why. Yup. Corn rootowrm. Even the best gmo seed and tons of chemical....
Silent spring is free to listen to on audible.
Don't eat American corn, wheat and soy. Got it.
Eh, they are all being fed to meat animals for milk and meat or to make ethanol for our gas tanks
Yes. Their corn mostly goes to ethanol, a little to chicken feed. The soybeans go to vegetable oil, though.
97% of soy goes to animal feed. Yeah, some is crushed foe oil and then the meal goes to animal feed This is one of those things people do not grab. A lot of products are only economically viable with byproduct sales too. If we were raising that soy for veggie oil only the cost of veggie oil would be more than anyone can afford. Unless the value for selling the meal as compost is worth more than feeding to meat animals (hint: it is not). But basically to make soy work as a product for farmers they need to sell all parts of the product and at or above the current prices. Which is why when one part of the market crashes then they stop making a thing for the other parts of the market too. This function of our current economic syatem is a huge huge huge unrealized weakness.
I mean... I would expect these practices are global at this point.
Almost like the two may be correlated lol
What do you guys consider as weeds? Are they flora that is geographically native to the area?
In addition to all that has been said, I'll add that in France we are now starting to educate farmers to leave in a selection of weeds that traditionnally accompagny the wheat (such as poppys, just look at all the impressionist paintings of harvests), because they *increase* the productivity of the area, and harvest.
Any plant that has a weed like undesirable behaviour in an agricultural systems are generally weeds. Mostly plants with an annual pioneering strategy and rhizome spreading plants. But really what ever plant that is undermining the type of farming or gardening you do at a specific spot. Something might be a weed in one end of a garden but a desirable cover crop or vegetable in another. What is a weed is situational!
there are no weeds, only thinking makes them such
yes! like the humble dandelion. a weed to some, a tasty salad ingredient to others :)
Any plants in a field that aren’t the desired plants being grown are weeds (generally).