"Nobody and nowhere will be safe": Experts say we can't hide from climate change
"Nobody and nowhere will be safe": Experts say we can't hide from climate change
In the movies, heroes can outrun the apocalypse. But in the real world there's no exit from the climate crisis
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Young people are so worried about climate change and all the records we're breaking. You have no idea...
(Anecdotes to follow.)
When I was a kid (70s), we had plenty of snow in the winter. (Tulsa, OK for reference.) We had "snow days" set aside for the school year. Last few winters I went home, meh, not much different than NW Florida. Maybe 10° cooler?
Been here almost 20-years. Haven't had a cold winter since 2008 or so. Gods that was a bad one. Monstrous bolus of hot air hit the polar vortex and chunked it all the way down here. Found myself saying, every winter since, "That was the warmest one yet!" Quit saying that. It was 72° today. In the middle of January.
Here's a crazy thing no one talks about; Bugs. Dad taught me to clean the car's windshield at every gas stop. Ya know, use the squeegee at the station? That was normal car maintenance. We'd often stop just for that purpose. Bug guts everywhere.
When I was in college, there was an insect invasion every year. One summer it was moths, then ladybugs, then mayflies, whatever. When I came to Florida it was mosquitoes at sundown.
Now I have a couple of acres of swamp, hardly any bugs at all. (That may be a healthy mix of predators though!) OTOH, the large spider population seems to have dwindled since I started camping there 3-years ago. Noticeably. Because I look.
Small mammals used to be common, even in the suburbs. (I'm now on the very furthest edge of town.) Foxes, rabbits, skunks, possums, coons, all that. Now I see nothing but squirrels, and few enough of them. My trail cams catch nothing, not even a single deer. (Though we saw an insane amount of females one night in Alabama at 2AM on the country highways. DOZENS. Weird.)
The occasional black bear gets scared up by human overpopulation, trashed cans splattered everywhere. Had one come in my dog door in 2020! Yeah, not seeing them any longer, not even tracks in the woods or on the sandbanks. Saw a Florida panther once! Once. (Did I mention I'm in the boonies a lot?)
Raptors seem populous enough, no idea what they're eating. Smaller birds? Not so much. Couple of years back I had 4-5 hummingbird males (they're all assholes) fighting around my feeder every summer. This year I'd see two at once, and that was rare. Barred owls used to be deafening at camp. Now I'm happy to hear one or two. Saw my first pileated woodpecker the other day!
15-years ago, frogs were drowning in our pool faster than we could scoop 'em out and newts and other amphibians were legion. Used to count tree frogs on my porch. 6 was my record! Didn't bother counting other amphibians, a dozen+ on any given evening? They would hang around the porch light for easy meals. Now I'm happy to see one or two. Put in a 20g pond around the corner for 'em. Still, not much of anyone home.
Plenty of small lizards, but I never see the 5-6 inchers anymore. Never seen a snake at camp, but the occasional black snake runs away out my flower beds. Only seen a gator twice on the water, and I'm out a lot, in lonely places. Haven't seen a water moccasin in 15+ years.
tl;dr: Anecdotal, but I've been watching our ecosystem collapse for decades. If you're young, it's probably getting worse faster than you think.
We have lost 80% percent of insect biomass in the last 60 odd years, which has a huge ripple effect up the food chain, lots and lots of species (used) to rely on them for food. With most of them gone all the upstream species are being sffect / dying out as well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations
Everything except the actual temperature could be said about where I live in Southern Saskatchewan, including the insects in winter. A week before the cold snap we're in I'd been seeing flying insects almost daily. That's right, flys outdoors over Xmas in Saskatchewan!
To top it off, I read this article yesterday. Ok, I'm not thrilled that I might have to factor Lyme disease into my outdoor planning, but the thing that really caught my attention was that there are many tick reports coming in over winter.
I graduated in 1974, so I might be a few years older than you, but it sounds like we've seen similar "progress".
One thing I miss is "snow houses". When we were kids, we could build multi room shelters with connecting tunnels high enough that even many adults could walk upright. All you had to do was hit the lee side of any windbreak, starting in mid-late December. We usually did the bulk of the work over Xmas break.
I am not nearly old enough to see such drastic shange as you but even at 22 years old I have seen getting less and less snow each year as the time passes. When I was little we got at least 30-50cm of snow each winter. Not that much in the grand scheme but it was enough for everything to be snow covered and we used to build snowmen and igloos during the winter holidays. Our local lake used to freeze each winter and people would go out ice skating. It has not frozen more than once in the last 10 years. If we do get some snow it usually melts the same day because it changes from snowing to raining, or it just rains the next day. We had 1 day this year when snow was even falling and all the rest was just rain. We had rain on new years while I was able to go outside and rake the leaves last year while wearing nothing but a tshirt. I remember having 30cm of snow about 7 years ago on the same day so you can say it's quite a change. I used to get excited for winter but now it's just colder autumn with none of the nice colours.
Here’s a crazy thing no one talks about; Bugs. Dad taught me to clean the car’s windshield at every gas stop. Ya know, use the squeegee at the station? That was normal car maintenance. We’d often stop just for that purpose. Bug guts everywhere.
This. When I was a kid during the 90s, cars were covered in bugs during summer. Today there are bugs on windshields too, but compared to back then it's maybe only 10% of them. What also comes with the decliine in the insect population is a decline in the population of birds, because there are lesser and lesser natural habitats and food sources.
I am from Europe. What I also noticed is that, when you find insects or spiders and such, many of them are invasive and originally located in southern Europe. But each year they appear farther north, probably because of cilmate change.
For instance, the spider Zoropsis spinimana is a relatively new species in our region, and it's venomous*. Due to it's similarity it can be confused with Tegenaria domestica which is harmless to humans.
Also, with a warmer climate there are more ticks which are prone to spread diseases harmful to humans.
- Addition: the bite of Zoropsis spinimana is compareable to a wasp sting and is only dangerous to people who have allergies against the venom.
2008 was the last cold winter in Tulsa? I live there and I distinctly remember february 2011. The power didnt get knocked out, but there was over 2ft of snow that stayed for a long time.